Was Buster Douglas Really Stronger Than Evander Holyfield?

Foreman definitely has the most "world's strongest man" potential, imagine him taking 8 weeks to beef up to 290lbs, body fat % a bit more than prime but less than second career, he would more than likely be a top performer

 

My ****ing God…

 

LOL. Okay, I’m sorry yes Foreman was so incredibly strong, did you see him pushing people? Wow! your right. Ali did man handle him, watch the fight again just in case you learnt something new since. I don’t know if Ali is stronger but he certainly did what he wanted with GF.

Again you’re going back to “B-b-but he pushed people!” We actually don’t know how strong George is at all- What we know he’s good at applying his weight and hand fighting/shoving- again a Sumo could do all of those things to Julius Maddox but I wonder who is stronger… hmm.

We do know practically for a fact Evander is a PED cheat and that he was trained by a literal Mr O. I reckon he’d be able to put up more weight in a test of raw strength. That’s all I’m saying, I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all and I think your love of mythology is getting in the way of with just saying “Foreman is stronger in a way expressed in the ring, Evander is probably physically stronger in the weight room”

There is nothing that can be done in the ring whilst boxing that could tell me you’d be able to deadlift more then the person your fighting, nothing to say you could bench more, nothing to say you’d squat more- bottom line it’s either judging by appearances which is eh, the offensively obvious like Foreman boxing Arnold, reported lifts which are dubious or deciding grappling is a way of say determining a bench max… no, it’s all just fun guess work.

 

so if Foreman kept up the jeep pulling and hay bale flipping, but turned in the boxing stuff for weights, overhead press, squat, deadlift, bench press, stuff related to strongman for 2 months he would have come in dead last?

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Foreman likely would have great potential in this event, but even with an efficient cocktail of PEDs he is not adding anything near what you postulate within a couple months. Do the math &you are talking something north of 50 lbs. of new muscle.
Natural given his large structure he would add a couple lbs. a MONTH at most 20-25 lbs. in a year-& the rate slows going forward.

But yeah all other things being + he might be a formidable strongman.

 

I addressed this already, & although with the stated specifics of body fat it could be not much more than 50 lbs., that is an absurd amount of pure muscle to expect anyone to gain in 8 weeks-'70's training for a strength sport might be expected to include PEDs.
WITHOUT them someone with excellent potential might put on 5 lbs. of new muscle in that time.
WITH them maybe 15-20: it is almost exponentially easier when shoving in male hormones & potentiators to grotesquely circumvent all natural limits.

But for him to reach 290 relatively lean would take a while even WITH PEDs.
Assuming there are not mitigating factors like being extremely tall...
For anyone really.

 

Sarcasm is cute but doesn't cut it. Actually watch. Foreman grabbed Chuvalo and hurled him. Chuvalo said Foreman was the strongest guy he faced. See the clip below for a refresher.

There are numerous other instances during the fight in which Foreman can be seen grappling, moving and forcing Chuvalo back. You're flying in the face of CLEAR visual evidence and accompanying testimony.

You say we actually don't know how strong Foreman is at all BUT you "reckon" Evander would be able to put up more weight? Your treatment and conclusions are clearly not even handed and you're happy to make leaps of faith where Holyfield is concerned while glibly and irrationally dismissing the KNOWN strength Foreman demonstrated in the ring.

IF, say, it was verified that Evander could bench 500 lbs, George only 400 lb but when that same Holy gets in the ring with Foreman, he gets manhandled and rag dolled by Foreman, what exactly is the value of shouting Holy's max. bench press from the roof tops? - and, in the REAL WORLD, what does it mean to say Evander is "stronger" than George? Answer: Diddly squat.

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It’s like you didn’t even read the post lol just defaulting to the standard Foreman gospel. I even agree with you on some points- Yes it means nothing in the ring, but Evander is physically superior in the realms of raw strength IMO that was the entire point, strength expressed in the ring doesn’t equal actual raw static lifting strength. Grappling isn’t a measurement of maximum physical strength end of.

 

Lol, it’s like I DID actually read your post - that’s your problem.

You know your post was read, even quoted.

You also know that your specific points were addressed and countered.

You haven’t come back with anything but rhetoric, such as the “Foreman gospel”.

There is no such thing, and using such a nonsense term actually reflects heavy bias and prejudice from your end, not anyone else’s.

Foreman displayed greater raw strength in the ring - even Holy attested to Foreman being the strongest he faced - Evander didn’t quibble about grappling technique - because Foreman did not employ any - he used pure, raw strength - as the clip vs Chuvalo, for just one example, clearly showed.

But, without anything else to go by, you dismiss the partial evidence we can take from performances in the ring, also ignoring Holy’s testimony - and then conclude, with no evidence otherwise, that Evander could lift more than Foreman.

Yep, your methodology makes complete sense, not.

 

Yeah I remember seeing Joe Frazier lifting in the "Superstars" it was nothing impressive. I can actually lift more than Frazier, but he would still rag doll me in an actual fight.

Although if I pushed him in the swimming pool I'd destroy him Frazier was a brick in the water. Poor old Joe almost drowned on Superstars.

 

I got to watch that. That left hook that dropped Ali pretty much got me started into boxing.

 

Even the most severe critics of Foreman admit to his raw strength and power.

However the myth that Foreman is the most powerful Heavy ever is just a ...........myth, end of.

He won his belt from a chinny little guy............waxed a bigger chinny guy who always froze vs Punchers, was handled by Ali like a Man child in a one sided fight, went life and death with the definition of a fringe contender in Lyle and got clowned by a absolute Feather fist.....them met God and disappeared.

Second career he fought nothing but stiffs, bouncers and Longshoreman to get into title contention, acted like a pure Heavybag in his first title attempt and had to wear black shades for a week straight to hide the beating he took. The most powerful Heavy that has ever lived could not stop club fighters like Stewart, Savereasy ,Grimsley and Tommy Chin.............all of them were put to sleep by other fighter in mere seconds....yet the most powerful"shoving" Foreman went the distance with every single one of them.............he finally got lined up vs another feeble minded glass cannon named Moorer who got Evan Fields on a malfunctioning Roid cycle and pulled out the miracle in the 11th hour after again acting like a genuine Heavy bag for the fight. Got a gift against a feather fisted German Palooka and got stripped of all belts by refusing to fight the Ghost of Tony Tucker or give the robbed German a rematch.

That in a nut shell is the "Most Powerful Heavy " that has ever lived.

As far as Fields vs Butterbean Douglas, well, Fields faced the real Douglas becau se Tokyo Douglas only existed for ONE fight when al;l the stars lined up vs a disinterested women partying skip training Champ and all personal tragedies in the Douglas family for one day and one night created Tokyo Douglas, a mountain he could never ever climb again because there were no more sad Family illness and death.Fact.

Tokyo Douglas vs Mirage Casino Fields is at least as good or close to, as Bowe/Moorer /Lewis and Ruiz who handled Fields with relative ease.

 

8 weeks really isn't enough time, but given that amount of time Foreman would accel to a higher level than a lot of people, he has more potential, when he joined the job corps he went into carpentry and brick laying, then initially trained for football, he mentioned having to stop lifting weights for boxing and has never given an answer for his bench press, there were NFL guys from the 70's that did strongman and I just don't see any reason why Foreman could not perform near/on their level with somewhat minimal training, would need more time to compete with the top guys, Foreman wasn't known for his stamina in boxing but it was still probably a lot better than the majority of strongmen

 

Lol. Okay babe, so you’re willing to accept grappling/shoving as an indicator of maximum static strength and an end be all, right! That’s dire - maybe they should add it to powerlifting, who can push someone the furthest!

 

Well Baba Looey, that is clearly NOT what I said but it seems your scope for discussion of this subject is limited.

Give me ‘Vander’s max. lift, verified.

No can do?

Okay, give me ANY notable lift verified for Holyfield.

Still, no can do?

I must say, I’m getting an “Eddie Machen was blinded by Liston because Eddie said so” deja vu vibe about all of this.

Okay, let’s go to something we can at least see for how ourselves - a possible part indicator - accompanied by several testimonies.

Holyfield, your nominated strong and strongest man, described Foreman as the strongest in the ring - yes, that is dire for your position - a testimony you continue to ignore. Why is that?

A max. lift of any type combines ideal form and endlessly practiced repetition.

One can then become a “savant” at that exact type of lift under always identical conditions - conditions that are never exactly replicated in real life.

In the realm of “static” lifting, a bench press isn’t the only possible metric for strength.

I can curl 60 lbs on a dumbbell, single arm, left and right, palm up, all the way through.

That is just one “form” of applied strength. I focus in on (for years) that particular lift among several others that I perform with a 60 lb dumbbells.

The max. I’ve benched was 200 lbs, when younger and inebriated at a party. Dumb. Woeful form. I’m not into bench presses otherwise.

Tbh, if one uses poor form but ultimately pulls off the press, it’s fair to say they’ve likely worked harder and utilised more all round strength to get the weight up there than their well practiced, “savant” counterpart.

Certainly, what I can curl wouldn’t present as a correlate to what I could bench press right now if I tried - different logistics and muscles involved.

Suffice to say, without having dedicated myself to same - my bench press, right now, would be a lot less than what my curled weight “might” imply.

Another thing to consider is the importance of grip and forearm strength - significant links in the power chain for optimal translation of overall muscle strength - subject to the movement type and required form for application.

For forearm and wrist strength, I find heavy duty hand grippers and wrists curls with a dumbbell to be very beneficial.

You stated “End of” in an earlier post? Lol. There’s a lot more to discuss re the subject that you’re not willing to go into lest it impugn your oversimplified position.