When I have time later today, I'll dig through the archives. On the surface, I'd imagine the consensus being Foreman being a favorite with Young having the potential to be a banana peel especially given his fight against Ali, and sweeps over Lyle. It's certainly not the Douglas-Tyson you're portraying it to be.
I remember it being a huge news upset story but people seem to forget how easily he outboxed another big boxer slugger in Lyle ... pretty easily ... Young was a very tricky, crafty guy ... he fought ugly sometimes, he whinned and complained, he could be boring but for a few years when he was motivated , say 76 - 78, the man was a heck of a fighter ..
No offence Swagster but the guy straight faced comparing Berbick vs Ali and Young vs Foreman may be due for his own reality check.
Rumour was Gil Clancy was told by foreman he’s gonna try new tricks on young and king told him too Carry the fight a bit !!! And Gil Clancy told foreman not to play around with young !!! Foreman got exhausted in Puerto Rico on the heat moisture there !!! If true or not :: Gil clansy did say this on during the pre on espn classic of foreman v young abc call !
I thought Gil was foremans best trainer !!! His best win was the 2 nd Frazier fight !!! He was up to 225 lbs at this point - all the way too 231 lbs against Dino Denis !!! Great weight for foreman !!! Could u imagine foreman v Norton 2 ? .. it almost happened
Yes i think timing had a lot to do with Young beating Foreman, who had still not recovered psychologically from the knockout defeat Ali had instilled on him, that coupled with Gil Glancy trying to change Foreman's style into a more measured approach only hurt him all the more. I figure had Foreman rushed Young, similar to the way in which he did Frazier & Norton, he more than likely would have got the knockout.
It's certainly a possibility. George pacing himself, scared of gassing maybe at the back of his mind.
IMO, Foreman would have won at least 5 of 10 fights against Young. It would have been an interesting scenario if Foreman had fought Young before the title fight...
Fighting in that style where he was compromised due to stance, leverage, punch effectiveness? Yes. Fighting how he normally did before Saddler added to the dehydration handicap against George? At least 8 out of 10.
As I recollect from when I last watched the fight, Foreman did far more “new form” posturing than actual punching for a good number of the opening rounds. Of course it seemed that he was trying to conserve his energy but, instead, he was erring far too heavily on the side of caution. Certainly, Young was NOT the guy that Foreman should’ve been looking to go a few rounds with and try to outbox. No, Young was the guy that Foreman should’ve been looking to get out of there as soon as was reasonably possible. As defensively adept and well chinned as Young was, an already tired Foreman rocked him badly with a single left hook in round 7 which caused Jimmy to career around the ring. Even with reasonable pacing applied, Foreman still knew how to punch frequently enough with defining authority in his fight against Chuvalo, going all the way back to 1970. George only truly upped the ante when he knew had Chuvalo badly hurt. Just imo, even that version of Foreman would’ve perhaps been far better applied against Young than the “work in progress” and strategically counter-purposed Foreman who did fight Young.