Is George Foreman an over achever?

Someone once said it would have been illegal to teach George Foreman how to box and I agree with it. The man had crushing power but not the skills to go along with it.

Combine the young and old Foreman and you might as well have the greatest puncher of all time. Unfortunately that never happened.

And George did have a great chin. He was awfully easy to hit, yet was only stopped once due to exhaustion even though he fought in his late 40's.

 

Surely you jest.

 

I agree with anyone who says that George Foreman was no master of the sweat science, but I also think that its false to claim that he was completely unskilled. Foreman knew how to hurt fighters, could nail guys with both hands, was capable of tying a man up, and understood the value of working the body as well as the head. To say that he was just some plodding oaf is a mass injustice. His defense was lacking heavily in his first career, but he did a good job of shoring that up in his comeback as well as learning to pace himself and not waste shots. He was stopped only once in 81 pro fights due to exhaustion against what many consider to be the greatest heavyweight of all time.

Foreman's record has a fair bit of padding on it, but it certainly is not without substance. To berate his wins over Norton and Frazier by writing them off as " a stylistic glitch ", is about the equivalent of saying that those two men beat Ali because they were simply well suited to take on slick boxers.. You don't hear that one very often. And I firmly believe that his win over Michael Moorer at age 45, is grossly underrated and sadly written off as either luck, or the fact that " Moorer was just chinny. " Christ, if Joe Frazier came back around 1986 to KO someone like Michael Spinks, we'd never hear the end of it. Rather than crediting him for a very entertaining battle with Ron Lyle, a lot of people use it as a berometer for setting him up in losses against great punchers. What most never acknowledge, is that it was probably the best performance of Lyle's career and coming after Foreman had returned to the ring from a 16 month layoff and a very devastating loss.

Lastly, I don't think that Frazier, Norton, Lyle and Moorer are the only wins we should be crediting him for. Just to throw out one obscure example, you can say what you will about Chuck Wepner, but the fact is he was a savy journeyman who had 25 pro fights, while foreman was a 3 fight prospect, and destroyed him in no time. In another instance, Foreman was well into his 40's and on the comeback trail, yet managed to beat some decent fringe types and upper tier journeyman like Cooper, Rodriguez, Stewart, Coetzer, Savarese, and a few others. Sometimes you can't just take the opponent for face value, but also have to put the win into context by looking at the circumstances.

 

You make a good point.
George may not have been a natural when it came to ring science, but these things can be taught. His natural size, power and durability created a wonderful platform for the finer nuances of the game. He may not have excelled at pure boxing, but why could he not employ boxing science at a respectable level?

His jab was very good, and against Frazier and Norton he displayed some almost frightening accuracy. Okay, against Roman he fought like a gorilla, but that was personal.
Ali also commented that George was extremely well drilled when it came to cutting off the ring.

Sure, he was often wild and at times robotic, but there's no doubt that he did show in his second career the ability to compose himself and set up openings, so the seeds were there all along.

I think he just fell in love with his power way too much, and ultimately it made him one-dimensional.

 

When a guy can swat like that can you blame him for relying on it? The not so obvious answer to this is yes, you can; once he gets into the upper echelon, that is, where it doesn't work as well. For this reason, George for a good bit of his career was an UNDER achiever, but the change began in Zaire, a hell of a hard-learned lesson it was too, but it was the beginning of Foreman's coming of age. Then of course there's the George Foreman Grill ... ah, you may laugh, you may very well laugh, but a few years back he sold it off and made more bread than he did in the ring. We should all under achieve to that depth, eh?

 

George was a very impressive fighter if you look at his career in both parts. His first career he was a mean nasty snarling guy who tried to intimidate his opponents. He went in there with brute strength and tried to overpower everyone. That all changed when he went to Zaire and realized the importance of being a smart fighter.
Coming back a step slower and heavier, he was a very clever fighter. His approach the game was completely different. The ability to just wait and wait for his openings while he was getting his head pounded was pretty amazing. He completely reinvented his style, and became a really sneaking thinking fighter.
As much as the Moorer fight was a one sided affair, George kept trying and trying to make Moorer move into the right hand and set him up and wait for that opening. The openings were so few and far between Foreman can tell you exactly how many openings he saw to lower the boom.
His fight with Savarese was the best of his comeback in my opinion, because he took a pretty decent fighter and set a horrendous pace that big Lou couldnt keep up with. Quite amazing for a man his age. All in all if George fought with the smarts he did in his comeback, he may have been even higher on the all time rankings.

 

I would say that in Foremans first career he underachieved and in his second career he overachieved.

 

Used to spar with Sonny Liston....now that is a nice part-time job.

 

I would have saved a lot of words saying what you said, but thats basically what I meant as well.

 

Only if the pay covers the hospital bills...:!:

 

During his prime i don't see much evidence of Foreman having a great durability.

He got knocked down by a very light hitter in Young and knocked out by another relatively light puncher in Ali. The only heavy hitter who landed on him, Lyle, had him down twice and nearly had him out of there... arguably he was saved by the bell in the 4th. Maybe he was tired, but that's all part of the game.


During his second career however, he seemed almost impervious to taking punches. Amazing.

 

Perhaps this tells us more about what constitutes an efective puncher.

Speed and delivery are more important than bulk and raw power.

 

Agree his skill are very underrated. Had a very good jab. Long and very hard. Had a murderous uppercut, he threw well. His footwork and ability to cut off the ring is the reason Ali employed the rope a dope. Ali himself said no one cut off the ring as well as George

 

Agreed. How else can one explain the Cooper knockdown? Cooper could punch of course, but he wasn't on the level of a Foreman or Shavers in terms of raw power.

 

Not that it matters much but he did walk right through the punches of the lesser opposition he fought during his first career. Frazier also landed his left hooks on him to absolutely no effect whatsoever.

As Larry Merchant said, it's the same chin he had on him when he was 217 lbs. I'm not sure if chins can improve but he did improve on his defense/patience.