Well, some of them tried to. But if a guy with gorilla arms keeps pushing you off balance it's hard to get into a proper stance and get leverage on your punches. If you have shorter arms and someone with long arms does a quick shove sticking them straight out, you're not going to be able to land anything significant. It's basic physics.
Well the first time he lost the title it was to arguably the greatest HW of all time. The second time he was 48 and got robbed on the cards. By all means continue bringing up irrelevant issues if it makes you feel better because you lost money on a Foreman fight. None of this changes the fact Tyson is getting manhandled unless there's a very strict ref who hates roughness like Kenny Bayles. Even then, the inevitable would simply get delayed.
Why don't you knock us up a list of those you would be extremely confident to - 1. Knock off Joe Frazier for the title 2. Cast aside Ken Norton in a successful defense 3. Turn back Ali's challenge under the same conditions the fight was fought in All eyes are upon you.
WB - thanks for your reply. My prior post obviously shows we disagree on a number of points. Foreman landed on all comers - he wasn’t slow. He was also quite accurate - perhaps an underrated feature of his game. A fighter can be powerful but he still has to translate that power into successful connections - Foreman was very good at translating. He was effectively stronger than Mike - a combination of greater absolute strength and knowing better how to use that strength in a boxing match - with better physical equipment to pull off the job. Mike has to be well in range to land,. Before he gets there. Foreman with greater reach, height and effectively applied strength will push him away, and/or shift him off balance and off course. Of course there will also be Foreman’s jab - (that punch in itself wasn’t slow either) - being pumped and keeping Mike at bay and in range for assorted power shots.
I mean we saw Tyson right in the middle of his fabled prime getting his head snapped back by the heavy jabs of Thomas and had a hard time slipping them for a while. There were also multiple moments in the Tucker fight where Tyson was kept at bay due to Tuckers jab. It wouldn't exactly be easy for Tyson to deal with Foreman's jab which was like a battering ram and could be surprisingly accurate even in the 70's (look at how he broke Chuvalo down primarily using his jab).
He's talking about the Briggs fight, where Foreman clearly outjabbed and outpunched the challenger. Not sure Schulz got robbed, but it was extremely close and could have gone his way for sure. To me the robbery against Briggs was more obvious, but that's just me.
Foreman had dropped all of his belts due to ducking Tucker and a Schultz rematch. Not sure what he was defending.
Np problem mate. That is true. But most of them were not that good. And the eye test still shows him to be slow. You could see some of his punches from a mile away. And he did have huge trouble when he faced fast opponents, like Ali or Young. Like I said, mostly on inferior opposition. He might have been stronger, but even if he was, it wasn't by much. Almost all the opponents Tyson faced were bigger and had a longer reach than him. Here inlies the main thing we disagree on. If Foreman tries to push and/or shove Tyson, he has to let his guard down in order to use his hands to push. This means he's exposed, wide open for Tyson to carve him a new face. The only realistic point in a fight where Foreman can use his superior strength (assuming he has one) is when they are clinching, which won't serve him much good. Foreman was able to do that against an aging Frazier who had eye problems, cause Frazier kept coming forward. Tyson doesn't fight like that, he's more of a counter puncher when he has to. Dipping under jabs and countering was Mike's specialty.