Most dominant performance by a boxer past his prime against a boxer in his prime?

Muhammad Ali vs George Foreman? One sided beat down, derailed him as a force in the division and exposed him for the hype job he turned out to be.

 

Hopkins whooped the likes of Tarver and Pavlik after he'd started to decline most impressively.

 

Roberto Duran vs Davey Moore
Roberto Duran vs Iran Barlkey
Larry Holmes vs Ray Mercer
George Foreman vs Michael Moorer

 

Duran vs Barkley was close,I thought Duran was down around 1 or 2 points until he swooped the last 4 rounds.

 

IMO it was a huge upset ,i don't think that many fans expected that 38 old Duran beat a much bigger stronger guy.

 

This.

 

Did George Foreman **** in your cereal before passing on wtf lol

 

No I just don’t buy the BS he was a well managed contender who stumbled into the title and got exposed as lacking rounds, proper education and a professional style against Ali.
GF ran over the much smaller Frazier whose management was milking the title because the writing was on the wall after FOTC and then he beat a credible Ken Norton… thats this ATG I never stop hearing about who’d destroy everybody before and since not named Muhammad Ali? Jimmy Young’s son? The guy who almost lost to Ron Lyle? Without his win over Frazier what is he? Ali is still a lot without Frazier, Lennox without Vitali, Louis without Schemling and so on.

 

I guess Monzon Valdez fights would count.

 

I also think he's overrated, so much so that I believe about 80% of people's assessment of his H2H abilities are just based on old school marketing tactics.
Nobody ever uses in ring examples to demonstrate his supposed GOAT level traits because they don't exist.

You need to use a photo of Foreman holding a small cow to prove his GOAT level strength because in the ring he got manhandled by Ali and only ever physically manoeuvred (and fouled the **** out of lol) people smaller than himself. A cow that he didn't lift mind you, but was placed onto his shoulders by a group of people for the sake of the photoshoot.

You need to use a video of him hitting heavy bag to demonstrate his GOAT level punching power, because unlike actual GOAT level punchers he very rarely 1 hit KO'd people clean in the ring and had most of his KO's come from multiple finishing blows. And it was a heavy bag of an unknown age and usage, that was braced by his trainer, that was dented before the video even started and had been punched for an unknown amount of time.

Ali himself pointed out these hype job tactics mind you, both before and after the fight.

His whole thing, and I do mean WHOLE thing is being the strongest and physically hardest hitting heavyweight of all time. Considering he's quite obviously not, what you've got left outside of this isn't very impressive.

And then the reverence of his 90's career makes no sense.

A 45 year old George Foreman with 16 years of professional mileage and only 8 title fights up to this point, has a mediocre win against a mediocre opponent in Michael Moorer and this is proof of him being in a class of his own and a H2H god.

A 42 year old Larry Holmes with 17 years of professional mileage and 24 title fights up to that point has a much better win against a better opponent in Ray Mercer and nobody cares

Literally no one has ever brought up Larry's win over Ray Mercer when making their assessment of him, to the point that if you got rid of it his ranking would be exactly the same.

About half of George Foreman's entire legacy rests on his win over Moorer however, to the point that without it Foreman's ranking drops massively. What does that tell you? Anytime I see Foreman top 5, or sometimes even top 3 I'm absolutely stunned. Especially when people confidently pick him over the likes of Wlad, Lewis,

With that ALL being said, Heavyweight is a pretty weak division in general historically so he's still in my 8-10 range, but my golly... The confidence and zeal in which people use superlatives to describe him is crazy.

 

I agree with your choice. It was definitely a dominant performance from Muhammad but George was no hype job. He was arguably the hardest punching heavyweight ever up to that point in time. Maybe even beyond that time. He simply found it impossible to deal with Ali on that night.

 

25-1 Holyfield against Tyson. No it wasn’t prime Mike but he had looked utterly dominant since his return and Evander had looked like garbage getting past a washed up Bobby Czyz

 

“No I just don’t buy the BS he was a well managed contender who stumbled into the title and got exposed as lacking rounds, proper education and a professional style against Ali.
GF ran over the much smaller Frazier whose management was milking the title because the writing was on the wall after FOTC and then he beat a credible Ken Norton… thats this ATG I never stop hearing about who’d destroy everybody before and since not named Muhammad Ali? Jimmy Young’s son? The guy who almost lost to Ron Lyle? Without his win over Frazier what is he? Ali is still a lot without Frazier, Lennox without Vitali, Louis without Schemling and so on.”

I sent this to someone else and it about captures my thoughts on this, he was a hype job in that he was supposed to be this destroyer Achilles and he was really just a guy about the Young / Lyle and Norton tier… he caused the upset but settled into his true level below the likes of Holmes, Lewis, Ali, Louis those true champions.

 

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