In Defense of Earnie Shavers

Don't bother asking.

Did the guy who started the Brian Nielsen thread hack your account?

I feel like I'm talking to the same person.

If you think Norton was "shot" going into the Shavers fight then you don't know what the term "shot" means in boxing.

And if your reviews of fights that actually exist on film are this bad, well ...

 

Yes quite frankly.

You say that Shavers beat few ranked contenders, but crucially he beat some.

C00ney beat none.

I see very clear water between them.

 

One of the best Woody Allen movies

Not to mention, when Shavers floored Lyle at the close of the second, the hometown timekeeper let two minutes go by between the second and third rounds, so Lyle could be revived.

Shavers complained about it the following morning in The Denver Post. But the Colorado commission didn't do anything. So Shavers refused to fight there ever again.

 

there was a thread in the general the other day, many were adamant that shavers would beat wlad. i highly doubt it.

 

I respect Shavers. The dude had arguably the hardest right hand in HW history. He came close to getting the title twice. It's a miracle Holmes got up from that knockdown in their title fight. He had some great wins for example the blitzing of Ken Norton and the KO of Jimmy Young. He was a legitimate contender in an era where there were a lot of good heavyweights.

 

Yes Shavers would be a top contender in any era, & could take the title in some.

That overhand right....I have a theory.

Holmes died upon impact.

But the punch was so hard that the aftershock, combined with hitting the canvas, revived him like the "paddles of life". His heart jolted to life again, thus it is like he is Holmes X 2, 36 years old now.

It may have lengthened his career, fighting into his 50's as a New Man.

 

you are a joke that fight was very close. i scored a draw

 

I know you pride yourself on your historical expertise, but we can all check out the youtube video of the Holmes-Norton fight and see with our own eyes that Holmes did not dominate Norton. But we already knew it was a close fight because all the boxing magazines of the time told us so. And even if it was a 10-5 fight, as you claim, that hardly qualifies as one sided.

The Shaves-Norton fight boiled down to styles. Norton had a made to order style for Shavers. Just like he did for Foreman. Shavers beat Norton in a similar way to how Foreman did earlier, and ****ey did later.

Shavers didn't have a lot of quality wins but he did at least have a draw with and a ko of Jimmy Young on his resume. And as many have mentioned a competitive though losing battle with a prime Lyle.

Shavers was dangerous even when he way past it, he kod a young Jeff Sims, who was a decent fighter, and he came close to stopping a prime James Tillis.

Finally, only Holmes great fighting heart allowed him to get up from the devastating knockdown inflicted by Shavers.

Now for ****ey: He beat a bunch of washed up guys who had good names like Lyle, Young and Norton. Then against Holmes he fought a decent, fairly competitive fight, but he never landed anything as hurtfull as what Shavers landed on Holmes. At no time in the ****ey fight was Holmes in danger of losing. He sure was against Shavers though.

 

I watched that fight the other day, and it showed Shavers's right hand landing from a different angle than I had previously seen. The punch looked more devastating (with Shavers's back to the camera) because it showed Holmes walking on to it. It reminded me of how cleanly Ali had been caught by Frazier in their first fight.

I think there are a few heavyweight champs who wouldn't have recovered from that punch. Would you say it was harder than Rahman's against Lewis? I know it's difficult to judge these things!

 

I was at the fight. No super long count. Just sour g****s from the Shavers camp when they couldn't finish the opponent. Just like the 2nd Holmes fight and the Mercado fights. Earnie tags them and hurts them but doesn't have the follow up skills to get them out of there.

The guy out for 2 minutes was Shavers in that Lyle fight. Face first. It took a long time for Earnie to get up. And he didn't face any sort of hitter for a long time after that.

I went to a few other of Earnie's early bouts. All mismatches and everybody liked watching him fight. but nobody was thinking the guy was elite. At best a ranked guy that would have a tough time fighting and beating a diet of top 10 competition.

 

Firstly, Shavers beat at least TWO fighters (Ellis and Norton) who were still relevant, and rated highly (in top 3 or 4 RING magazine).
C00ney did not.

Secondly, C00ney was hyped to death. Massive hype.
Shavers never received anything like that level of hype, so your whole argument is fallacious.

You keep talking about Shavers' hype, but there really wasn't that much of it.

Shavers > C00ney ..... based on the facts that he FOUGHT more top fighters when they were relevant, he actually beat more current contenders - I think C00ney beat NIL ... and Shavers was around for longer.
Even on the score of knocking over bums he managed to do a lot more of that too.

Talking about race isn't going to help your argument. I couldn't care less what skin colour or amount of hair they had.

 

Norton was a good fighter. He gave Holmes a tough fight, gave Ali three tough fights. None of your disparaging remarks will change that.
Not sure anyone is saying Shavers was particularly "special" over all, rather they are saying he was a legitimate contender.

This alone is a lot better than what the much-more-hyped Gerry C00ney managed.