And they would not be able to outslug him. Would Fury be able to outslug Tyson? Would Fury be able to outslug Foreman? Would Pep be able to outslug Gomez? Would Holmes be able to outslug Frazier? Would Ali be able to outslug Tyson? The point is markedly critical. You are bagging a slugger for not being able to outbox people like a boxer......knocking a guy for taking advantage of his own god given gifts. It cuts both ways. Leonard couldn't outbox Hearns so he found another way to win. Foreman built his style and defense around what he brought to the table as did all the other ATG's.
Are you just trying to argue for the sake of arguing? We are talking about George Foremans defense. His defense was poor. He was a great fighter. Both things can be true
I’m saying his offense is his defense. To hit him, someone had to risk being hit. Ken Norton hit him and so did Joe Frazier. Good plan. Didn’t work. One had to risk paying a high price to hit Foreman. His left and right often discouraged guys from being too frisky, thus serving as an example of the old saying: “The best defense is a good offense.” Only in George’s case, it was a great offense.
Your initial post was this - I'm watching the Foreman vs Ali fight and he has no defense. Still an all time great fighter it's just funny how some people act like every all time great was so fundamentally sound I've already nabbed you on the blanket claims of fundamental soundness. So you are watching Foreman fight the GOAT heavyweight in a fight many rate the greatest victory ever and picking apart his defense. Do you think Fury steps into that ring in Zaire and "barely gets hit"???? You say he's barely been hit in 17 years.....d you think that holds against 74 Ali in sweltering conditions? You've given Fury an automatic pass for all the times he got hit early in his career, you don't count Wallin labelling it "an off night", you say he got hit just once in the 1st Wilder fight and label the earlier KD "more his balance" (absolute BS) and softened the knockdowns in the third Wilder fight claiming he "got hit being careless on the way in". There's a bit of a theme emerging here. Whenever Fury, well, he didn't really sorta get hit ya know or there's certainly an excuse for it. Two completely different levels of scrutiny and criteria.
Thats like saying that Edgar Berlanga displayed great defense when he knocked those 10 people out in the first round. "To hit him, someone had to risk being hit. Ken Norton hit him and so did Joe Frazier. Good plan. Didn’t work." Ok but thats not defense, thats offense. Its like saying Deontay Wilder is a good defensive fighter cause he is always a threat to knock you out.
So you are watching Foreman fight the GOAT heavyweight in a fight many rate the greatest victory ever and picking apart his defense. Thats wasnt prime Ali stop it. Do you think Fury steps into that ring in Zaire and "barely gets hit"???? You say he's barely been hit in 17 years.....d you think that holds against 74 Ali in sweltering conditions?. Yes I think Fury beats that Ali rather easily. You've given Fury an automatic pass for all the times he got hit early in his career, you don't count Wallin labelling it "an off night", you say he got hit just once in the 1st Wilder fight and label the earlier KD "more his balance" (absolute BS) and softened the knockdowns in the third Wilder fight claiming he "got hit being careless on the way in". Im not trying to give Fury a pass. Fury gets hit just like every other heavyweight but you can name the fights and occasions they happened cause they stick out. With Foreman the ones that he didnt get hit in were because the fights didnt last long. Vs Ali, Young, Lyle he got tagged way more than Fury has in any of his fights. Hes never shown he can do to opponents what Fury has vs Klitschko, WIlder 1 and 2, White or Chisora. He cant outbox fighter, he can get them out of there. There's a bit of a theme emerging here. Whenever Fury, well, he didn't really sorta get hit ya know or there's certainly an excuse for it. No excuses but if you think that Foreman is anywhere near Fury defensively I strongly disagree. In fact, I think George Foreman pretty clearly has the worst defense for anyone rated as highly as him at heavyweight.
No, I doubt Foreman hits the deck vs. Bonavena, but who knows? OB managed to rock Ali, who certainly had a good chin, rather badly in the 9th round of that fight...and yes, I'm aware that was only Ali's second fight back after his hiatus. I'd also say that I doubt Frazier hits the deck vs. Jimmy Young as Foreman did. The point I was trying to make ad nauseum earlier in this thread, about how styles make fights, you are making for me with the Douglas-Tyson & Sanders-Klitschko examples. I also doubt Foreman struggles with Doug Jones, but who knows? He struggled with Young. 'Course, George was KO'd by Ali, but we won't count that one, since you know for a fact that George didn't take him seriously. I think they should just wipe that loss from the record books. I mean, George was poisoned, he saw his friend in the crowd cheering for Ali, which demoralized him, and joebojoejoeson said he knows for a fact that Ali didn't take him seriously. As far as Foreman's resume, that's been covered earlier in the thread between Storm Chaser and myself. Yes, George has some quality wins. Not sure I'd use O'Halloran as an example though. O'Halloran won 3 of his previous 9 fights headed into Foreman, with a loss to......wait for it.....Charlie Harris, who was 3-3-1 heading into the O'Halloran fight, and ended his career at 10-31-1. Kirkman was a decent win, but he was knocked cold by the 5-20-2 Al Jones.
Well, by your logic, you weren't the greatest either, so your opinion on who is great and who isn't doesn't really mean anything either. Same goes for everybody else on this forum, yet here you are taking the time to debate a bunch of random people online whose opinions don't mean anything about who is greater. For me....if I had the choice between asking Muhammad Ali or joebojoejoeson who was better between Foreman and Frazier, I think I'd lean towards Ali on that one, but at the end of the day, would end up listening to both.
What does this have to do with anything? I am not taking away from his offence he was a mentally strong, aggressive, fighter. The punchline is that guys bang on about his leverage guard and shoving as if it something grand. People take a microscope to these overexposed 70s HWs in particular and squint further and further inwards and away from reality at the same time. People think I think Foreman is a bum. No, he's a great HEAVYWEIGHT but as a boxer in the purest terms of the science he was a mess and fighters who weren't great like Young showed us this, Lyle showed us this and Ali despite all that's said and done "Out on his feet" "Only Ali can handle him" blah, blah, blah. He was out of his depth and it was largely uneventful without the atmosphere surrounding the bout. Mini rant over.
Of course it was prime Ali albeit near the end of prime. If you think Ali was over the hill against Foreman i don't know what to say really. Sure i rate the end of the 60's version peak but he was still a helluva fighter when in shape up to Foreman and man was he in shape. One could argue it was the last fight of his prime but it would be awful difficult to not include it. Stop it Fury's opposition as a whole has been middling at best. You don't count Wallin due to an off night but put great importance on Foreman was the GOAT, Foreman vs Lyle where he hadn't fought in 18 months and was coming off the stoppage loss to Ali and Young, which combined with Lyle was Foreman trying to learn to pace himself and pick his shots better with a view to the Ali rematch. You claim Ali wasn't prime when he beat Foreman yet no mention of Wlad who was at the very end of a decade long run. As for Wilder, well he barely hit Ortiz in two fights either. It took him forever to find a home for a clean shot to get him out of there so it's not as if Fury had to be a defensive marvel not to get hit much against him as even Ortiz wasn't. That's the way Wilder fights. Whyte and Chisora are hardly sharpshooting marvels either. Well i have no idea how you could possibly come to that conclusion so you are attacking a straw man right there. Given some people rate Foreman as highly as #4 and often inside the 8 he's in some pretty high quality company. The flipside is it's entirely likely he hits harder than all those rated as highly as himself and is a more dangerous offensive force than most of them.
You aren't addressing anything they're asking you to address. They're not saying Foreman is excellent at outboxing people, they're saying he has underrated defense. The discussion was never about that, they're not saying Foreman would have outboxed Wladmir or Wilder. You claimed Foreman had bad defense because of how much he got tagged by Young, Ali, and Lyle but you keep blatantly ignoring the points they brought up about how Fury got tagged and knocked down by Wilder about half a dozen times, dropped by Cunningham, and ate dozens of shots from mediocre fighters such as Wallin, Mcdormett, Chisora, etc. By YOUR logic, Fury has bad defense. You made an excuse for every single time Fury got nailed or looked bad "he had an off night, he got careless" etc. You are blatantly being hypocritical.
In his younger days, I don't think he believed he needed much of a defence to be honest. A mixture of confidence and ego probably. By the time he came around again, he'd learnt it was wise to defend his chin more. My ten pence worth.
It seems that some of our friends on this board want to diminish Foreman's accomplishments to diminish Ali's accomplishments because if Foreman wasn't all that then Ali wasn't all that for whupping him. I play that game too but wittingly.
