Is Foreman's power overrated?

caldwell did say shavers hit harder than foreman and lyle combined. as far as dempsey and louis, id like to see the source for that.

 

Foreman was a hard puncher for sure, but I think a lot of guys over the years matched (and sometimes exceeded) Foreman's punching power. I think too many fans have a hard time separating Foreman's physical strength from his actual punching power. While he was immensely physically strong, Foreman (in my opinion) was not the big, concussive, one-punch knockout artist that so many people believe him to be. In terms of just punching power, I can think of a lot of guys who could match (or exceed) Big George in the punching power department.

Is it not possible that Tommy Morrison, David Tua, Lennox Lewis, Razor Ruddock could not walk up to a heavy bag and hit it with as much force as George Foreman? What about Gerry Cooney or Mike Tyson or Max Baer? Forget about who is/was the better finisher, the better two-fisted puncher, the better this or that -- just go by pure one-punch punching power.

 

The article from the link states that Louis and Dempsey said Foreman was the most "powerful" heavyweight they'd ever seen. Not "hardest-hitting" as the poster claimed.

I've never seen a source for that either and would need to before I took it as gospel. I don't expect one from Heavy Hands though. I'm still waiting for him to show me which "tons of fights" (or even a single fight) Sonny Liston weighed 208 pounds for as HH claimed he did.

 

well, joe louis and dempsey said that he was more powerful than your crappy hero sonny liston(the overrated guy who did beat a fragile lhw), so i hope don´t listen from you anymore that he was as strong as foreman.

and the word "powerful" is of power... obviously they were talking about strength and hitting power

 

cobra... liston never proved his hitting power against full sized great hws.. just against patterson(a fragile natural lhw) and cleveland williams(210 pounder and not a great thing)... foreman had by far more credentials against full sized hws..

 

can you see all the weights on boxrec?i guarantee you that i saw 208 pounds in several fights 1 year ago on boxrec .. i would not invent it..

 

I think if anyone told George, who sparred with Liston, that Sonny was not an all time puncher he would laugh. Sonny could bang with the best of them. Who was the hardest hitter is a matter of pure speculation. I can't compare Listons power since I never saw him. Between foreman and Shavers however George appeared to hit much harder. I was not overly impressed with Shavers power hitting the bag but to this day the times I saw Foreman back in 74 ring loud in my mind. Crushing power...frighteningly hard.

 

pure truth :rofl:rofl

 

foreman sparred with lison and george never mentioned him in the top 3 of the hardest punchers that he faced(sparring or real fight) h e mentioned ron lyle, cooney and cleveland williams, not liston.

 

Yes, you can. And yes, you DID invent it. That weight never appeared on Sonny Liston's record because he never weighed that much for a fight. Period.

So remember that the next time you feel the urge to call anyone "ignorant" or the urge to indulge in any childish name-calling on any other poster. You don't even have your own facts straight.

 

No necessarily. Nat Fleischer called Oscar Bonavena "the most powerful fighter I've ever seen". So are we to assume that Nat was referring to Oscar's punching power as well? No.

 

I think Foreman was a bigger hitter than Jeffries .. Shavers may have hit harder but I think Liston hit just as hard as Shavers ... there is a category of huge punchers ... Joe Louis, Liston, Williams, Foreman, Lyle, Shavers but not to be forgotten were Mike Weaver ( a true two handed, one punch KO guy ), Bonecrusher Smith, Lennox Lewis, Mike Tyson ... others come to mind as well ...

Foreman was the physically strongest .. Louis and Tyson and Williams combined it with speed .. Lewis had terrific skills w his size and may have been second strongest ... long story short , Foreman was a murderous puncher ...

 

you are now boring like hell.. boy yes boy, you right you right , i admit it, happy now?, please forget me....:tired:hi:

 

Found this interview with George concerning Liston.....
*
So few really knew heavyweight boxing*legend Charles "Sonny" Liston inside out of the ring, and the pattern of his life, which ressembled a knocked down book of horoscopes. One person who did spend time with him was George Foreman, who was a teenage sparring partner prior to his own Olympic Triumph in Mexico, and afterwards. George who's attending the WBC's Convention in Las Vegas has been sharing his memories with ***********'s James Blears, who started by asking him, how it had all come about?
*
GF: At the end of 1967, I was invited into Sonny Liston's training camp. His manager Dick Saddler needed a big guy for him to have atmosphere, so they asked me to come in and spar with him. And my trainer at the time asked me whether I would mind. I took him up on it. So I had that relationship before the Olympics. I sparred a couple of rounds with him, and boy what it did for my confidence. So after the Olympics, I met Dick Saddler who was the manager for Sonny Liston. I told him I'd like to go into boxing, but start slow with exhibitons, and would he be able to help me? That brought me to Saddler, and he brought me to Liston and we became stablemates.
*
***********.com: What was Sonny like, and what was it like sparring against him? His left jab and left hook were monstrous.
*
GF: His right hand was also a killer! There wasn't anything missing from Sonny Liston. He had the whole package. Of course, Muhammad Ali was more nimble, but there was no better accurate right hand punching, after that left jab. Saddler wanted me to learn, so he'd admonish Liston not to be too tough on me. But I didn't know any other way. No one had given me any information on how to spar, so every time the bell would ring, I'd try to fight. And a few times he knocked me off him, so I felt his power, and I knew he was a great boxer. But more than everything, he had coordination which meant that if he got you going with his left jab, he would keep you going until the bell rang. Liston had it going for him.
*
***********.com: He wasn't as tall as you, but he had one of the longest reaches.
*
GF: If you got into the ring with him, and try and catch him with jabs, you'd lose, because although he wasn't my height, when you looked across the ring he seemed to be ten feet tall. And he had extra long arms, which reached all the way down to his knees. He could do some wonderful things with them. And he had the widest fingers you've ever seen in your life. He was truely a big gifted heavyweight.
*
***********.com: Do you think he was left handed. It's difficult to know, because he couldn't read or write.
*
GF: I saw him sign autographs. Evidently he'd met a priest somewhere down the line, who'd shown him how to draw his autograph. Sometimes we'd both sign them, and I'd be done and he was still signing two or three, and it would always be done with his right hand.
*
***********.com: What was Sonny like up in the ring, and outside the ring?
*
GF: He was a good boxer because he'd learned to box early on. He'd been taught well, so he knew how to follow instructions in the ring. He wasn't wild. he followed the instructions of his trainer to a tee. And outside the ring, he was gentle and really kind to me. One time, I guess he didn't know that I didn't know that he was illiterate. I tried to show him a horrorscope book. I said read this, and I handed the book to him and he knocked the book out of my hand....get that 'Blankety blank....out of my face!" And it made me feel bad, but later on, Saddler made me understand that the Big Man didn't mean any harm. He was a nice guy, but he had this defensive mechanism that would make people stand so far away, and not to cross the line and find out too many of his secrets.
*
***********.com: How old do you think he was when you met him? When he fought Muhammad Ali, he looked old already.
*
GF: I had no idea of his age. As a matter of fact, it never crossed my mind because Liston was doing all the things the young heavyweight couldn't do.* So physically there wasn't anything wrong as far as I could see, that was a challenge for him at his age. I saw him fight Henry Clark and Scrap Iron Johnson, and he was the one who had the stamina in the last rounds. The only time I saw a ***** was when he fought Leontes Martin. But then Liston was sick prior to that. He got a cold he just couldn't recover from. And he would go out after a boxing match and start drinking and it would sometimes last a month. Then he'd come back and get into training. I think he finally went to the well, and there just wasn't any water.

I spent a lot of time with Sonny Liston, and the last time I truely met with him, he asked me to read a contract. I read it to him, and he responded: 'That's what it says? That's what I thought." I wish I'd known earlier that he had a problem reading. I'd have stayed a little closer to him.*

 

George Foreman vs Sonny Liston (primes), incl. expert analysis
George Foreman vs Sonny Liston, including expert analysis from the Ring, June 1992. Might come a bit of a suprise to the younger posters to hear Terrell and Wepner's opinions..

Bill Gallo- "These were two very strong and determined fighters. Liston really was a very good fighter. becaise of his negative personality, and the bizarre outcomes of the Ali fights, he isn't given as much credit as he deserves. He ahd a great jab, and knockout power in both hands. His mean persona made him appear bigger than he actually was.
The old Foreman was always going forward. I don't recall him ever taking backward steps. He thought he could knock everybody out. Buyt he didn't have one-punch knockout power. His punches were usually heavy, thudding blows that wore guys down. It usually took Foreman several successive punches to knock a guy out. And when he wasn't successful, he was usually the one who would run down, as in his fights with Ali and Jimmy Young.
Foreman would come and go after Liston the way he did against Ali. But Liston was cagey. He would bide his time, slowing Foreman down with his jab. As the fight progressed, liston would do more scoring. I see Liston coming on in the later rounds, taking control, and stopping Foreman sometime after the 10th round."

Bill Gallo is a veteran boxing writer and cartoonist from the New York Daily News.

Ernie Terrell- "Oh boy, it would have been something to watch! We're talking about two very tough men, not just tough fighters, Liston was a very good boxer in his prime, which was the late-50's and early-60's. I sparred with him, but since I was much taller, and was a boxer, his jab, which was one of his best weopons, didn't affect me the way it did most other fighters. Physically, he could do more in the ring than Foreman.
It's a shame Foreman couldn't combine the power and speed of his youth with the improved defense and maturaity he shows today. Still, he was a very strong guy. Most of the men he knocked out he hurt first. Foreman had a great chin, but even greater determination. Getting up from those knockdowns and coming back to beat Ron Lyle proved what he was made of.
The fight would flow the same way Foreman-Lyle did. Both men would connect with big punches. But Liston was abetter all-round boxer, and he was certainly a better puncher than Lyle. By o means would it be an easy fight for Liston. But I see him coming on as Foreman weakens, and scoring a knockout around the 11th round."

Chicago based promoter Ernie Terrell is a former WBA heavyweight champion.


Chuck Wepner- "I fought Liston in his last fight, and Foreman when he was on his way up, so I speak from experience when I say they were two of the hardest punchers ever. it would be hard to match two harder-hitting heavyweights. Even though I though Liston was at the end, I thought he was still a very good boxer. He took a good punch, and he had a lot of savvy. In his prime, he could do it all.
When he was younger, Foreman's most impressive quality was his awesome brute strength. He liked to push people around, but he could be wild with his punches, and that cost him against Muhammad Ali. He was alot like Liston then. Both liked to intimidate their opponents, but you couldn't intimidate either one of them. With George, though, it was an act; he's always been a good guy.
It would be an action packed fight. Both had good, hard jabs, and didn't hesitate to open up and throw bombs. But Liston was a much better boxer. i don't beleive anyone could have beaten Liston in his prime, including Ali. I see Liston stopping Foreman in six or seven rounds."

A heavyweight contender in the 70's, Chuck Wepener was stopped by both Liston and Foreman.