Would Prime George Foreman have been INVINCIBLE if he had Angelo Dundee as trainer??

Why not Ray Arcel?

Anyway no, Ali and Liston have his number no matter what happens.

 

Let Archie Moore have more of his way instead of the Saddlers and he would probably have been more of a boxer. The rough house stuff of Saddler worked extremely well for Foreman though. I don't think Dundee made such a huge impact on Foreman's comeback, it was just George being wiser.

 

The person who I realy see getting the most out of him is Jack Blackburn.

 

Why Blackburn, if you don't mind me asking? Do you think he could have taught George to throw short, tight combinations and be effective as well?

 

George Foreman WAS invincible in his prime, he just let Ali get to his head that night in Zaire and quit by walking away. He lost the "event", but if you look at Ali's current condition...well its pretty obvious those punches did the damage. *shaking motion

 

In a word YES

 

He could have done just fine with Nazeem Richardson to prevent the ropes catastrophe and maybe to reject a fight at the extreme heat at Zaire and San Juan . I think his managers did just fine as boxing trainers but failed at where Nazeem made his glory at : preventing the other side of cheating or having an unfair advantage .

 

However , I don't think he could have ever been invincible as you just don't know what would have happened had he met Vitali Klitschko , prime Oliver McCall , Ross Puritty of either Klitschko fight , or even Corrie Sanders , Lennox Lewis , Riddick Bowe or Tony Tucker , Foreman stirred away from big men of quality.

 

It's extremely hard to pinpoint when,and which fight,Muhammad got the genesis of his current illness. It was more a long period of taking punishment. Of which he took comparatively little of in the Foreman fight.
Muhammad took more punches to the head from Earnie Shavers than he did from Foreman. Mainly because he'd slipped quite signifigantly in between Oct '74 and Sept '77.

 

Yes, and as you know, since the Ole Mongoose was Foreman's original trainer for George's second career, how much impact do you think Archie had on the ultimate success of that comeback? Moore wrote the modern book on successful ageism in boxing, and he certainly had enough influence on Foreman to have him incorporate the cross-armed defense into his execution. (We did not see the cross-arm during George's first career.) While the short right which Foreman knocked out Moorer with was something he would have picked up from Gil Clancy, I've credited Archie Moore as being the true architect of George's revival. I think Foreman was already on his way back when Dundee stepped in. There are those who make the case that Clancy was a better trainer than Angelo, and Gil wasn't able to get him back to the title. (If Dundee was more of a boss than Clancy, he might have gotten Foreman to San Juan in time to be properly acclimated for Jimmy Young.)

When Ellis took on Ali, Dundee was in Jimmy's corner, and wanted to beat Muhammad with Ellis in the worst way. It was widely supposed that Ellis was over trained at 189, but he came in at that same weight for a knockout win a year later. In point of fact, Ali-Ellis was more of a sparring workout for Ali than a competitive match. As an opposing strategist, I just don't think Angelo had Muhammad's number the way Eddie Futch did. Hence, I don't see Dundee's presence in Foreman's corner helping George to prevail in Kinshasa.

 

Stevie, you're probably familiar with this opinion of mine, but for those who aren't, my hypothesis has been that Shavers was the greatest culprit. It was the only time Ali lost significant recall of competitive action (although he did remember enough to clearly identify Earnie as the hardest puncher he was ever hit by), and his reflexes never looked right after that, even in the rematch win with Leon Spinks. He took a number of flush rights to the head from Shavers, and I'm not sure anybody ever stood up to more of those brain bruisers than Muhammad did. (Tiger Williams took a lot more right hands, but mainly to the body. In their first match, Henry Clark was mainly beaten by Earnie's underused and underrated long jab. I do get the impression that Shavers won his few decision wins on the strength of jabs, aggression and body shots, rather than concussion blasts upstairs.)

 

Possibly better.. Dundee would have had George more of a calm thinking person like he was in his comeback. Dundee wouldnt have melded well with the snarling chip on his shoulder George of the 70's. Hes more of a fundamentalist too, so he probably would have tightened up Georges sloppy offense and defense.