George Foreman 73 Vs Lennox Lewis 95

Foreman in 6 or under.

 

i think the main point in this fight is that lewis is fighting a guy similar in size, with more power, a handy boxer and absolutely no fear.. i just cant see lewis at any point being "comfortable" in there and george probably decisions him after a brutal 12 rounder

 

lol, I am going out on a limb here but I bet that most of your Lewis "knowledge" comes from youtube...............ever seen him fight live in the nineties ?

McCall, who I have personally seen spar with Tyson or Rahman are not heavy hitters. Can they crack , sure , but they are not even in the same zipcode as a Foreman, Tyson or a Lewis right hand. Fact.

Besides the Lewis KO's both fighters have hardly ANY creditable opponents on their record who they dusted by decisive KO. Especially by ONE shot. McCall has the mega green superglass jawed Oleg and the Octopuss similar chinned Akinwande . Rahman has Sanders who he only tko'ed after a life and death struggle while the Tko was mainly stamina related .

Foreman landed on a much faster, defensive more skilled and ring savy ALi who was able to take the occasional shots due to his iron will and granite chin. I give Lewis the benefit of the doubt about the iron will but his chin is not even in the same universe as Alis. I am not even going into the bodyshots Ali took.

Fact: as I said in my previous post, if yourneyman Briggs and up and coming short notice VK can wobble him in the early going and you replace Foreman with any of those two Lemmie ain't getting off the hook. Guaranteed. Hell, even Grant had him momentarly stunned in the opening round and I am going from strict memory ,but I remember that in Rahman 2 he "stumbled" right after a Rahman jab.

What you diehard Lewis nuthuggers don't get is that in a big fight with a big banger with a chin, boxing skills/confidence in his PRIME. not washed up, shot or totally shopworn Lewis's CHIN is a big. I mean big questionmark, especially if he gets drawn into a shootout/dogfight.

Not hating and that does not mean that he is loosing every fight with a guy who can crack just there are severe doubts that he can take the right shot. Plus, one more time , if he goes down he stays down. History don't lie and he happens to be the ONLY Hwt champ that was disposed not once but twice by ONE shot.

 

I actually see this as going much along the lines of the Lewis-Mercer fight. A hard-fought, close decision win for Lewis where he bears visible signs of battle afterward.
Foreman lacked certain skills, but his jab and chin were excellent. That alone is a handful for most fighters. Lewis is a superior boxer by a mile, but I think he'd fight a cautious, measured fight considering Big George's power and reputation.
Lewis by close but unanimous decision.

 

We'll agree to disagree on this one. With the yo-yo KD's and Foreman being literally OUT i cannot personally label the victory "decisive". As for Jimmy Young, well.........

Nothing gets me laughing more than people picking out the odd singular performance that happens to suit their given agenda and driving it home again and again ala Zak etc. It cuts both ways and is a very shallow argument. There's lots more to look at.

 

I don`t get it. There is actual debate going on whether Foreman had `true` KO power. True he was a bit of a clubber. But every expert from Ring magazine to most(if not all) boxing scribes put Big George at least in the top three. Saying he isn`t `that` kind of power just makes no sense at all. I misspoke a bit when I siad Lewis may not have the heart and will. But what he DOES NOT have, is the recovery skills to field a bomb, hit the deck. And come fighting back to win. I don`t feel as though Ali and Louis would be held in such lofty standing if this had happened to them. And saying that Tua and Ruddock etc. punch like Foreman is not giving George proper respect.Now get this, rope a dope or not,. Ali`s chin was a HUGE part of why he beat Foreman. Any conversation regarding Lewis` chin and Ali`s is just nonsense. Lewis could have outboxed Foreman, differently than Ali did. But, Lewis did NOT have the famous Ali chin to take a true Foreman bomb, climb off the deck and win. And as far as heart, I don`t see a 45 yr old Lewis taking the pounding that Foreman took from Moorer, and knocking his ass out late in the fight. Before everyone starts chiming in on Moorer`s suppossed china chin, remember. That he was undefeated at the time, and he DID climb of the deck to beat Holyfield. Foreman had the atitude, size and yes POWER to get it done in the early rds. Next thing you know, people will start saying Joe Louis` really wasn`t much of a puncher...

 

Fair enough. Our definition of decisive is clearly different, and although I would still like to hear why a knockout is not decisive despite being floored along the way, I will willingly accept the fact that our views are different.

Nothing to explain there. It was a loss.

Agree completely. Contradicition takes place daily here at ESB. Whenever Lennox is matched up against a prime Tyson, I find myself playing both sides of the field in an effort to establish balance, because the conflicting sides are using the very sort of tactics you speak of.

 

If I may chip in, from my perspective it wasn't a decisive victory in that it was anybody's fight until Lyle finally fell, from what looked like exhaustion more than anything. Both were down and both took a fair bit of punishment. As they came out for the 5th, only a brave man would have placed a heavy bet in favour of one or the other.
I see what you're saying (in that Lyle was conclusively knocked out) but it's not like George dominated him and THEN knocked him out.
It was a pretty even fight up until the KO.

 

Up until the KO yes. But, is there any question as to who won the fight?

 

Careful now, because that limb is about to break. I've seen almost every fight 'live' including being actually live at some of his earlier fights.

OK who have you seen spar? You mention McCall with Tyson or Rahman. I think it's your suspect grammar confusing things, a bit like your suspect objectivity that basically destroys any merit your arguments might have. BTW you say they can crack but are not heavy hitters. Hmm isn't that kinda the same thing? Make up your mind old boy.

You're approaching this argument from the wrong viewpoint, rather because I suspect it isn't much of an argument. Instead of trying to discredit the fighters that stopped Lewis, why don't you attempt to establish why it was that Tyson, Tua and Bruno, despite landing fully flush, were unable to stop Lewis.

I'm not so sure the '74 version of Ali was much faster than Lewis. I think you're getting yourself a little confused here. And whilst we're on the subject of bodyshots what evidence was there to suggest that Lewis was vulnerable to those?

Wobble yes but the crucial fact, and one that you cannot dispute no matter what puerile nonsense you spout, is that neither Briggs nor Vitali nor anyone else (McCall and Rahman aside) could even floor Lewis nevermind stop him.

I'm not a nuthugger because I recognize that Lewis has weaknesses that can be exploited. I just happen to believe that very few heavyweights in history could successfully exploit those weaknesses on a fully prepared and focused Lewis. IMO Foreman ain't one of them.

Actually he got up against McCall so you're wrong, although personally I feel that he was 'gone' and the stoppage saved him from an even worse TKO. Even so, Lewis should have received the benefit of the doubt from the ref as reigning heavyweight champion of the world.

Finally Lewis has only ever been down twice and only Ali can (disputedly) say that he faced more 200+ power punchers during his career.

 

In all fairness, The vast majority of Foreman's KO's were the result of multiple shots to the head and body, basically resulting in submission. Of the 68 men that Foreman stopped, about 40 of them came via TKO. There really aren't that many knockouts that resulted from a single punch, and even fewer against men who were well known for taking it.

That said, I still rate him as one of the top 5 best punchers of all time by virtue of his overall ability to get a man out of there in one way or another, plus his very impressive win/ko ratio.

Could he KO or TKO or Lennox Lewis? Absolutely, but the key here is weather or not he'd be able to land the right shot at the right time, and do so before Lewis really inflicted any real damage upon him. Foreman battling with Lewis over 10 rounds is not a good thing, and will likely result in George losing the fight. His best bet, is to layoff the aggression for the first two or three rounds, let Lewis build his confidence up and get careless, then catch him with a big shot as he's coming in, then follow up with a barage as he's back peddling. If Foreman tries to go after Lennox with a vengeance too early, he is liable to either punch himself out, or leave himself vulnerable to counter attack. Unfortunately, I don't think that a 1970's Foreman had the ring smarts or the savy to pull this one off. He was simply too attached to his method of unloading on his victoms from the opening bell, which is what cost him in the Ali fight. I don't necessarily think that this would be a repeat of the Zaire fight, as I realize that there was more to George gassing out than just bad stamina. But rather, I see Lewis making him pay for his mistakes early, by making him miss, then punishing him with big shots that other men of the 70's never landed on him. This would be a tough and possibly career ending task for Foreman.

 

Got next weekends lotto numbers while ya going?

 

Cheers

:good

 

But this is the same Ring Magazine that puts Sam Langford at #2 of the hardest hitters toplist.
http://boxing.about.com/od/history/a/ring_punchers.htm

They have obviously no clue because they consider KOing a bum a worthy achievement. Everyone who is good enough to be on a toplist should be able to KO bums. Even bums fighting bums can score some KOwins.

You have to delete bums off the record, otherwise Eric Esch would be the best heavyweight ever lived.

Once you delete all the bums (= the ones who lose 25% or more of their fights) off the record of Sam Langford only 71 fights stay (against the same 16 guys!!). In these 71 fights he scored 13 KOs. That's a freaking 18% KOratio against better opponents. And actually it's only 8 KOs since 5 weren't even 200+ lbs opponents.

What is this guy Langford doing at #2 of the Ring's toplist and why is Mike Tyson at #16 and Tua at #48?

The Ring has obviously some elitist attitude like "Opera is so much better than Pop" thus "Monsieur Langford is so much better than Tyson".

A statement like "Foreman is a top hitter" is wrong until you delete bums off the record.

After deleting bums + deleting below-200 opponents Foreman has a KOratio of 14 of 22 (63%). And indeed that's VERY good!

Foreman I has 7 KOs of 8 fights (that's too little fights to draw a conclusion) and Foreman II has 7 of 14 (50%).

As a comparison: Tyson has 17 KOs of 27 good opponents (62%), Lennox: 15 of 24 (62%), Archie Moore 5 of 7 (all other fights were against cruisers or bums), Liston 4 of 6, Ali 8+2 of 26 (since 2 were after round 12), Holmes 12+1 of 29 (yes, Holmes is a featherfist like Ali in fights with good opponents), Eric Esch 3 of 8 (there you have his real featherfisty achievement), Vitali 13 of 16 (81%), Wlad 22 of 28 (78%).

 

Damn! Did you get technical You failed to mention Louis` bum of the month club...