Young beats any version of Foreman and I stand by that I think Young is a bad style match up for him. That's the beauty of boxing and how fighters match up Foreman can destroy Frazier who is greater than Young and more than likely Frazier would comprehensively beat Young. But Young matches up well against Big George.
Young beats old George fairly comfortably. But i do think pre Zaire Foreman would stop Young as he would be more aggressive.
Young schools old Foreman, Foreman may have been more economical at that point, but he was less agile meaning he’d struggle to close the ring off compared to earlier versions of himself and Foreman being more economical would mean that the fight is at less volume, which would suit the smaller boxer in Young, you need to try to wear guys like Young down if you’re a guy like Foreman, yes through educated pressure, but the added weight would mean Foreman would struggle to close the ring off.
I’m in the minority in saying I’m not convinced young Foreman lost to Young, who got far too much credit for running, ducking, grabbing, and landing the occasional clean blow that had no effect. Foreman did not get enough credit for landing power punches that sent Young careening around the ring and holding on for dear life. The referee was far too hard on Foreman for trying to fight and push a grabbing barnacle Young off of him. If the officials had not treated Foreman so badly, we might have seen Foreman vs. Ali 2 or Foreman vs. Holmes.
I watched the fight live on "Wide World Of Sports"..."Young" Foreman looked pathetic...and you want to match "Old' Foreman against the same Jimmy Young from that night?...Young wins again!
Jimmy Young, the greatest uncrowned, unrecognized, unappreciated elite heavyweight of all time, deserves to be in the discussion with Joe Louis and Sonny Liston, at least on this forum , doesn't see the final bell against old Foreman, gets knocked out.
You're remembering it wrong. Young didn't run at all he was in punching range all the time and befuddled and outboxed Foreman clearly. Foreman only had Young in trouble in 1 round which was the 7th round and Young comeback at the end of the round strong. There's 0 argument for Foreman winning the Young fight.
Young absolutely won that fight but people put Young on WAY too high a pedestal because of that victory and because he supposedly "really beat Ali but the judges took it away from him." He is not in my top 50 all-time heavyweights. People on this forum horribly overrate Ron Lyle, who is BTW at the tail end of my top 50, but they HORRIBLY OVERRATE Jimmy Young and I truly and sincerely do not get it.
I wouldn't say "any Foreman". George nearly stopped him in Puerto Rico, and I think that a better version of Foreman would likely finish the job, don't you think? If the unprepared, untrained, and dehydrated version of Foreman from their fight nearly took Jimmy out, most versions of young George would beat Young for sure.
How do you know Young was in perfect condition aswell ? And both fighters had to deal with the same conditions if Foreman wasn't prepared for it that's on him he's a professional fighter. I've never understood people using the heat as an excuse like the other fighter don't exist and didn't have to deal with the exact samething.
It's not an excuse... We can visibly see that Foreman was not at his best on that night. Young looked as sharp as he ever could, and he still nearly got beat. I didn't say that Young's win doesn't count, but rather that Jimmy simply wouldn't beat him on every night. If George was in his worst shape possible, and still nearly beat Young, then it's clear that he'd beat him if he was in better shape. Young looked at his best here, this is his best performance and best win, "How'd you know that Jimmy was is perfect condition?" is such an odd counter argument to use. No disproving of what I said, just going down a completely speculatory route and saying that I'm giving excuses for Foreman. How do YOU think Young would win against say, Foreman from The Rumble in the Jungle? Do you think that he could've taken the punishment that Ali did? What about George's fight with Frazier? Do you honestly believe that Young could beat him? Tell me how he'd be unable to get stopped against a better version of Foreman.
The best example of it are Tyson fanboys citing neverending list of excuses for his fight against Douglas. Nobody remembers that just the day before the fight, that Douglas had been injected with penicillin to combat bronchitis, the flu and swollen tonsils. Nobody remembers that the mother of his son had recently been admitted to an American hospital with a potentially fatal kidney ailment. They do remember about his mother passing, but take it as a good thing as it motivated him. If Tyson lost somebody close to him it would be another excuse why he performed poorly.
IMO Foreman was at his best vs. Jimmy Young. GF was more disciplined and paced himself much better than he did earlier in his career. Other versions of 70s GF would have probably loaded up on his punches and missed Jimmy Young often, and GF would have fatigued and gotten stopped. The Young fight, GF was probably the closest to combining the 70s GF with the late 80s - early 90s GF. The disciplined, Young fight, GF would have had a better chance of beating Ali in Zaire. I don't think that Ali took a lot of punishment in Zaire. Ali was in front almost all of the way and was able to deflect and ride with a lot of GF's punches. Immediately after the fight, Ali was completely unmarked and he even said that GF couldn't punch.