Earnier Shavers - Featherfisted

Someone posted this on the general and got destroyed. I think he wrote it too.

 

:bloodwlad's my favourite fighter in the world and has been for years.

BUT what the ****ing **** is that article...sure, shaver's is a bit overrated by some for his mythical power. except it wasn't mythical, you can watch it. statistically, he's brilliant. on film, he's an amazing hitter.

the author hasn't watched earnie, that much is obvoius

 

bang on (well, the tyson bit at the end is open to argument) but i totally get you

earnie wasn't accurate, was wasteful and frankly a **** finisher at the top level

but one punch is all it took. much like david tua

 

:thinkgood point. i'm trying to think and the frazier/norton wins while quick were stoppages not flat out KOs (if memory serves). he was a bludgeoning kind of power. but old foreman, against moorer, rodrigues, and countless hobos showed sharpness and shorter punches. just took him 20 years to learn it

 

it was always there it seemed, he just didn't always use it

but in terms of power i put tyson on a tier below foreman/shavers

mike just knew how to use it MUCH better

 

People mistake how good of a puncher he was to how hard of a puncher he was.
Shavers hit harder than Joe Louis. But Joe Louis was still a dynamite puncher.

The difference that splits Joe Louis and Earnie Shavers is that Louis had other skills and attributes to help him get the knockout such as speed, deadly combinations, feints, footwork timing, accuracy, and of course an uncanny finishing ability.

Shavers is not slow, but he's not fast either. His stamina was quite weak, he through punches every which way instead of timing them and making sure they hit their mark. That is the difference.

But I can guarantee you if there was some magical punching barometer that measures a punchers force, Earnie Shavers would hit harder than Joe Louis. That's it.

 

armstrong have you posted under another name? you're very articulate and have been bang on lately

 

In some ways, overrated can be a deceptive term because you can still be great and overrated at the same time. As it relates to a number of fans I've talked to, I think this is one of those cases. Shavers has exceptional one-punch power, but even when he landed flush, hellacious shots, he wasn't consistent in getting the higher level guys out of there with one punch. It didn't help that he wasn't a great finishing artist once a man was hurt, but it's not to be forgotten that fighters got off the canvas multiple times to beat Shavers, some of whom didn't exactly have steel chins themselves. That's hard for me to swallow if he's also to be considered the hardest puncher in heavyweight history.

Still, this shouldn't be construed as cheapening what Shavers did bring to the table, as he was a hell of a puncher by any stretch. I think the shots Ali took from Earnie for 15 rounds absolutely had adverse effects on his long-term health. I just think just how good the one-shot power was gets overplayed at times.

 

Muhammad Ali said that he had never been hit as hard as Earnie Shavers hit him, and he fought Frazier, Foreman, etc.

 

Shavers is the ATG at obvious punches but the ATW at subtle punches

 

Shavers hit as hard as any of the top heavyweights in the history of the sport. The difference between him and punchers like marciano and louis was the skill level. Louis was a skilled technician who knew how to put punches together, had great handspeed and was a great finisher.

Marciano, while not the the technician that louis was, was very deceptive and new how to use his short stature to his advantage. He was often percieved as just a brawler but he had an underated ability to make his opponents miss and then counter. He was a thinking man's animal and there was definitely a method to his madness.

Shavers basically threw caution to the wind. With him it was a matter of ko or be ko'd, especially against the top competion. He very little skill and depended almost totally on his power to carry him to victory. If he had learn how finish an opponent he might have won the title (even though he wouldn't have kept it long). His power became a detriment to him because that's all that he felt that he needed to win. I don't count the norton victory as being a major victory because norton had a penchant for freezing up against big punchers.

Clearly there is a difference between being a great puncher and a great fighter and earnie, while a decent fighter, was far from a great one.