George Foreman from the 90s vs. Zhang Zhilei.

Well I did say "His power wasn't what it was that's what I was suggesting. Because I don't believe either Grimsley or Savarese go the distance a few years before.

 

Pretty limited but quite salient (and, agreed - Grandpa Foreman deserved the win).

 

Salient in the sense that if he could do it as a grandpa, he should be able to do it in his prime, yes.

(I'd ordinarily point out that his style changed as an old man, but since Briggs had asthma, it's not like he could exploit Young Foreman gassing anyway.)

 

I'd agree that it's less likely they go the distance with a more youthful, 45-year-old Foreman, but his punch had to fade eventually.

 

I think prime Foreman would dispatch Briggs in short order. I would wager that there'd be none of Foreman's gassing to seize upon anyway.

 

Well, we know for certain that Briggs can't take out the grandpa version. I assume he would've blitzed Old Foreman if he thought he could get away with it safely.

And no matter what kind of modern training Old Foreman had, I can't imagine he was more durable at 49.

 

It was his gameplan. He blitzed Lewis because he had no other chance of winning. He boxed with Foreman because he just had to repeat what Morrison and Schulz did.

 

Yeah, I'd considered that. However:

At some point, it should have become obvious that he was not going to run away with the scoring and outbox Foreman, though...

(And if he thought he could blast out Foreman like he'd done against his numerous spectacular KO1 victims without any more risk than boxing, why not try.)

 

Umm…he won the fight. This was a guy who gassed out the last time he fought someone decent. Safety first made more sense than ever for him.

He also fought the 12 out of breath for a large chunk of the fight, so it’s not surprising that he wouldn’t go apeshi t after the early rounds.

 

He won the fight, but it was widely regarded as a robbery, which indicates to me that it shouldn't have been obvious to Briggs's corner that they were clearly winning.

If he was worried about his own stamina and believed he could blow Foreman out of the water early, why take the risk of dragging it into deeper water where he would be wheezing? Just go after Foreman during the "Dempsey rounds" at the start.

 

From a stats perspective (before fighting Briggs):
Old Foreman was stopped zero times.
Old Foreman was dropped zero times.
Old Foreman dropped two decisions and one was to Morrison.
Old Foreman won controversial decisions in three fights (Schultz, Savarese, Stewart)
Old Foreman bailed himself out while behind once (Moorer)

 

Right.

Briggs presumably believed that trading with Foreman was riskier than outboxing him. This was despite Briggs's asthma, which didn't exactly help Briggs's chances in winning a UD.

And Briggs could pounce on people. He KO'd lots of people early. Specialized in that kind of thing.

I take Briggs's decision not to go after Foreman early as evidence that he wasn't overwhelmingly confident he could win a shootout. And it's not like after round 1 or 2, he realized Foreman sucked, and decided to go in for the kill.

So while Briggs might beat Young Foreman early by trading -- no way to know until you try -- it's at least interesting that he viewed that as a high risk option even against the grandpa edition.

At least that's the way it seems to me.

 

We could’ve seen a different fight if he blew out Wilson and Foreman still wanted it.

 

At 49, Foreman might have been done enough that Briggs has a good shot.

A younger Old Foreman of (say) Holyfield vintage, I think I'd significantly favor that guy in a shootout with Briggs. Old Foreman took punches from some very hard hitting guys in his second career without even going down. I don't think Briggs can hurt him enough to finish him off, even if Briggs gets Foreman hurt early.

 

Movie was entertaining. John Wick in Finland.