Another poll, Idk NOTHING abt this guy except the fact he was a very hard hitter, fill me in on some stuff please.
He was very overrated h2h because of that power, everyone who fought both say he hit harder than Foreman and Tyson, so people overrate his ability because of that, he lost to some mediocre fighters and he dropped Larry Holmes, but other than that he gets overrated a lot.
He’s not top 50. But he does fall somewhere along those lines after that. Extremely hard puncher not the best boxer. He’s Wilder of his times.
Had MAJOR stamina issues...never had a KO past the 7th round...had lots of KO's early in his career...but when he started to fight a better class of fighter...his KO % went way down...never carried his power into the later rounds...had Holmes hurt...couldn't put him away...had an over the hill Ali hurt...couldn't put him away...lousy finisher...never had the ability to come up with the BIG punch when he needed to...and was KO'd in one round by Jerry Quarry. The legend of Ernie Shavers, "Power" is due to a lucky punch KO of former WBA Heavyweight champ Jimmy Ellis. He's overrated.
I would not call him a glass cannon but he was a well-made wood cannon. Very well made. But nothing ornate. And there was a cannon ability that was there.
He punched very hard sometimes. He had stamina issues because he did not punch correctly. Shavers was a very muscular guy that punched from the top down; he used his huge shoulders to swing those heavy arms. That will tire you out. That will make you vulnerable to counters. If he could hit you before he got tired you were in trouble. Foreman was much the same and he and Shavers would have put on a show until Earnie got tired. Foreman was more durable and probably punched shorter and had a bit more depth to his game.
Earnie got started very late, around 22 years of age and he never learned the fundamentals necessary when facing the top tier guys . He relied on brute power. He did indeed lose to some guys coming up he shouldn't have because of those deficiencies. In a sense he was doing on the job training . But for sheer power he's right there with Wilder, Leroy Caldwell who fought Foreman and Shavers said Earnie hit harder ,,by far! Taking that into consideration with the opinion of Holmes and Ali and others he's either 1st or second all time in one shot power. Where's he rank all time? around 50 maybe with the dangerous ability to blast some fighters out who are better than him, see Ellis and Norton.
I'm always leery of when fighters say that too. It's almost always the fighters who don't actually KO them who they proclaim as the "hardest puncher" they faced, partly to play up their chin. Larry Holmes was KO'd spark out by Tyson but he says Shavers who didn't KO him is the harder puncher.
What I’ve seen of Earnie Shavers has been all said here I’ll just add he was a nice guy with a lot of heart.
He’s overrated yes, but his power definitely carried. I read his book recently and he talked about getting a few late knockout wins. You also forget to mention his big ko wins over Young and Norton.
Couldn't summarize better myself. Also if Ali wasn't shot/presenting early symptoms of Parkinson I don't see the fight being that close at all
He was very poor in all aspects of the game other than the punch, especially the chin. He can't really be said to be top anything. I am not going to say his power was overrated, because when Ali, Holmes and a half dozen other guys agree he was the hardest, then he must have been the hardest, but I will say that, judging on result, a couple of other guys EFFECTIVELY hit harder due to handspeed, combos, integrated skills, whatever you want to say.
He also poleaxed not one but two top 5 contenders in less than a round. It would be fascinating to see what heavyweights have done this across the years. I don't think there'd be a whole lot and i think they'd be extremely high calibre fighters. Not saying he's not overrated at times but he's a bit more than what you implied. He was probably only a haymaker or two off stopping Holmes and there's a sizeable portion of fans that had Shavers beating old Ali. He could have easily been champ.
His punching power made him a dangerous proposition which he showed on a few occasions. But he was too inconsistent to have a high head to head rating. He was one of those guys who In “ theory “ could have stopped anyone but it seldom worked out that way
