sonny liston was 59 when he beat wepner.its a toss up between him and big george in hitting power. foremans fight with lyle was in the balance till foreman started teeing off with his left jab
Liston was actually probably 52 or 53 when he fought Wepner. He was already about 45 when he beat Patterson in 1962.
No common opponent has said this. Ali, Lyle, Norton and Young all said Shavers was very clearly the harder puncher of the two (Lyle and Ali can be seen stating this on Google video), and it was Earnie, not George, who was the only one to ever put Young on the deck (in both their fights). Leroy Caldwell said that Foreman's power was comparable to Lyle's, but that Shavers hit harder than Foreman and Lyle put together. (Tillis and Holmes, the only common opponents of Shavers and Tyson also rated Earnie the harder puncher.) Jerry Quarry, who sparred with Foreman, and fought Shavers, Lyle and Mac Foster indicated that MacArthur Foster hit him the hardest of anybody he could recall getting struck by. (Jerry was under the mistaken impression that Shavers never hit him in the post fight interview immediately following their brief encounter, and only knew differently when he saw the tape the following day. Aside from JQ, only Jimmy Ellis was quoted as being disdainful of Earnie's power, but the footage makes it clear he never knew what hit him. Shavers has confirmed that he did connect solidly on Jerry, making JQ apparently unique among Earnie's opponents in terms of punch immunity.) Nobody questions that Foreman had far greater physical strength and an ATG chin, but it remains puzzling how so many fans continue to rate George's punching power as superior to Earnie's when all common opponents unequivocally give that nod to Shavers.