Is George Foreman the most overrated boxer in history?

Coming from a Frazier fan, I would agree with this. Foreman is H2H demon against any swarmer in history and knocks out those you mentioned.

Foreman is not that overrated because the man pulled off something no other Heavyweight ever has. He owns wins over Frazier, Norton, Lyle, Qawi, Cooney, Stewart, Moorer, Savarese and arguably Briggs. These are wins over quality contenders and champions in two different eras. Twenty years after he lost the title from Ali, he regains it by KOing Moorer.

 

George Foreman is not overrated. I feel that some people may be thrown off a bit by Foreman's style, and Foreman's number of somewhat easy wins.

In regard to Foreman's style; I've always stated that George was better in spite of it, not because of it. George used his strengths to overcome his technical short comings. Strength is the key word. George Foreman has to be one the physically strongest men to ever step into the ring. Add to that his strong will, and strong chin; and you get one the sport's most brutal waves of destruction.

Regarding Foreman's record, its not all filled with stiffs. Sure it's padded with some easy fights, but don't overlook the good fighters he conquerd as well. Joe Frazier is one of the best heavyweights of all time(8th on my list), and was no where near being shot when Foreman became the 1st of only 2 men to defeat him. When you accompany that accomplishment with the annihilation of Norton, the ko of Lyle, and a 2nd win of Frazier; you start making a strong argument for your greatness.

Then you have his 2nd career, so to speak, largely taking place after the age of 40. Foreman became the oldest to win the heavyweight title when he battered undefeated Michael Moorer into defeat. Most don't word it that way, but that is the way it happened. For some reason, this fight gets viewed by many as having been won by a lucky punch out of nowhere. That was not the case. George did not win 7 of the first 9 rounds, but he dealt out punishment to Moorer for than many rounds. The fight is on Youtube. Watch him club Moorer round after round, and repeatedly land his 1-2 combination all fight long.

 

Foreman had an odd career, he had the biggest build up fighting nobodies, then he fought Frazier, Norton was a perfect foil( never beat a puncher) but George had amatuer pedigree and was a great puncher, just never paid the dues to learn his craft and was a wide swinger with zero stamina...was exposed by Ali, then Young....but Big George had a champions heart( proved it vs Lyle) and learned to pace himself in comeback( was a better fighter than before just in an older body....still Foreman was never complete unless you combine both of his careers....they avoided certain guys like Quarry coming up and Lyle showed why they did....Is George overated, well he was one of the reasons Ali is rated so high.....Is George top 10 ATG...yes...is he top 5 ...after Louis,Marciano,Ali.......its all an opinion

 

The same way it suits your argument, so you may claim the ABC titles are bad and worthless, compared to old-time one champ at each weight, but being ranked by an ABC org is good enough for you, even though that theoretically may mean 30 or 40 (depends if you count the WBO) different fighters ranked as "top 10 best in the world" at each particular moment.

He was also knocked down by Dutra (65% KO ratio), Eastling (19%), Brown (34%) and LeDoux (44%). Garcia was 12(6KO)-2-1 coming up from middleweight just a little over a year prior (and finished with 48% ratio), and was hurting Norton with single punches in the re-match as well.

 

No way! The Schultz fight was horrendous. George's eye didn't just puff up and grow grotesquely swollen because of wind abrasion; Axel Schultz beat the hell out of him and got jobbed. The Briggs fight was a much closer fight, although I thought George won it.

 

I feel Foreman is overrated both from a H2H standpoint and overall career standpoint, but his career is saved by having extremely high peaks to compensate. I don't get how a supposed ATG with over 80 fights only has a dozen against top 10 competition, with essentially a .500 record against them and gets the accolades he does, but George has 3 things working in his favor: 2 great wins at the top of his resume over Frazier, the come from behind KO of Moorer 2 decades later in a fight he was losing badly up to that point, and that when he won against top 10 comp, it was usually a KO. That he's a likeable KO fighter definitely doesn't hurt because guys like that will always have legions of fans, too.

There's still no excuse whatsoever for him to have never fought Larry Holmes. I see Tyson get **** for not fighting George, but Larry would fight Foreman today and George never gave him the fight. George also never gave Schulz the rematch he deserved, going after Crawford Grimsley instead, who's best known for being the victim of the fastest KO in heavyweight history.

And, despite being one of the hardest hitters the division's seen, his record is inflated by fighting guys who had no business being in the ring with him. We're talking guys with a 1-14, 4-20, and 4-16 record in the year prior to the Foreman fight. If a championship level heavyweight today did something like that, they'd take so much **** for using it to pad their KO record that alot of people would have a hard time taking it seriously- hell, I see people using the argument against the Klitschkos while completely ignoring the fact that Foreman was the absolute king of the padded KO record.

His accomplishments overall are impressive, this just happens to be a fighter I love to play Devil's advocate on.

 

I can't fault Foreman for fighting easy competition early on in his comeback; he had a lot of ring rust to shake off. But he didn't really upgrade his competition much as his comeback advanced. The fighters that he fought who had more name value - Daniels, Qawi, Cooper, Cooney, etc - were so grossly past it, shot, or simply inactive and out of shape as to be absurd opponents. Adilson Rodriguez was one of those "contenders" that somehow sneaks into a top ten list when nobody is looking....And it wasn't until Holyfield starched him that he fought Foreman.......The Tony Tubbs and Tyrell Biggs that an up-and-coming Riddick Bowe fought were several notches above Foreman's best comeback opposition pre-Holyfield.

 

Holmes earned his shot against Holyfield by beating Ray Mercer, a bonafide, up-and-coming top ten contender. Because of styles and skills, I think Ray Mercer was about the easiest of the "young gun" heavyweights for a guy like Holmes to beat. But the point is he still fought him and beat him!

And I thought Larry Holmes did better against Evander Holyfield. Holmes finished that fight looking about the same as he did at the start; Foreman received massive amounts of punishment from Evander, and from about the 8th round on, Foreman did little but walk forward and get nailed. Holmes showed much more savvy and skill, and he picked his spots better and stole the last two rounds.

 

Adilson Rodriguez was a bum! Brazillian Heavyweight Champ? That's a lot like being the European Heavyweight Champ; that's like Jean Pierre Coopman or Richard Dunn, the Lion of Flanders, being billed as some wacky heavyweight champ in the buildup to his fight with Ali.

And back to Holmes: I agree that after beating Mercer, Holmes' remaining comeback years were not overly impressive. He fought bums, ham-and-eggers, and "earned" his shot against McCall probably because he looked so weak and vulnerable against Ferguson. But I thought HOlmes might have beat McCall. Holmes fought a very competitive and close fight against McCall; Foreman was losing lopsidedly before lowering the boom.

 

Another thread were facts are overlooked and fiction becomes reality.............lets forget about his first carreer and focus on his comeback.

Him, and later with Arum, carefully handpicked his opponents on his way up. Fact.

Calling the shot , drug abused and boozed out Cooney a legitimate threat is a joke of the highest order.

I saw the Rodriguez fight in Reno on the Holy undercard and Brazilian Heavyweight champ my ass , translation = a nobody with tier 3 skills.

Going life and death with fringe contenders Stewart/Saverese both times going the distance while getting a gift in the Stewart match while a washed up Tyson beat 'em both in less then one round combined.

Schultz ? lol, I guess the plan almost backfired and good ol' Arum had to do some "fixing" lol and that led us to Grimsley, lmao.
By his own admission he did not consider Holyfield a legitimate heavyweight puncher and that why he pursued the fight. Lucky him, if Tyson, Bowe, Lewis etc would have teed off 10/20 powershot combinations he would have been in the morgue, but he knew that and avoided ANY legitimate threat like the plague.

Forget about Tyson, Bowe, Lewis, what about Golata, Mercer, McCall, hell even washed up Tucker or Witherspoon, Holmes,Ruddock Bruno, Gonzales, Botha and the list goes on.......Foreman nowhere to be seen way too much risk with not enough reward to cash in, yes, cash in that was Georges prime motivation and that why he rather dropped the belt instead of fighting anyone worth a lick.

I give him credit for the Moorer fight despite being his usual punching bag until he landed the Hail Marry against iron chinned Moorer, but then getting outboxed by Tommy Chin, ouch, that backfired too, that guy was supposed to fall over from the first punch George threw................the Briggs fight was total nonsense, lol, he was almost in a wheel chair and still should have gotten the decision.

In conclusion, everytime he stepped he struggled or lost. Fact.

 

KO's a shot Joe Frazier in 1973...beats up Joe"King" Roman....Ko's Norton...runs out of gas against Ali in 1974..and then is KO'd by a past his prime Ali...loses to Jimmy Young...then comes back and beats Moorer...does that sound like top 5?...Nah!!!

 

Must be the first unbeaten world champ in history to be 'shot'.

 

George Foreman was more then competitive throughout his contest with Michael Moorer. Foreman busted Moorer up for at least 7 of the 9 rounds preceding the knock out. Foreman may not have won that many rounds during the fight, but he was doing considerable damage as long as the fight lasted. Lead rights, hooks, and body shots made a contribution, but the real story was Foreman's jab and right cross. Foreman landed thudding jabs and solid crosses every round. You can find sequences of punches almost identical to the ko all through the fight.

For those of you that continue to follow the legend of the event, rather than watching and giving an actual account of what happened, here are links to rounds 2-10 of Foreman vs Moorer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBTXMy4Flww

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGo4sF3MxGY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDXjpeKqPtw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ4k9x3Z9pg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zNS2mNy0dU&feature=related

 

But the " boom " was landed nonetheless. He won the freakin' fight against an undfeated lineal champ in his prime, and did so against impossible ods. Holmes LOST. Big difference. And it means nothing to me that Foreman " struggled " on his way to one of the biggest cinderella victories in history. Foreman got the win, Holmes didn't......Period........

 

Respect to your opinion and post DudeGuyMan.

Like I said eariler, there's a huge difference between the prime Frazier of 1967 - 1970 and the Frazier that fought Foreman in 1973. A completely shot Frazier, wearing contact lenses to help his vision went five rounds with Foreman before being knocked out.

Foreman wouldn't have beaten the prime Frazier inside two rounds. I'm not denying the fact that Foreman probably has Frazier on the canvas early more than once, but he wouldn't have finished a pre-FOTC conditioned Frazier inside two rounds.

Prime Joe Frazier deserves more credit and respect than that, especially considering his dominance during the late 1960's. I believe he would have had a better chance of surviving the early rounds and giving Foreman a tougher battle than he showed.