Did Shavers really hit harder than the likes of George Foreman?

Which is exactly why i spoke of "singular opinions". What i am saying is that he can throw out Caldwell all he likes as all the other testimonies are there as well.

I absolutely believe Lyle is overrated as a puncher. If there was/is a handful of common opponents all singing the same tune (that Foreman and Lyle hit around the same) then i would take that extremely seriously and very likely wouldn't have the opinion that i do.

 

And zero for you.

 

My thoughts exactly especially when Ali said it. No reason for him to be bitter, he beat both.

 

Which begs the question: do you take caldwell's statement seriously?

As for the subject at hand, hard to say. I mean they had several common opponents:

Jimmy young
Muhammad ali
Jack o holleran
Gerry cooney
Scott ledoux
Gregario peralta

Young outboxed both of them and wasnt dropped by either one. Same for Ali who koed them both but to my knowledge neither one of them compared lyle to foreman or any other puncher.

Cooney can be dismissed right away because he fought a past his prime lyle and koed him in a fight that only lasted 1 round and when cooney fought foreman they were both old men coming off long layoffs.

The only real direct evidence is that lyle took 4 rounds to ko jack o holleran while it took foreman 5. Lyle's fight with leroy caldwell went the distance while foreman koed him in 2 but lyles fight was only scheduled for 5 and thus he had far less opportunity to ko caldwell in the first place. Lyle went the distance with ledoux while foreman stopped him in 3. Both of them went the distance with iron chinned veteran peralta although foreman managed to stop him in 10 in a rematch (there was no knockdown, the ref waved it off).

Other than that, we have joe bugner praising lyles power as the "2nd best" puncher he faced after shavers. So not a lot to go on based on common opponents. Looking at just these stats, nothing jumps out that tells me foreman hit way harder than lyle. Both have one common opponent where they did better than the other (ledoux and oholleran) and the rest are either even or they both performed poorly.

Unless theres interviews with some guys other than caldwell somewhere.

 

GCC love your posts
And I think Lyle likely hit nearly as hard as Foreman as one might surmise even from Foreman ranking him amongst the # hardest hitters he ever encountered
Though how early they got common opponents out of there is not a great measure of pure power
Because the results are "contaminated" with aggressiveness skills like accuracy work rate etc

The eye test has Lyle close

 

That Foreman and Lyle hit similar? I don't no. I think Foreman hit harder for sure personally.

Foreman did have Young in massive trouble at the start of round 7 via a single left hook. From memory Lyle never had Young in any such trouble across two bouts.

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Absolutely. Lyle was shot when Cooney fought him.

I take very little notice of X ko'ing Y faster than Z. We can find contrary results all day long. Lyle was a novice when he fought Leroy.

I've got Bugner saying the following but there's no doubt more out there -

Was Joe Frazier the heaviest puncher you faced?

He hit hard but for one punch, the biggest hitter was Earnie Shavers. He dropped me in Dallas in 1982, then cut my eye with a headbutt. Ron Lyle in 1977 in Caesars Palace was my toughest fight. Ron was a convicted killer. I fought him to a split decision but ended up in hospital with bleeding kidneys.

And -

Best puncher: Ernie Shavers. He was an enormous puncher, but I have real issue with that fight because of a conversation Shavers and I had years later. Apparently Don King told Ernie to get me out of that ring, by any means necessary, and not to worry about disqualification.

Now if you watch the fight I get caught with a good right hand in round two but a follow up head butt, which the referee didn’t pick up on, caused a serious cut. That wound above my left eye required 14 stitches and it wasn’t from a punch.

Now, take into account that Don King was a creature of incredible power within the boxing world and he played dirty as far as I’m concerned. I didn’t like him from the word go – end of story.

I also have to say that the most vicious and relentless fighter on the planet, in those days, was “Smokin” Joe Frazier.

Lets keep our eye out GCC i love this stuff. Shavers gives credit to Lyle as well so he can obviously punch. Foreman for me tho has so much brutal evidence on film. He's immense.

 

No. There's not enough evidence to suggest that. Quite a bit to contradict it as well.

 

Shavers wasn't really a HW by today's standards. As a CW, however, he might well be the heaviest handed guy in history.

 

P4P he was extremely heavy handed, but by today's standards he'd be a CW. I can't consider any CW a harder puncher than the likes of Lewis, Wlad, Joshua etc without any freakish attributes like Tyson (who was bigger than Shavers anyway) to compensate for their lack of size.

 

Which statement are you in disagreement with?

 

That punch for punch Shavers hit harder than Tyson.

 

Do you think there is that much difference between them?

 

At some point, it kind of doesn’t matter.

It’s like which hurts more, to get run over by a dump truck going 80 mph or hit by a wrecking ball on full swing from a 10-story crane?

 

Yes. I consider Tyson one of the hardest punchers in history. I don't hold the same view for Shavers.

 

Tyson was not "bigger" than shavers.

Shavers
6 ft
79' reach
210-216 lbs (prime 1976-1982)

Tyson
5'10
71' reach
213-221 lbs (prime 1986-1990)

Note tyson only weighed 221 against berbick. In all his prime fights between 86-90 he was somewhere between 214-218 against the top contenders an his unification bouts.

So if you really think tyson was "bigger", despite being 2 inches shorter with shorter arms, all because he had 1 fight where his career heighest was 5 lbs above shavers prime weight heighest, be my guest.