Why is Foreman regarded as the strongest fighter physically?

His opinion would carry alot of weight.

 

At one point he may have been, although this strength didn’t make much difference vs Ali who was not outmuscled by George at all.
I like Big George but as has been stated by others he likely was strongest vs the men of his day.
I would not expect him to be stronger than Lewis, Wlad, Vitali, etc in any way that would provide advantage in a boxing match. Old George may have been stronger than younger George, he looked more like a strongman than a boxer in his 2nd career but he was glacially slow compared to most of his peers. Again not sure what advantage the strength confers?
Against the men of his day (70s) he was possibly the strongest, not the best though even then as strength will only take you so far.

 

Interesting for Ali to come up, as I think he was one of the stronger heavyweights not only of his day, but among the strongest of all time.

Ken Norton commented that hitting Ali in the body or on the arms was like hitting a slab of cement. No give whatsoever.

A lot of the strongest don’t have ‘big muscles’ so much as muscle density. I’ve met Holyfield and his arms are like bricks … you’d swear a bullet would bounce off them.

Ali ragdolled a lot of people around the ring when he got physical. Whether pulling someone’s head down from grasping them behind the neck or walking them around, he always seemed the stronger man.

 

Bowe, Liston, Joshua, the Klitschkos, Valuev, Lewis and Fury would never carry a yak on their shoulders

 

I met Ali in New Orleans after the second Spinks fight. The thing that stuck with me was even though Ali had a suit on, you could see that his legs were huge for his size. With those legs, it was easy to see how he could outmuscle opponents in the ring.

 

Quite the contrary - Foreman was scared to death of Frazier.

 

He wasn’t even close to Rahman unless you’re twisting the definition of strength to be something that’s specifically tailored to Foreman.

 

Not strong enough for Ali to not yell out timber!

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Hey, to be fair, I've got images of myself when I was younger and stronger and less back-decrepit, but I'm not holding a gatdamn cow in any of them. I am normally holding a larger medium-sized dog and walking her past cats she's terrified of walking near. That's what I look strong doing.

 

For what it's worth, Holyfield faced three of those you named, plus Foreman of course, and had Foreman as stronger, the strongest he faced in fact. And why can't you see him being stronger than Liston? I think there's no question whom Ali had the harder time controlling in the clinches.

 

And him having opponents bounce off of him in his 40's. Holyfield faced a ridicolous amount of big, strong fighters and had Foreman as the strongest. And I think film bears that out. No other fighter pushed Holy around like that as I can remember.

 

Not saying I have Foreman as the strongest. Probably is some 300+ lbs former power lifter we never heard of. And maybe some of the big, strong contenders today are stronger, I don't know. But his strength was a real thing, not just 70's nostalgia.

 

George Foreman being thought of as the strongest fighter of his era was a result of him, generally being the strongest fighter of his era lol.

George Foreman being thought of as the strongest fighter of ALL TIME, is the ubiquitous and seemingly eternal 20th century > 21st century media wank. There's no reason to think he's stronger than someone like Wladmir Klitschko or Daniel Dubois for instance.

Also physical strength increases until your 40's. 40 year old Foreman + 90's PED's is stronger than 70's Foreman.

 

He's regarded as the strongest ever in boxing because he was. He passes the eye test. Even in his mid 40s he had young guys sticking and moving. No one backed him up. The one guy that stood there with him, Moorer, got KO'd.

 

Yeah, Joe had the heart of a lion, no doubt, one of the bravest ever, but at one stage of the Foreman fight, he was literally running away from him. No shame in that, it highlights why Foreman is one of the strongest fighters physically.

I agree Joe was one of the most courageous to step in the ring, but it doesn't mean he wasn't petrified of Foreman. It did look like that in the first fight, and I'm not saying that to downplay Joe's heart; it's to show how scary Foreman was. Joe described fighting Foreman as like "being in the street with an 18-wheeler coming at you" - the fact he got in with there twice shows how brave Joe was. Two bonafide legends.