George Foreman vs. Jerry Quarry

It would be a good idea for Foreman to use his big left jab. That could make it an easier nite but he might not use it. George fought like he was double parked. That could make it a tougher fight with Quarry's stinging him with snappy counters.

 

Yes because Foreman was a carbon copy of Mac "I became number one contender without beating a single top tenner" Foster, and Ron Lyle.

Here is their record against common opponents.

Quarry: 2-6

Foreman 7-1

Foreman was clearly the superior fighter. Their's no getting around it, no matter how bad you'd like to.

 

I've never bought this "Foreman ducked Quarry" stuff. George had beaten Joe Frazier and Ken Norton so why should he have been afraid of Jerry?

 

Like when he fought Frazier. But even quicker.

 

Quarry might last a few rounds--but eventually George lands a few power shots and it ends shortly thereafter. KO or stoppage in 5.

 

Although I have revised my overall perspective about Quarry, I think he's still placed on too high a pedestal around here because he's the kind of fighter who people gravitate to, even though the kind of fighter he was also contributed to the destruction of his cerebral tissue.

 

Prime-for-prime (which never lined up in the actual timeline) Quarry would probably come up short but he’s a live underdog, certainly.

 

Not to mention Chuvalo, who’d beaten Quarry as well.

 

Poor Jerry.

 

A few things contributed to the destruction of his cerebral tissue, and he himself articulated one of those factors as he knew he was succumbing to pugilistica dementia. He expressed that he was too young to validly consent to boxing when his father pushed him into it at age three (followed by his equally unfortunate brother Mike, who also knew he was too young to consent and took too many punches). Benitez was forced into amateur competition by his scumbag father Gregorio at just age seven, and you see his condition today, as it's now been for ages. (He was very obviously badly screwed up at Camacho's funeral a dozen years ago, although he shockingly rose up from his wheelchair to strike a boxing pose before Hector's open casket.)

So far as I'm concerned, this is parentally inflicted child abuse, and while conditioning exercises for boxing akin to what Michael Olajide, Jr. laid out in 1995's Aerobox (which Doug DeWitt surprisingly puffed out, "Man! This is one hell out a workout!" when he tried it) is excellent preparation for boxing competition (along with wood chopping, sawing and splitting for muscular endurance and tensile strength, and hoisting bales of hay or a heavy duffle bag and the like for whole body leverage strength training), there's an extremely strong argument to be made that getting hit in the head without extreme headgear protection (like the heavily padded space mask Galento used for sparring) shouldn't be legal until reaching 18 years of age.

Guys like heavyweights Joe Louis (amateur debut at 17), Sonny Liston (amateur debut past 20), Rocky Marciano (amateur debut past 20 after being drafted by the Army during WW II), Joe Frazier (picked up boxing around 18 to lose weight, but had been pounding a homemade burlap sack bag at the family farm in South Carolina for an hour a day around six or seven years previously) Larry Holmes (began boxing at 18), George Foreman (started boxing right after turning 18), Ron Lyle (started in prison at age 23) Earnie Shavers (began at age 22 after growing up in Alabama hoisting bales of hay, other strenuous work on a cotton farm then excelling on the high school gridiron and track), Ken Norton (picked up boxing during his 20's in the USMC after previously excelling as an outstanding all around athlete in high school, then going to college on a gridiron scholarship), Gene Tunney (started at 17), Jack Dempsey (started at 19), Jack Johnson didn't compete until 20, Joe Louis started at 17, Jess Willard started at 27, John L. Sullivan in his early 20's, Corbett at 18, Fitz at around 20, alternate champion Terrell at 18, Schmeling around 18 after seeing the film of Dempsey-Carpentier, and Sharkey turned professional at 21 after serving in the US Navy.

In the lower weights, the legendary Venezuelan light flyweight Lumumba Estaba has confirmed the widespread allegation swirling around his incredible 13 championship win career as the second ever WBC titlist in the division, that when he began his amateur career at a claimed age of 26 that he is actually much older, but lied because of Venezuela's mandatory retirement age of 40 (and Estaba had his final bout right before he officially turned 40). Officially, he's now 86, but may truly be a nonagenarian.


My point here is that in many cases, a late start in boxing can sometimes lead to a long and neurologically healthy natural lifespan. Foreman and Holmes are by far the oldest living former HW Champions, Tunney reached 81 despite being a drunk, Willard set the longevity record for a former champion two weeks short of 87 despite being morbidly obese. (Jeff had held that record at 77 a month before his next birthday), Dempsey broke his conquest's record by getting within a month before 88, Sharkey reached nonagenarian status at 91 (although southpaw former MW Champ Johnny Wilson was the first nonagenarian former boxing champion, a goal he deliberately aimed for), and Schmeling stopped just six months short of his goal to become the first centenarian former champion from any weight. (McLarnin was an extraordinary exception, an amazing all around athlete who took up boxing at just ten, but he retired at 28 after two incredible wins over Canzi and Ambers, then had boxing history's longest ever retirement of 68 years, finally passing at a still fully cognizant 96.


It wasn't Jerry's style, but the age he was forced into it in part. Unlike say, the 12 year old Cassius Clay, Jr., he didn't chose to become a fighter, his father Jack made the decision for him, just as Gregorio Benitez did for Wilfredo. (Tony Ayala, Sr. got Junior into the ring at age five for the first time.) I expect the gridiron to likewise be devastate as more and more cases of CET get revealed through autopsies of players who started young, thanks to the now over 65 year history of weaponized helmets.


Beyond that, the Quarry boys had a horrible and unusual predisposition to pugilistica dementia that was fully confirmed when Bobby Quarry, who only took up boxing at 20, went only 10-12-2, then was already badly deteriorating when he was forced to retire at just 29. (He's 61 now, but obviously not in very good shape.) Jerry and Mike's parents Jack and Arwanda buried them by several years. Jack died at 83, Arwanda at 84, though it must be conceded in all fairness that most Quarry family members who haven't been boxers aren't that long lived anyway. (Brother Jimmy died at 58, sister Brenda at 55, grandfather Jack, Sr. at 56, grandmother Jeannette at 64...Find a Grave can allow you to trace the typical lack of Quarry genetic longevity.) Even if Jerry had never boxed, there is much familial evidence that he'd probably have died by now anyway, as he'd otherwise be 79.

An additional exaggerating factor adding to Jerry's long term boxing induced brain damage is the fact he was a very heavy drinker with his CBS broadcasting buddy Tom Brookshire. (Plenty of NFL stars from the 1950's to 1960's were proud drunks, like Joe Namath, Bobby Layne, Frank Gifford, Don Meredith, Pat Summerall, Paul Hornung...)


Summing up. The human brain stops growing at age 20. The human skull should not be deliberately be subjected to repeated hard strikes while still in early development, let alone starting at age three. (In Ali's case, again, he chose to take up boxing at age 12, was properly trained and conditioned by Joe Martin, Fred Stoner and Chuck Bodak, and from the time he started on Louisville NBC affiliate WAVE in 1954, he didn't take much punishment in the ring, originally making his name by swarming his opponents even after getting tired and winded like Aaron Pryor, or in most of Notre Dame's famous three two minute round Bengal Bouts. Sean O'Grady has said that much punching speed comes from early amateur competitions fought at blistering paces like this. Ali was 104-8 as an amateur and only Kent Greene had been able to beat him via stoppage until the Holmes debacle. He didn't really take a beating from head shots until the FOTC, Manila, the long term fatal Shavers bout and Holmes. Inoki wrecked his legs for Shavers though and nearly caused one of them to be amputated.)


Jerry was originally rated too low when these internet forums came into being because fans were only familiar with his dismal losses and showings in Ali I & II, Frazier II, Norton and Zanon. Among his wins, only Shavers seemed noteworthy. Then there was the manner of his decline and death. And brother Mike was only familiar for how Bob Foster nearly decapitated him, before his own decline and death mirrored Jerry's. Seeing JQ's wins and some other performances on YouTube restored his reputation, along with Bert Sugar's surprisingly supportive storytelling presentation of his life and career.

Do I think he ever really put it completely together? No, he was getting hit too much by Mac Foster after he'd figured out how he could have successfully dealt with Jimmy Ellis refusing to let Jerry try countering, but the slow and lumbering stamina limited and inexperienced Foreman wasn't the guy to exploit the weaknesses of a potential challenger who would've had utter confidence in defeating him and his predictable style of attack. Jerry was completely confident going into Frazier II, but Futch and Joe surprised him with a master plan, and Frazier had far more left in his tank than Gil Clancy expected after Ali-Frazier II. George Foreman would've had no such surprise to offer them. (It was Clancy himself who would begin to put Foreman back together after Kinshasa. George didn't listen to Gil telling him to get down to Puerto Rico three weeks early to acclimate for Young, unbelievably stupid after what Ali did to him in the African jungle, but very long term, it was just the sort of short punch Clancy taught him which knocked out Moorer as a disbelieving Gil supplied broadcast analysis.)

 

As for Foreman ducking Quarry, there's a vague possibility that, in Foreman's first year or two as a pro (around late '70), some interest had been expressed from the Quarry camp, which Foreman's team passed on.

At Big George's peak, however, I find it highly unlikely that he ducked Jerry. The latter had boxed himself into a commercial corner by then (puns intended) and was financially unattractive.

In any event, Foreman would have laid waste to Quarry - so, probably just as well for the Bellflower Bomber that it never came off.

 

I'm 99.99% with you, but I still maintain that Jerry's style of fighting ... no defense, leading with his head, willing to be hit just so he could hit, IMO he was Rocky Balboa in real life (although more skilled than the fictional boxer) ... didn't help matters but still is one of the reasons he's beloved because people on this site gravitate to true warriors rather than the thinking boxers like Willie Pep. (I know it's a fictional wives' tale but I always thought the tale of him winning a round without throwing a punch was the coolest thing I ever heard.)

 

Yeah, regarding the mythical round three of Pep-Jackie Graves, never let the facts get in the way of an excellent story.

Jerry lost fights he had no business losing, but also won fights he had no business winning, a true headcase in both the negative and positive sense. Even magazine cover stories at his peak headlined how compelling and controversial this was, as he was considered a temperamental rebel, utterly unpredictable.

Even Shavers was weird in the sense that what many predicted actually did transpire. (As for Zanon, Lorenzo had just dominated his upright rounds against post Bobick Norton, so I actually credit Jerry for this one. Later, Zanon would also make peak Holmes look awful in the rounds he kept his feet against Larry. Later, Lorenzo would take 35 of 36 minutes over Evangelista, Alfredo's only minute of success coming late when he hooked to the body a bit before stupidly getting away from it. Zanon's attention never lapsed in a match, and he was always prepared to win every minute of every round. Zanon-Evangelista II is an exemplary display of never lapsing in attention, always moving, punching and defending, and keeping in fantastic condition. Lorenzo did nothing to make JQ's brain worse though. Cranmer was a different story with his increased neurological deterioration though, and Jerry would be dead in six years.)

What was somehow allowed to take place in Aurora, Colorado with Cranmer should've sent the people responsible to jail for felonies.

 

Did you read the fairly recent biography of Quarry? I found it very enlightening although I think the author was a little bit too fanboy about his subject, although MUCH of what you have said was reinforced in the book.