George Foreman v.s. Bobby Crabtree ?

Foreman himself wasn't exactly in the best of condition was he?

 

Cute story then you realize Marciano was a 180 pounds and people still consider him a heavyweight. Also if you going to use then look at all the cruiserweights Wladimir Klistchko fought.

Steve Panell started his career weighing 173
Jerry Halstead weighed 163
Troy Weida weighed 198
Exum Speight weighed 180
Salvador Maciel weighed 175 or maybe even less
Donnell Wingfield 168
Tony LaRosa 178
Joseph Chingangu 180s
Phil Jackson 185
Lajos Eros 188
Chris Byrd 169
Eliseo Castillo 172
David Haye 189
Jean Marc Mormeck 168

Other guys he fought were below 200 pounds at some point in their careers too. The main difference is when Foreman turned pro in the late 60's up until maybe the early 90's and even later. Most fighters tried to come into the ring light and be in great shape. The guys the Wlad fought were just small guys. Because most guys now will just bulk up and come into the ring out of shape or take PED's to bulk up.

 

Guys like Evertte Martin also fought Wladmir Klitscko and tons of other top guys. Are you going to talk down about them too for fighting them?

Bert Cooper fought most of his career at heavyweight. So that is his weight class. Foreman fighting Qawi is no worse than Wlad fighting cruiserweight Jean Marc Mormeck.

David Jaco was still a heavyweight. Tom Trimm is still a heavyweight. Nobody said he was a good one.

 

I never said he didn't fight any natural heavyweights. I already listed the one's who were blown up from their best weights. Just listing the weight doesn't tell the whole story.

That list is really weak, overall.

What can I say, George milked it to get the Holyfield title shot - only one top 10 contender beaten and that one. Rodriguez was overranked.

Good matchmaking, I'll give him that.

Holyfield was a rock solid 208. He moved up the right way. I don't consider him a blown up cruiserweight. He wasn't a fat blob like Qawi and Everett Martin.

 

Everyone of of those was over 200lbs except for Williamson who was right on the limit.
If you are going to crib about them then how would you evaluate Jim Jeffries opponents? GeneTunney's? Max Schmelings? Marciano's? Patterson's ,Johannsons?Walcottt's,Liston's etc, etc, etc.
Much ado about nothing.

 

Not sure if you found this but I found a clip on my youtube feed earlier :-

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that must have been bobbys best moment in the spotlight! Must have been one of those oldschool satilite programs from the audio you don't normally hear on regular tv

 

Couple things:

I have a number of King Ipitan fights but I never saw that one. Pretty great.

Also, this thread reminds me of a news anchor back in the day commenting on George's early comeback opponents adding: "I think I went to school with Tom Trimm." It was a pretty funny line.

People forget how wild it was when Foreman returned. Nobody knew what to make of it. Was it a joke? Was he serious?

Coming back after a 10-year retirement. Shaving his head before that was a common practice, which made George look even older to everyone - keep in mind this was the high fade, big hair bands, jheri curl, mullet era. Having a lot of hair was a big deal.

It just made no sense a fat, bald, retired for 10 years, constantly cracking jokes, active preacher, former champ was coming back. Especially when vicious, fit Mike Tyson was on top of the heavyweight class and a huge deal.

When he fought on ESPN against Guido Trane, I remember a bunch of us getting together to watch that. It was a big deal. We all liked boxing, but George was like a faint memory from our youth. His 70s fights weren't on TV. ESPN Classic wasn't around yet. No internet. You might find one or two people trading VHS fights in the backs of magazines. What you saw of Foreman was mostly just grainy clips of him blowing out Frazier in Jamaica. But, against Trane, he looked much different ... but pretty good, too.

I bought in at that very moment. (LOL)

 

LEGEND

 

Williamson was a blown up LHW "champ" who haen a 160 lb prospect before that. He was never more than a clubfighter at HW.

Qawi had no business at HW and Cooper was known to be on drugs and coming off losses at CW to Nate Miller and the blown up Everitt Martin.

Then George fought an alcoholic inactive but perpetual White Hope Cooney and the obscure overrated Adilson Rodriguez.

George fought 0 legitimate top 10 contenders before the Holyfield fight

I mean if you watched and read about his comeback writers and announcers openly talked about how he was very carefully picking his opposition and mentioning how, as I've already described, many were blown up from lower divisions.i knew this at the time because I had seen his oponents, with the exception of Trim, fight. Most were clubfighters who had been on USA network before. George was on USA many times in 1987-1989. The Sekorski fight was on ESPN. George had the name and people were curious. So the opponents didn't have to be strong to garner ratings.

I don't blame him
He was smart and it worked.