George Foreman the king of the padded record?

D Sadler and Archie Moore did walk him up the ladder slowly, but I think that they figured that George was ready for Joe Frazier in early 1973 because of the opposition that he chose to fight in 1972, Terry Daniels and Ron Stander.

 

This. To be fair George had a very brief amateur career, so Moore and Saddler gradually introduced him to a multitude of styles, but had to do it slowly, since unlike child prodigies like Ali, Ward, and Mayweather he started boxing as an adult.

My trainer worked as a sparring partner for George for a short time in the late 60’s, since he had trained under Saddler years before and was a former sparring partner for Quarry.

He talked about George being very weak against clever fighters, which is one reason why the Quarry fight never happened, so Saddler and Moore did a great job of developing George and matching him appropriately to allow him to succeed.

Years later when my trainer was brought in as a sparring partner for Ron Lyle and he told Lyle’s trainers that Quarry was bad news for Lyle, but his trainers assumed that Quarry was on the down slide of his career and had Lyle fight Quarry anyway and Quarry completely toyed with Lyle.

 

Def wouldn’t be considered tops as far as competition goes but he’s def tops in performance. He did what he was supposed to do against the level and performed excellently against top competition.

 

When you consider the amount of time it took from George to go from not boxing to becoming a gold medal Olympian to winning the professional heavyweight title of the world off of an undefeated champion, it was fairly brief despite a high volume of lower-level fighters. An admittedly high volume. As far as the comeback method, cripes, how can you blame a guy coming back after a decade for "ballyhooing" as he'd put it? I mean, it's kind of a "duh" method really. Maybe he's one of the kings of it though, fair enough. But keep in mind, he was also fighting guys like Holyfield, then the Morrisons and Briggses, even as old as he was later. Really put those names together with the Chuvalo, Frazier, Norton, Lyle, Ali...Amazing top ten of opponents frankly. Fairly rich top twenty of opponents too, considering the circumstances.

 

Even though George won the gold medal he didn't have a lot of rounds as a boxer and his team knew he had things to work on as a pro, I'd rather see a fighter learn his craft in the ring than sparring

 

Who was your trainer?

 

I think Foreman MASSIVELY underachieved in 70s.

 

Pre Frazier? Think so too. A list of fighters he could have beat and prepair him to be more responsive and versatile against Ali and others.

https://boxrec.com/media/index.php/The_Ring_Magazine's_Annual_Ratings:_1971
https://boxrec.com/media/index.php/The_Ring_Magazine's_Annual_Ratings:_1972

- Quarry
- Bugner
- Ellis
- Terell
- Bonavena (not so different from Chuvalo)

 

Yes and No.

No - Foreman turned pro with just 25 amateur fights, including the Olympic Gold medal match at age 20. He fought some good journeyman early, and Chuvalo

Yes - Foreman as a big puncher is going to blow away the weak. He fought 14 fighters with losing records and probably didn't learn much from these fights going to 37-0. That's padded.

His plan worked. He got a title shot in less than 4 years.

 

I dont think its a bad record.
4th fight Wepner 19-4-2 No problem here
9th fight Davila 21-14-0 Experienced pro
16th O Halloran 18-5-2n Big guy who mixed in some good company
17th Peralta77-5-8.He had drawn with Bonavena in his previous fight and was ranked no10'
18th Brassell a trial horse13-2-0 Acceptable imo
19th Woody 14-5-1 He had made a momentary stir by beating James J Beattie
20th Eastling 19-7-2 An acceptable run out.
23rd Chuvalo 59-15-2 Compares very favourably with other champs 23rd fight
26th Kirkman decent second rater 22-1-0
So no I don't see much to complain about in comparison to other champions opposition at the same stage of their careers.

 

I agree with the progression.

But fighting Chuvalo was still in the middle of 1970. 15 fights fallowed until the Frazier fight. They managed the rematch with Peralta mid 71 (which makes sense) with George stopping him this time, but still taking the same amount of rounds. Chuvalo and Kirkman seems like a step-up, but just half way. It did not continue.
The 15 fights between Chuvalo and Frazier (08/70 - 01/73), the only notable fights they got for him where Kirkman and Peralta. 3-0 Charlie Boston (02/71), 1-2 Vic Scott (09/71), 192lb Leroy Caldwell (09/71), 3-25-2 Clarence Boone (03/72) ?
If I handn´t known better, I would say they had trouble managing his fights. Fought too frequently? Thats 15 fights in 28 months, like 1 fight every two months.

Imho Bugner would have been a perfect learning step for Foreman. Big, rangy and durable.

 

The model for moving U.S. Olympic boxers wasn't really put into place until the successful 1976 Olympic team turned pro, TV deals started getting tossed around, and Howard Davis signed a deal with CBS that paid him like $100,000 a fight (which was considered outrageous). And then a plan was mapped out to get him to a high-paying title fight in X-amount of time.

Prior to that, it really depended on who the fighter's manager was.

Floyd Patterson was able to get early TV dates because he was based out of New York. But I don't even know if 1952 Olympic Heavyweight Gold Medalist Ed Sanders even fought on television.

Ali and Frazier were unique in that both signed deals with a collection of businessment who acted as their backers and paid them a weekly salary and took a cut of their purses. Ali won the Gold Medal in Rome in September 1960 and was fighting his pro debut at the end of October that year.

Sugar Ray Seales won the Gold Medal in 1972, and his first manager didn't know anything about boxing.

When Duane Bobick, who was the 1971 Pan Am Games champ and a national AAU champ before he was upset in the 1972 Olympics by Stevenson, turned pro, everyone was offering him deals. And Bobick nearly took a multi-million-dollar deal to sign with the wrestler Verne Gagne (from Minnesota) who had also signed 1972 US Olympic wrestler Chris Taylor and 1972 US Olympic weightlifter Ken Patera to wrestling contracts. Gagne wanted Bobick to box AND wrestle. That's how goofy it still was.

Earnie Shavers was a national AAU champ. There was no plan when turned pro.

Foreman's manager when he turned pro was Dick Sadler. They didn't even have a contract when Sadler brought Foreman in to train with Liston. Sadler said he could put Foreman in some exhibition bouts on Liston's undercards. Helped George move out of his mom's house and find a cheap apartment. Foreman signed to fight Don Waldhelm on the Frazier-Quarry undercard, and the commission said Foreman had to have a manager. So he signed a boilerplate deal with Dick Sadler that made him his manager for three years or something like that.

That's how loose and unstructured that was. Then Sadler and Foreman went on what George referred to them as barnstorming tours, where they'd just fight on any cards wherever there was a show.

There was no plan in place. If he fought someone good, then it was because there was someone good fighting who had already committed to fighting on that card. That's why he'd fight a name, then 10 nobodies in a row, and a light heavyweight, and then five guys you never heard of.

That's how it typically was.

Up until the second half of the 1970s, most U.S. heavyweights (like Foreman, Shavers, Holmes, Bobick, etc.) still took the slow road up to a title shot, if they got one.

 

Extraordinarily educational. Thanks D!