Is George Foreman the most overrated fighter in history?

I think you’re on to something. Mel Blanc, man of 1000 voices, was a confirmed Freemason, and he voiced for Hanna Barbera’s The Flintstones also - and of course Fred and Barney were members of the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes……

 

Jack Johnson , Jack Dempsey, Ray Robinson ,and Joe Frazier were Masons..
As are
Shaquille O NeilI is that the right spelling?
And John Elway
Whoever they may be,lol

 

There would be very very few i'd take, or even consider even money against Foreman that night. Ali took a lot of punishment particularly to the body. Almost anyone else would have had to move to survive and that would have brought forward its own dangers given the conditions.

 

Wasn't achieving the position of 'Grand Poobah' an aspiration, at some stage, in every young man's life?!?

 

Certainly was for a young Howard Cunningham, one of the lucky few who managed to ascend to such an exalted position.

Happy Days indeed!

 

Wait, wasn't this also an aspiration of Fred Flinstone's? Let's not leave the cartoon aspirants out.

 

Yep, I could most definitely see Young Ali boxing Norton’s head off, while 70s Ali struggled.
Talking about Ali sometimes leads me into falling into that trap of merging the two versions of him into one. Yes it’s the same guy but he achieved great success in the two different decades fighting in different ways.
That’s just one of the reasons I admire him as a fighter…he adapted well to his aging body, and found a way to beat everybody that he fought in the 70s, avenging all 3 of his losses.

Yes, Ali…both versions…was a bit good wasn’t he!

 

That’s an interesting list.

At 7’1” or whatever he was exactly at peak, Shaq might’ve been in the running for the tallest Mason ever.

However, that honour goes to (and will likely remain with) one Robert Wadlow, all 8’11.1” of him.

So for Shaq, no cigar..not even close. In fact, Shaq falls short by a bit more than 3 x 7” cigars end to end.

Crazy where a discussion can take you.
Isn’t it?

 

No, we’d never leave Fred out - I just can’t recall if he ever got there in the end.

 

Exactly. The dynamic in a fight, including all exact actions and reactions can be very unique, like a fingerprint shared only between the two fighters in question.

You can’t simply sub the victorious fighter with another fighter and expect the remaining fighter to perform exactly as they did and still lose.

I’ve sometimes found that similar treatment has been applied to Tyson in Tokyo - almost as if Buster Douglas wasn’t even in the ring with Mike, and that Buster didn’t in fact do some very nice things to bring about Mike’s downfall.

 

I did read in a boxing mag. - here I go again trying to remember which one,- I “think” it was Boxing International that contained an article in which Ali claimed that Norton would’ve “eaten up” the younger version of himself (being prime Ali).

I think the claim was also quoted on the cover of the magazine.

That’s just an FYI - meaning, I’m not saying it constitutes itself as “evidence” but it is something I recall that Ali apparently said.

I know there was a time when Ali was selling certain 2nd career attributes as improvements on the original model - perhaps to discourage people from writing him off or from thinking he was a notably diminished version of his original 60s self.

 

That's exactly what he was doing as did others. He did it a bit as he got older. It's part denial too.

 

Interesting. Yes I definitely wouldn’t be surprised if Ali was selling his second coming at the expense of his first. Because…not wanting to contradict the man himself, but I have to…the only thing I can see Norton eating is a constant flurry of jabs and hooks, round after round.

 

Me too. Norton would have had a much harder time and there would have been a quite comfortable UD at the end for Ali imo.

 

I always believed this. There are few guys who could survive, let alone defeat, that version of Foreman who was seeing red and landing some of the most painful wrecking ball body shots I've ever seen. Nobody is going to have an easy time hurting, let alone knocking out a prime pissed off Foreman, and nobody would be able to easily outbox him to a points win without taking some serious punishment in the process. Ali's clinching was a huge factor that's sometimes overlooked and Ali had underrated physical strength. Without clinching and superb head movement do slip head shots at the last second, many guys are getting overwhelmed and knocked out.

People gloss over the traits that definitely helped Ali win, one of which was his insane endurance dealing with the painful punches. He slipped, parried, and countered whatever he could, but it was impossible to avoid everything and he took several flush bombs in each round. 70's Ali was slower than he was the previous decade, but he was still to this day one of the fastest of foot and hand and yet even he got tagged multiple times. If he hadn't executed his game plan with perfection he might have lost. So I agree, it's pretty funny when people act like just about anyone could have done the same thing. That was Ali's signature win and I believe it is arguably the single greatest victory in boxing.