Yes but you are using hindsight. At the time Foreman beat Moorer he was fresh of beating Holyfield who was fresh off beating Bowe. This at that exact time put Foreman's stock above all of them since Lewis had just been beaten as well. Moorer was stopped by Holyfield 3 years AFTER Foreman beat Moorer. This is irrelevant per Foreman beating Moorer. Foreman's win over Moorer elevated him to #1 in the division, no ifs or buts. Holyfield had plenty of power and is an ATG top 10 Heavyweight for just about everyone. The point of the matter is Moorer was the lineal champ and he had beaten the #1 heavyweight on the planet. Moorer is not the strongest champ for sure but he did what he had to to get to #1 at any rate. He could box a bit, had a good jab, hit damn hard and was a lefty. He had some pluses. Evander was quite likely sick and not as his best for whatever reason. Foreman still got the job done with who he had to get it done with tho. No-one is calling Moorer great but he certainly beat someone who was and made himself numero uno - the man to beat. Cooper may have or may not have been one good punch away from beating Holyfield and Moorer but the fact is he didn't. Shavers was probably a clean right away from beating Holmes, Snipes had him reeling, Louis was dropped by Galento and hurt as well, Roldan was perhaps one good punch off beating Hearns etc etc etc Beating the lineal heavyweight champion at 55 doesn't mean much? You are putting together a helluva lot of things in order to make Foreman's victory look almost like a negative let alone a positive let alone a once in history event. The division was weak at plenty of other points throughout history but no-one remotely close to 45 could ever take advantage of it. That is the whole point of the matter. No matter how you twist things around to suit a position it had never happened before, nothing even remotely close had. Foreman not only beat the record, he shattered it. I will readily admit a lot of things aligned for George, they really did. No argument at all. But the thing is he got the job done in the ring.
I say what a I feel about it and there are reasons for it which are not really too complicated. My reasonings for many things even Duran are rather simple. Sometimes making things more complicated makes things confusing. I look at it simply as George fought 3 top guys and beat one who was a weaker champion. I cannot be someone else or think because a guy is however old he is that beating Moorer is a great accomplishment. I don't think it was. Do I think Duran beating Barkley was more impressive. Yes. But , I won't get into that one here. I cannot give credit to guys because of age. So a guy is great if he beats lesser guys when he is older? So if Duran came back now and beat anyone in the top 50 at any weight, that proves he is the best ever? I cannot accept that reasoning. And I am not saying you and others are saying that totally, but I see that a little. Foreman at 45 did something no one else did, regardless of his opponent. He was given 3 chances to do what never happened. Odds are it would happen eventually if given enough chances. Spinks over Holmes to me was much more a rare occasion. This is just how I feel about it. Foreman's win was not that great. He had a lot of heart and patience and I thought he could have beaten Tyson on style, but this win? No matter how I look at it, and added to that the losses to Holyfield and Morrison put it in perspective. I think Evander is higher rated on the heavyweight ranking than George yes. The totality of his record.
I think the Moorer win was great...but Foreman was best when he was a terrifying, heavily muscled hulk. The wins over Frazier (both of 'em) and Norton speak for themselves. Tyson never beat anyone as good as either of those 70s greats imo. The only trouble I have with GF's accomplishments is when trying to decide whether to put guys like Frazier below him in the ATG ranking. I mean, not only did Foreman beat two ATG, but he won the title as an old man (for a fighter). Frazier beat a still-great Ali, who basically beat Foreman like a red-headed stepchild and made him look the opposite of great. Granted, we're talking Ali here, but still.....Foreman didn't just lose, he looked bad in every round of that fight imo.
I agree that Cooney definitely had a ton of potential, but like a lot of guys made too much money too fast and lost any motivation to stay disciplined. The fans completely missed out on Foreman-Holmes never happening.
I think Cooney got a miserable wake up call in the second round of the Holmes fight. I mean, even Sports Illustrated predicted a 2nd round knockout by him (not Holmes), so I imagine getting made to look like a stumbling, uncoordinated oaf so soon must have been quite the eye opener. To this day I know Holmes could have finished him then, but Larry showed how much of a champion he was by not taking any chances with such a heavy puncher. Cooney's rise was meteoric (even if most folks at the time either couldn't or wouldn't notice the age of his opponents), and he was groomed early for the championship. It says a lot that the loss of Holmes began one of the quickest descents into Palooka-ville we've seen in heavyweight history. He was for the most part a non-factor after that imo. Getting knocked out by Spinks must have been unbelievably embarrassing.
The ones saying now "37 is not that old to make a comeback" probably wasn't around at the time. Over 35 was considered ancient back then and Foreman's comeback more a novelty act than anything else. And just not because of his age, mind you, but because he had retired 10 years earlier due to a mental break down and disappeared into preaching and cheese burgers. If you've said in 1987 that he'd become world champion at 45 you'd be laughed out of the room. That just didn't seem in the realm of possibility for anyone except Foreman and maybe his handlers. EDIT: Foreman was actually 38 when he made the comeback.
Athletes and especially boxers aged quicker back then for a number of reasons. Holyfield in 1996 for example at 33 was in today's standards in his early to mid 40's.
Right at the age Larry got stopped by Mike (and of course the former had been away from his peak by a good five years at the time). I do have sympathies with your thoughts regarding the "novelty Big George" thing at first, and though I began to really take George seriously after the Holyfield (which imo he was only five shots away maximum at winning), I was terribly disappointed by the loss to Morrison (not to mention a couple of other fights he should have won handily).
To me Foreman would only have only won if he landed the right punch. The problem is, Larry during his comeback got progressively harder to hit, and even when he was hit he often rolled with it. That's the main reason he never again got stopped after Mike. I see it being a fight filled with holding and George overall definitely getting more banged up than he ended up against Stewart. Holmes by UD.
If we're talking prime Foreman vs. Ali-era Holmes forget it. George is in my top five favorite pfp, but hey Jimmy Young beat him up! He was too easy to hit. Larry would have stopped him in 13 in that scenario, though it's highly probable Holmes would have been knocked down. Just my abstractions, essentially worthless.
