1991 foreman vs Marciano

That's what I mean. That's his side of it isn't it. What's Billy conn say, or the officials?

 

Slow? Rocky was there to be hit. And again 11' reach advantage and foreman wont have to chase rocky who charges forward.

Jab? Rocky was tagged all night by an old joe louis and a past his prime walcott, who were both much smaller than foreman and didnt pack as much power. Rocky said in his own biography he just "coudnt do anything about the jabs, i had to just take them" in regards to louis.

Defense? Foremans height, his huge arms with cross arm defense, and shoving tactics means rocky is never gonna land an overhand right upstairs unless he tires foreman out first and makes him lower his guars. Besides, foreman had a superb chin and took flush power shots from stewart, cooney, briggs, moore, etc. Its not like he'll fall apart from the first clean punch rocky lands lol.

Its just a bad style matchup. Rocky had underrated skills, but he was still short and couldnt fight backing up. He rarely used lateral movement. Jab wasnt his go to strategy. Defense had plebty of holes. Super aggressive and had a tendency to brawl. Those traits are a recipe for disaster against a tall granite chinned power puncher with the reach and 60 pound weight advantage. The way to beat foreman is to do the exact opposite: move, make him miss, counter, tie him up, use a jab, etc. Theres a REASON everyone who beat him did this. Mixing it up with foreman up close is a death sentence. Only guys i could see surviving that would be vitali klitschko, mercer, ibeabuchi, etc. Not a 190 pound slugger with the reach of a welterweight. Foreman made short work of small come forward aggressive pressure fighters. Hes their kryptonite.

You are very knowledgeable on boxing history but you always overlook the glaring and obvious flaws of old time fighters and rarely give more recent ones credit. Its sometimes hard to have any sort of serious h2h discussion.

 

I'm replying to Janitor who believes Louis' weight was not correct,I believe I have shown it was. Louis went without breakfast and had very little fluid to break the 200lbs this is documented in several biographies including his own If you want to say he was lying , then do so.

I couldn't care less what you believe I should have thought that was obvious?

 

You do realise this is Bald Foreman don't you??

The morbidly obese celebrity boxer? The guy who lost to a one round victim of Micheal Bentt? The one Ken Lacuster staggered with a right hand. The one Alex Stewart tatood all night. The one who Axcel Schulz beat. Etc etc.

Comeback George never beat an elite career heavyweight on his comeback. Moorer was not regarded as the best heavyweight in the world.

All the attributes you give Foreman appear to be what he had as a young man and combining it with the caution he had as an old stager. You cannot combine two careers to invent a guy who never existed. The thread is about the bald guy.

Nobody missed George. He took every punch in the book. That's why He was kept away from serious contenders.

 

I'm simply amazed people are advocating this theory that Foreman was a good style matchup for Marciano. it's the total opposite of that. Literally the total opposite. A come forward fighter, who cuts easily, with minimal reach is somehow a good style against a much bigger, stronger, powerful puncher with a ramrod for a jab is perplexing to say the least. I like Rocky, but we don't need to make him into more than he was. Foreman would literally only need a jab to bust up Rocky badly, and make no mistake, it would bust him up.

 

There is a huge weight difference but this is a very old, slow 40 something former champion. With a very low work rate. Who never beat an elite career heavyweight.

I would back most prime cruiserweight champions to beat that version of George.

I lived through his comeback. George surprised people that he was capable. But He simply was not that good.

It's not so much a style match up but a prime matchup. Comeback George had no prime. He got by.

 

Rocky had good defense. Slow guys made it even better. Foreman would be Marciano's sloughest opponent ever.

You make it sound like Rocky just walks straight forward throwing punches forgoing defense when you say "charges forward".

Rocky was exaggerating in reference to Louis's jabs. I've seen the footage of Rocky slipping Louis' jab. Pretty sure Rez posted clips of it in another thread and Rocky countered with a sweet right.

Foreman's defense was terrible. He was incredibly slow with the cross arm defense. Watch the Pierre Coetzer fight. There's no denying that he got hit alot. It's an outright fact. Holyfield landed 61% of punches against him in '91. If Marciano lands that quantity of punches then Foreman is at least getting stopped.

I'm not saying he'll fall apart from the first punch. Actually I've been arguing that an accumulation of punches is what will do Foreman in.

In which fight would it have done Marciano good to fight backing up (on the back foot)? He was always the aggressor. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Lateral movement wouldn't have done him any good either. Just because a boxer doesn't ever box an opponent isn't a bad thing. It just wasn't advantageous for Rocky to do that. His strengths were in breaking his opponents down, not dancing for 15 rounds.

How would Ibeabuchi ever beat Foreman by fighting in close with him? He's the most overrated bum on this forum. Gets a shady stoppage over Byrd and he's all of a sudden a world beater.

 

Actually some do need to make him more than he was, witness Reznik's desperate attempts to do so.

 

Marciano was marked up and cut in many, many fights ,how would that be possible if he had "good defence"?

 

It's simple. If he had bad defense he would have been knocked out or been even more marked up and cut.

 

Good defense? Maybe against the journeymen and bums he fought on his way to the title his sub par defense helped him survive. Rocky was battered and bloodied and made to look foolish against every decent a and b level opponent. Many people thought lastarza was robbed in their first fight. Charles shredded his nose open. A middle aged Louis pelted him with jabs. Walcott put on a clinic and boxed circles around him. Layne landed wild haymaker blows and applied non stop pressure. Moore countered him half to death and even when on the ropes, he made rocky "miss more than half his punches" as ring side observer and historian nat fleischer put it.

Does that sound like a defensive wizard to you? In some of rickys fights he swung so hard he fell of balance and embarrased himself. Its on film and in his own freaking biography his trainer goldman talks about how wild rocky was and that he had to fine tune his style. Rockys offense and non stop pressure WAS his defense. He had decent crouching, slipping, and erratic movement and occasionally countered but his "defensive skills" were nothing to marvel at, especially if youre comparing him to foreman of all people. If rockys defense was so amazing there wouldnt be so many photos of him with cuts, bruises, puffy eyes, etc. Where do you get this stuff?

He didnt do it all the time but he did it enough that it would be a factor.

Then why did it take him 8 rounds to finally close the distance and stop louis? You cant have it both ways.

Stop.

Just stop.

Holyfield and marciano are two completely different boxers. Holyfield was 6'2, 205-215 lbs in his prime, 78' reach, master class boxer who could counter, stick and move, brawl or stalk and punch. He was faster than rocky with a way better jab and crisper combinations. This is not a fight you would want ro reference to make your case, ive sesn it twice.

He wont be around long enough to land that accumulation. I repeat, any short swarmer loses to foreman because they got shoved back, run into jabs, and have to reset every time and lose their rhythm. Marciano MIGHT eventually make it an up close and personal fight and then hed be in for a rude awakening.

All understandable. Some fighters can only fight one way.

And thats exactly why hed struggle with any version of foreman. STYLES. MAKE. FIGHTS. Its NOT a coincidence foreman only lost when he got outboxed and anytime someone tried to fight fire with fire (slugging) they lost. They are like oil and water.

He is a world beater. He was a champion and beat world ranked opponents. By definition hes a world beater.

Im not saying hed beat foreman at his own game but slugging it out with david tua for 12 rounds means he has a chance of at least survivng a war with foreman.

 

-Everything i wrote applies to bald foreman. Everything was factual. Mind telling me what i made up?

-so ken lacusta staggered him, your point is what exactly? He didnt get koed, he didnt even get knocked down and he won the fight. Everyone gets hit at some point even by guys well below their level. Rocky went the distance with a guy who had over 50 losses.

-schulz didnt beat him. If were going to ignore official verdicts then lastarza beat rocky and charles stopped him on cuts while were at it.

-moore was the lineal champion, undefeated, 2 weight class conquerer who beat holyfield, 80% ko ratio. He was world class and the best in the world. No one would be talking about foreman if moore was a bum. Deal with it or cry some more.

 

From a handful of competitive fights George marked up pretty bad himself.

 

Boxing fans basically never got over Foreman's destruction of Frazier.

It is so indelibly etched onto the popular consciousness, that people can't think critically about any potential fight between Foreman and a smaller come forward heavyweight.

We have seen people in all seriousness, pick the ancient version of Foreman, not only over Marciano, but also prime versions of Frazier and Tyson!

If the fighter that we were seeing in the footage, and on the Boxrec profile, was somebody other than George Foreman, we would see these fights for the mismatches that they are!

 

Stewart beat him. Holyfeild beat him. Schulz beat him. Savarese beat him. Morrison beat him and Rocky would not lose to any of them.

Foreman moved about as fast as a lamppost, and was easier to hit.

No past prime fighter beats Rocky.