Holyfield beat a better version of Foreman than Ali did

F2 wasn't better than F1 , he just adapted his strategy to his age .
F2 wouldn't be capable of being F1 , it's not physically possible.
The fact still remains that nobody can produce the evidence ( in terms of wins ) as to how F2 was better than F1 .
Take away that one punch against Moorer and the career of F2 ( as a stand alone career) is nothing special.
Add it to F1 and the legend of Big George and it makes a remarkable story.
F1 and F2 need to work together to make the legend as each on its own doesn't cut it.
F1 wouldn't be remembered as anything other than unfulfilled potential if F2 hadn't appeared
Having lived through it in real time , nobody in the late 70's or early 80's was demanding the return of George. He was seen as a fighter that blew out a couple of names before being exposed as having no gas tank and / or being tactically limited.
The same people that critique the reigns of Holmes and Tyson or even Lewis , big up Foreman out of all context to how it really was. Once he was exposed by Ali he disappeared off the boxing radar for over a year before trying to piece his career back together , which he was in the process of doing until being exposed again by Jimmy Young. Foremans marketability as a monster was well and truly shattered at that point , so much that he retired.
In real time he was seen as a big punching guy who was exposed by smart boxers and that was that.
He rightly remains a highly significant figure in HW history but he seems to be a figure of mystique on here and given a status ( by some ) that transcends his resume by far.
The bare facts are that his resume isn't that strong in ATG terms , yet other ATG's with far deeper resumes seem to get a harder time about theirs

 

Focusing on individual attributes, I would agree that Young GF wasn’t necessarily a better fighter in every given category.

However, adding and subtracting the pros and cons respectively for each version, I would say that Young GF was definitely a better fighter in net terms.

You’re assuming prime Holyfield to be a better fighter than 32 yo Ali in the first instance - you’re then working backward from that presumptive “answer” to calculate Old Foreman to be a better fighter based on his respective results against Ali and Evander.

Putting the horse before the cart (where it should be) , conventional wisdom suggests that Old George was a much lesser version (all pros and cons factored in) than his 70s self and that prime Holy was that much lesser a fighter than the version of Ali who rolled Foreman in Zaire.

 

Ali wouldn't need to use the Rope a Dope tactic vs a 90s Foreman though he would just simply outbox him the old fashion way.

Heres a question for you do you think a prime Foreman loses to Morrison and goes life and death with Stewart ?

And do you also think a prime Foreman could have a better chance at stopping the early 90s version of Holyfield ? Who was alot more gung ho getting into wars and still weighed under 210 pounds at this point.

 

boxing is such a funny sport that something that seems illogical does not exclude something else that seems more logical. To put it simply, I think that Foreman was a better fighter than Ali in the 1970s, but the better fighter does not always win - see the Lewis vs Rahman fights - because: bad day, bad tactics, injury, bad preparation, stylistic mismatch, etc. In other words, the F70 was better than the F90, but the Foreman from Holy was better than the Foreman from Ali for the reasons I have already mentioned.

 

The Foreman who fought Holyfield may have gone the distance, losing a lopsided decision, versus 1974 Ali.

Ali wouldn't have faced anything like the jeopordy he did in their actual fight, though, and the fight wouldn't have been competitive at any point, unlike their real contest.

An alternative perspective to the one you've propagated, is there's no way that the Foreman that was soundly outboxed by Morrsion would take Frazier and Norton out in two rounds each.

 

There are extremely rare exceptions but they are few and far between. Hopkins was certainly better at 42 but his is a story of uncommon events, one of the rarest in history.

 

First version Foreman is a hard fighter to assess in retrospect. Either he was the Ultimate Destroyer and looked indestructible or looked like a limited slugger who could be outlasted and outboxed. Second version Foreman completely eliminated the latter weaknesses and that incredible performance against Holyfield is absolute proof of this. Second Foreman, however, never looked like the flaming meteor of destructiveness that the 24 year old version of him did. Its almost like they were two different people.

I agree with the premise of this post by OP though.

 

I agree, there are few and far between exceptions. However, using your Hopkins example, Hopkins at 25 was still a novice as a pro, only 8 or 9 fights, he notably had a late start due to prison. By the time he was 25 and about to fight Ali, Foreman had a 40-0 pro record.

Foreman at 25 was in his prime, Hopkins was not yet in his.

 

Yeah that's why i made big mentions of Hopkins rare case and uncommon events. He was definitely better at his chosen athletic endeavour but for out of the ordinary reasons. Foreman was a much more dangerous fighter first career, it's obvious. He had to make amendments to his style and pacing to make any sort of impact later because as you say his physical prime was long gone.

 

The only thing Old Foreman did better than the young version of himself is handle adversity.
Ali's masterclass in psychological warfare before and during their fight completely crushed Foreman mentally. He was never the same after it in his 1st career.
His managers and trainers saw it. The five fights , against five different boxers in one night was their plan to rebuild his confidence...
It backfired, and crushed his confidence even more after how ridiculous it turned out.
Then of course the religious experience after the Young fight. It was all because he couldn't handle the adversity of losing to Ali.
But physically, Old Foreman couldn't touch prime Young Foreman.

 

If Tommy Gunn could elude Foreman 2.0 and win a decision...

 

Foreman did do some things better as an older boxer. He certainly jabbed better, more consistently. He was more patient yes. Paced himself as well.
The catch here is he did all those thing better out of necessity. The one thing Old Foreman didn't have was reflexes, the ability to close distance. The fast footwork cutting down the ring. 70s Foreman didn't develop those other parts of his game as much as he should've partly because he didn't need to.

Foreman was a terror in his prime. What he did as a 40+ year old was amazing. He was not the force he once was.

 

The Foreman that fought Holyfield was pretty sharp. I think that was his best form of his 2nd career.