Max Baer vs Ron Lyle

Fatigue, and having a weak chin are two totally different entities. They have little or nothing to do with one another. Fatigue has to do with stamina, or the condition that a fighter is in that night. In Foreman's case, he was reported to have heat exhaustion against Ali. A chin pertains to a fighter's ability to take shots to the face without getting knocked out or stunned. These elements are completely unrelated.

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Rather than make excuses and concessions for Baer, why not credit Foreman with having a successful amateur career, and winning a gold medal. It seems that whenever you compare a fighter with previous amateur experience to one who didn't, you take the position that the latter of the two is at an unfair disadvantage rather than giving credit to the other. I also disagree with your claim that Baer beat better guys long before Foreman. If we look at their first 40 fights ( and we already did ), the two resumes clearly reflect that Baer's accomplishments are not exactly light years ahead of Foreman's.

I look forward to your analysis.

Ok, but beyond Schmeling the comparison starts all over again. How many fighters beyond Schmeling were better than Norton, Lyle or Moorer to name a few. Personally, Farr, Carnera and Galento don't cut it for me.

Ah, but Chuvalo's chin was certainly a good test of Foreman's power wasn't it?

 

Michael Moorer certainly ranks higher though, he beat a prime holyfield, beat jirov, beating several heavyweight contenders in the 90s like cooper and botha, and had a reign as a light heavyweight titlist koing all his opponents, there is no doubt moorer is the more accomplished boxer.

 

His win over Hollyfield is tremendous but what is his seacond best win?

 

Vasilli jirov, on top of that he has about 5-6 wins against ranked heavyweights and hes a former linear heavyweight champ.

 

Lyle was a 2 fisted fighter whose punches came in straight and quick. For a big man he had better than average boxing skills and could bang wth just about anybody. Baer was another big man but had basically one hand, his right. The jab was practically nonexistent and his skills were crude. Here's a man who could've been an all time great given his natural physical assets but he never fully made use of them instead relying on his big right hand to win the day. Picture Max with a hard fast jab to keep his opponent off balance thus setting up his booming right hand instead of winging his right and sometimes backhanding an opponent. Give me 2 men who can punch and I'll take the man with 2 good hands instead of 1 and that means Lyle.

 

Tommy Farr beat a good few fighters who would rate higher than Vasilly Jirov.

Larry Gaines, Walter Neusel, Tommy Loughran, Red Burman. These were all significant wins at heavyweight.

 

Francois botha, bert cooper, melvin foster, bonecrusher smith, axel schulz. On top of his wins at light heavyweight against stewart, swindell, ramzi hassan, etc. In addition to his wins over holyfield and jirov, he has a good resume.

 

Undoubtedly but you have to look at the importence of some of Farrs fights at the time.

Tommy Farr lost to Joe Louis by a narrow decision (no shame there)

He strugled to make headway because of his nationality never wining by decision on American soil. He actualy di a lot better against the top fighters of his era than his record suggests.

He defeated Max Baer while he was still considered perhaps the most dangerous man in the division outside of Joe Louis. He also probably deserved the decisions against Jimmy Braddock and Red Burman that went against him. Some newspapers also thought he deserved both decisions against Baer.

He has a win over Larry Gaines who is widkley regarded as one of the best heavyweights never to win the title. Gaines beat two heavyweight champions in all and would almost certainly have fought for the title if not for the colour bar.

Tommy Loughran although a former light heavyweight was the no1 contender in the heavyweight division breifly around this time.

Walter Neusel was also verry highly regarded and was widley expected to beat Max Schmeling when they fought.

When all is said and done though it is no secret that I rate Farr figher than most people here. He is on the ballot for the Hall of fame this year incidentaly.

 

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Fair enough but you need to give credit to Foreman for winning a gold in the amateurs, giving him an all around better resume, as both an amateur and a pro. Besides, if having short amateur careers were the norm during Baer's time, then whats to say that he was anymore disadavantaged than his peers at the time?

Yes, but Baer also lost several times, some of whom were to men that were not world beaters either. Foreman also destroyed his opponents in pretty decisive fashion, and that includes a few who were rated. His title shot spoke for itself.

 

Basically what you've listed here is a list of fighters, but not all of the outcomes. Baer lost in his first attempts to Schaff, Loughran, Risko, and Uzcudan. He was fortunate to get rematches against them, and frankly I'm not terribly impressed with these guy's credentials. At least 3 of them were under 200 Lbs, and had a minimum of 10 career losses a piece. In a fact, Risko had an attrocious record of 57-38-7 when he beat Bear. If this guy was a ranked contender, then I can only logically attribute it to the fact that it was a result of being an era starved for better talent, and with the ratings manipulated by mob activity.

Also, I doubt that losing to some of these men, was a better acheivement than Foreman at 15-0, beating Gregorio Peralta who was 77-5-8, and coming off a 29 fight win streak. It works both ways, and George certainly proved himself early against some decent opponents.

 

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I understand that, but when you make an argument about even or uneven playing fields we have to look at it from all angles. Foreman had an extensive amatuer career, but came up during a time when many fighters had the same background, and yet he still thrived early on with few or no losses. Max Baer may have entered the pros with a virtually non existant amateur background, but if it was common for him to face others who had the same level of experience and upbringing, then he shouldn't have had a problem, especially if he truly had the natural born talent that authors like yourself often describe him to have.