Is George Foreman the most overrated fighter in history?

In his first incarnation, I don’t think Foreman was overrated at all. He was a legit monster.

As to his second coming, if you confuse absolute measurement with relative measurement (= judging him for his age, time out of the game etc.) you might fall into the trap of overrating Big George.

I don’t believe I overrate Old George and he still did very well in absolute terms imo.

Go twenty years forward and whatever the landscape, I think if you showed a younger, new generation of boxing fans both the Young and Old versions of Foreman, they would duly consider him to be one hell of a fighter, jointly and severally, …and one hell of a salesman too!!


I look forward to the new generation of Foreman Grills come 2040 and I also look forward to 91 yo George still flogging them to death!

 

George Foreman stole Brock Lesnar's name Beast Incarnate.

 

This means nothing. That was George's humble act. If he was scared of Tyson, it would he would launch his comeback right at Tyson's peak. Foreman proclaimed he wanted to win the heavyweight title back. He fought who had the title.

Foreman made similar comments about never wanting to fight Tommy Morrison is one of his postfight interviews. George had no problem chasing him around the ring.

 

Absolutely on target.

 

What was overrated about George?!-Its absurdedness at its very best , Foreman ATG (TWICE!) 76-5 68 KNOCKOUTS HE WAS A FORCE HIS ENTIRE 2 CAREER'S FOR GOODNESS SAKE'S , HOW MANY FIGHTER'S CAN COME BACK AT HIS AGE, WIN THE TITLE, AND NEVER HIT THE DECK! Btw he only hit the deck like 4 times his entire career!! he scored 6 knockdowns alone to win the title against 29-0 (25 KO) "Smokin" Joe Frazier.

 

His H2H abilities are overrated to an extent. People tend to take the physicality, foot speed, and raw aggression of young Foreman, then give him the durability, ring IQ, skill, and patience of old Foreman, and that doesn't work because the two fighters didn't co-exist. Yeah, a young Foreman with the superior traits that old Foreman had would be an absolute beast, but that man never existed.

You can play this game with most older fighters. Imagine an older Archie Moore being given back his youthful body. Or, hell, SRR.

 

But one could equally argue that neither of the two fighters, that you have just created and refered to as Foreman above, ever existed in their own right, either.

Thus, it probably makes more sense to treat Foreman as a single entity, with attributes at various stages of maturity, than it does to portray him as two separate and distinct fighters, on either side of a partition; each with their own unique set of attributes.

And, if you can play this game with most older fighters - even with Moore and SRR - then try drawing a line down the middle of their respective careers and apply attributes, as you have just done to Foreman - with each trait falling on one side or the other (not both sides) of that dividing line.

I think you’ll find that it is not practicable to do so.

 

The whole accusation of people blending the two versions of Foreman was started some years back by chok on his never ending anti Foreman/Liston quest and somehow gathered a little momentum among Foreman critics in Classic over the years to the point of being parroted around here and there. Right from the beginning it was more of a figment of choks imagination than something happening with any frequency in here if at all.

 

I seem to have a vague recollection of that being the case. It’s an assertion, which certainly seems to have found itself written into the fanatical ‘Book of Anti-Foreman’.

I did, however, find the idea of ‘version blending’ and its broader application to other time-served boxers, such as Moore and Robinson, an interesting variant. Funny how one rarely, if ever, sees the same accusation made during discussions about fighters other than Foreman, though.

 

He only hit the deck twice, once vs. Ali & also Young. In his second career, never came close to going down.
Both more due toe exhaustion (& dehydration vs. Young) than being hurt.

 

I beg to differ on the " only hit the deck twice " comment, seem to remember Lyle bouncing him off the canvas twice, in their never to be forgotten ( by some ) brawl many years ago.

 

I swear people on this forum are like conspiracy theorists

 

I think the main point is that he was very durable in his prime and most of his downs were due to exhaustion from the heat and wearing himself out fighting at a high pace. There is no shame in the Lyle knockdowns, he was willingly slug it out with a fearless big hitter and still won showing lots of heart, but somehow this is ammunition people use to criticize him.

Your chin doesn't get better with age, especially not after a 10 year layoff. The primary differences with old Foreman were his improved defense and pacing himself to avoid gassing.

 

Don’t forget Kamikaze (or whatever rendition he is this time).

If someone so much as breaths he’ll go off on a tangent about Foreman.

 

Calling George Foreman the strongest fighter of all time is probably hyperbole too, but it is much closer to the truth than calling him the most overrated.