My Career: Earnie Shavers

Shavers had 68 kos and Ali said Shavers hit him the hardest. That's enough evidence for me. Shavers was a hellacious puncher.

I was at the Shavers Mercado fight. At the time I lived in NW NJ just a short ride from where this bout took place. Shavers was killing Mercardo until a ripped glove caused a significant delay. After the delay it became a different fight.

 

If he was killing him then Mercado would have been too effed up to continue wouldn't he? Where was Shavers's hellacious power then?

 

That just shows that power isn’t everything.

 

It is when you've got it.

 

No it really isn’t.

Power on its own is not worth two buckets of warm spit.

It will not guarantee you success at world level.

 

If you possess otherworldly power and are halfway proficient at landing your shots without being taken out yourself you can have a fair bit of success. Shavers did not possess otherworldly power and was unable to keep his opponents down once they touched the canvas. The same cannot be said for the likes of heavier handed fighters like Tua etc until way past their prime.

 

The truth is that people like George Foreman and Mike Tyson, don’t hit a lot harder than people like Cleveland Williams or Mac Foster, or perhaps some people much worse than them.

Delivery is far more important than power, in making a world class finisher.

As for Tua, he is a prime example of somebody who had other worldly power, who didn’t really manage to achieve much with it.

 

We'll agree on that.

 

You have umpteen common opponents stating Shavers hit harder than Foreman and that his shots were utterly stupendous. Shavers is quite possibly the hardest punching fighter ever. Saying he is anything smaller than an absolutely massive puncher is stupidity at it's finest.

 

Don't forget shavers & foreman have the same teacher.
Archie Moore who have the most knockout of any boxer in history.


also shavers holmes II knockdown are the best right hand that I ever saw.

it will ko most boxer.

 

"It's" is a contraction, not a possessive pronoun.

You can mount as argument that Shavers was the hardest puncher of his era going by what common opponents say, but that has no relevance outside his era.

He certainly wasn't the hardest punching heavyweight ever going by his knockouts. He wouldn't even be a heavyweight today.

 

I'll own that over this "His power was above average" any day of the week :good

In other news water is wet and the sun hot. It would be hard to mount as argument he wasn't.

At 210 pounds he wouldn't be a Heavyweight? Stick with the English lessons.

So you judge power strictly on knockouts? What a narrow minded way to look at a big picture.

 

Are you saying his power wasn't above average?

You could mount an argument for a couple of guys from that era, Foreman for one.

No, at 210lbs Shavers would cut to cruiserweight, where his power might actually be effective. What other way is there of looking at power?

 

Earnie Shavers is the hardest puncher of ALL TIME .

Sonny Liston is the 2nd hardest puncher of all time .


Sonny broke bones when he landed . He made a reputation out of that .

Ron Lyle does not hit harder than Sonny Liston .

 

James Tillis was another who said that Earnie hit him harder than anyone else did.