i remember earnie when he worked in "yates" wine lodge in liverpool as he was a bouncer their for many years,he was classed as a greeter but really he was a doorman and make no mistake that man got no trouble anyway i asked him once who hit him the hardest and he relpied sonny liston !! so i said you never fought him and he said no he never but when he was a young man he sparred with him in the late 60,s and he said that when liston hit you it was like being hit in the face with a sledge hammer and he never eased up on his sparring partner did liston but what a lovely guy earnie and use to talk to him for ages and he never refused anyone a photo or a autograph,a true gentleman
One of my friends interviewed him for the University newspaper, while he was working as a greeter in Liverpool. During the interview, some drunken idiot overturned the table. Shavers walked over and told the guy that it would be better for his health if he left, and the offer was duly accepted. The guys girlfriend came over and tearfully apologised for his behaviour, and he was very gentile with her.
Interesting, guys like Foreman & liston show how punching is more than speed + mass even considering technique, & they & Shavers were the definition of Heavy Handed. I do not know how Holmes got up from that overhand right. My working theory is that Larry Holmes died upon impact, but the blow was so hard that somehow hitting the canvas reset all systems.
Holmes actually said that the right Shavers hit him with did in fact knock him out cold, but he regained consciousness as soon as he did the canvas. So if anything being floored is what saved him, if you can believe it!
i have three questions. why did shavers hit harder than foreman? was it because he was faster and put his weight into it? if so, if foreman put his body weight into his punches and had as much handspeed and shavers would he hit harder than shavers?
Hard to know. Shavers did seem to use more of his whole body & seemed generally slower. Something as simple as striking force is hard to completely know though-tons of big guys & boxers can throw like Shavers & they do not generate as much force. Foreman-could he have hit even harder with different leverage? Hard to know, maybe his style was ideal for his physiology. Scary to think he could have hit even harder. After this video, read the long first (top) comment below. [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh7ZjhlsE84[/url]
