Hot take, Foreman improved after the Muhammad Ali fight

Everyone is matched against different fighters, so don't know what that means.

Are you really saying he stepped up in class?

Lyle over Frazier is a tough case to make to put it lightly and Young would lose to an ageing Norton , so....

 

That’s an oblique way of looking at it, Foreman’s results were different… because he was fighting different fighters who were unlike the ones he’d fought prior or they were similar enough stylistically to guys who beat him…. If Norton beat Ali one fight and the next one he lost to Earnie that doesn’t mean Norton regressed it means he’s vulnerable to what Earnie has.

 

In case ya didn’t pick up on it (sorry) me the 20 something from AUS isn’t the nephew of a 70s fighter who died in 2005… I’m actually the cousin of Primo Carnera.

 

Can confirm. Am devoted cultist.

 

I have this old-fashioned, old-school habit of taking people at their word until proven otherwise. I guess it’s been proven otherwise with this person who’s going to be ignored at least for a while.

 

So stylistically Lyle and Young were both his cryptonite despite them having very different styles? That seems odd.

And even if we just say that Young was stylistically difficult for him because he was a mover, sure. But that is at odds with him being so effective at shutting down Ali's movement. People like to say he struggled with boxers and point to Ali and Young, but they went about it in quite different ways.

But I'm not saying that you're wrong. That could be the reason. But it is well documented that Foreman was badly mentally dented by the Ali loss and Clancy has gone on record saying he was pretty much all over the place in training before Young and after the fight he had what us non-religious people would call a bad mental break down. So there are clear signs he was damaged goods after Zaire mentally.

Since he met so relatively few quality opponents it's hard to say whet's what really. Could be a bit of both.

 

I'll remind everyone that other than the fourth round Foreman was beating the dog caca out of Lyle and might have taken him out in Round 2 except for the officials' error.

 

My take is that the Ali fight should be viewed as one horrible night and Foreman didn't "regress" before his first retirement. But at the same time its hard to say he IMPROVED after the Ali fight. Thats taking it a step too far. Regardless of the explanation for the Young and Lyle fights his results were not as good as just throttling Norton and Frazier.

While Foreman was probably still the best HW theres no disputing mentally he was not doing great. People do not have 360 degree personality changes because they are a ok.

 

Young was, Lyle lost a shootout. Lyle did get knocked out in the fifth round. People act like Lyle won the fight. He did as well as anyone could have in a shootout with George but the result was pretty decisive.

 

According to Kamikaze's laughable attempt at an "I told you so" to me, it was Lyle who almost had Foreman out in that second round of their 3 rounder.

That should tell you everything you need to know about his credibility.

 

Ok, so it's Young then who was the one who was more difficult than anyone previous except for Ali.

I can buy that. Chuvalo, Frazier and Norton weren't very good on the back foot and Peralta just wasn't on that level (but still gave George some trouble in their first - a green Foreman, though).

But it's hard to ignore that Foreman was at his second highest weight so far for Young, wasn't preparing well and listening to some guru before the fight according to Clancy and had a dramatic mental break down after it and retired for 10 years. It's a stretch to believe this was very close to the best version of young Foreman, I'd say.

 

There's a difference between improved technique and improved competitive performance and, if anything, Foreman's performance level drifted backwards after Zaire. The changes that Clancy tried to implement were never realized in full during Foreman's first career and likely would have required much more time to truly bear fruit.

The point raised by @swagdelfadeel regarding the narrowing of Foreman's stance is an excellent example of how Foreman's innate strengths were throttled without the necessary adjustments being made elsewhere. The intentions were good, i.e., regulate Foreman's power output (and, theoretically, his fuel consumption), but it was like replacing (rather than re-gearing) Foreman's high-torque system with much lighter gears to aid agility and sacrifice the ability to haul heavy loads. Maybe, in time, Foreman learns to manage the complete range of gears... ... ...

This is not to say that what Clancy was attempting to do was necessarily wrong, in the greater scheme of things, but he only had a short timeframe in which to turn those improvements into match-winning factors. A year wasn't long enough and it effectively meant that Clancy was still trying to fit a square peg into a round hole by early '77, leaving Foreman in a transitional state - and vulnerable, in my opinion.

 

Whilst I agree to an extent about Young I also think Foreman is a bit overrated himself and I don't think he ever showed he could beat a clever upper echelon boxer like Young.

Peralta is probably the only example but he never beat any notable Heavyweights and he was best known as a Light Heavyweight.

Norton couldn't fight on the back foot and had issues vs punchers, Frazier was a come forward short bobbing and weaving aggressive fighter again a good style match up for Foreman.

I'm not taking anything away from Foreman because the fights above were awesome performances, but the point I'm trying to make is that Foreman excelled against certain styles but against boxers you will see him struggle alot more.

People make alot of excuses for the Young performance and I can see some side to their argument. But again people making these excuses are also overlooking Young is always a bad style match up for him and did Foreman ever show he could beat a style like Young's ?

 

He actually did,but his corner really just gave him the worst strategy ever to fight Young,not to mention everyone would look bad beating him too.

 

The best version of Foreman never happened.

The best version that we ever got to see, was probably the version that showed up in Zaire, simply because any other version was more beatable on a practical level.

However that version had some glaring failings, that later iterations clearly addressed, even though they were clearly easier to beat.

If you could put the 90s Foreman's brain, in the post Zaire Foreman's body, then you woudl have a truly terrifying fighter.

I think that Foreman might have been the most remarkable natural talent, in teh history of the heavyweight division.

Even more remarkably, I don't think that he came particularly close to realizing his potential.