Overrated Punching Power

You can tell who punched harder by watching their fights. Novel idea I know.

 

I cannot believe somebody put Julian Jackson on this list. In my 50 plus years I think Julian Jackson may be the hardest puncher I have ever seen.

 

This is more to do with other things like speed, accuracy, timing, technique etc. etc.

George Foreman had very few 1 punch KO's so I guess he didn't punch hard either :nut

 

The same can be said about Foreman. That doesn't mean he wasn't one of the top 2 or 3 hardest punchers. To be honest, outside of Wlad and Marciano, not many heavyweights have really had the 1 punch, out cold power. Shavers, Tyson, Foreman, Liston, Lewis, etc all tended to bounce guys off of the canvas enroute to knocking them out instead of knocking them out with a single shot and without dropping them before hand.

Also, I think it's pretty safe to say that when four or five common opponents who fought Shavers and other huge punchers all clearly rate Shavers as the hardest puncher they fought, that Shavers did indeed puncher harder than anyone else at that time.

 

Ike Williams. He's one of my all time favrote boxers. However his power gets a little overrated. He's an outstanding and underrated boxer though.
I rate him at #3 at lightweight behind Leonard and Whitaker.

 

No it doesn't, stop over-complicating things. Shavers landed plenty flush on lots of guys and didn't knock them clean out. Hence, his reputation as the hardest one punch hitter in heavyweight history is unjustified.

 

Foreman's a little different because unlike Shavers he routinely hurt guys with slow, badly thrown glancing blows. That's a case where lack of speed, accuracy, technique etc really do play a part. Shavers wasn't a great technician but he at least knew how to turn over a right hand and catch you flush on the chin with it. He just couldn't knock you unconscious with that shot.

I don't care if people want to call Shavers one of the most dangerous early rounds fighters in history; that's a claim which can be somewhat backed up. But they don't. They want to call him the hardest one punch fighter, which is where I object.

 

They have everything to do with it. Punch placement, speed, and timing are vital to scoring knockouts. It just so happens that Shavers was lacking in all 3 of those areas compared to other punchers who scored better knockouts than Shavers. It is true that the hardest punches are the ones you don't see comming. With the case of Shavers, most saw the punches comming and knew where they were going to land, so they acted accordingly by either simply bracing for the punch, rolling with it, or blocking/ducking it.

Give Shavers the speed and timing of Mike Tyson, he'd have become one of the ATGs because he'd be blowing everyone away. As it is, Shavers made it to two championship fights with almost raw power and good aggression alone.

Who, in your estimation, punched harder than Shavers?

 

Foreman rarely knocked people out cold either, very few fighters did. Shavers does have more devastating 1 punch knockdowns than Foreman does though. Foreman usually hurt people and decked them with a barrage of punches then finished them off when they got up. Shavers wold knock guys down with brutal, single punches. They did generally get up, just as they did with Foreman, but unlike Foreman, Shavers wasn't a top notch finisher and the oponent was let off the hook.

Regarding who hit harder between Shavers and Foreman, it is tempting to pick Foreman, but there are multiple common oponents who stated that Shavers was the harder puncher between the two.

Muhammad Ali, Ron Lyle, and Ken Norton all said Shavers was definitely the harder puncher, and I'm sure that the 3 would know best out of anyone because they were hit by huge shots from both men.

 

Wait, when did Shavers become the 70s version of Bob Sapp? When did he become this slow uncoordinated oaf, happy slapping guys with snail-like glancing blows? That doesn't resemble any version of Shavers I've ever seen in the ring any more than the one punch knockout machine that people so zealously like to promote.

And even if Shavers was lacking in these qualities, so what? One punch power is based on a number of factors, not just "raw power" (whatever that is). You don't rate fighters on what they could hypothetically achieve given completely unattainable physical upgrades, you rate them by what they did in the ring, and if their lack of speed or accuracy or technique hindered them in some way then too bad.

You're doing a hell of a lot of qualifying here for someone whose reputation should speak for itself.

Based on results in the ring, quite a few fighters.

 

I know. That's why it's such a good yardstick for separating out the hard punchers from the truly exceptional punchers. Tua, Lennox, Wlad and Tyson all knocked fighters out cold more than once, which is why I rate them highly as punchers.

Why doesn't Shavers have the kind of stoppages the above fighters had? Given some of the less than durable opponents he fought it's disappointing that only Ellis really rates in the one punch category (and Ellis wasn't out cold like Ruiz, Moorer or Chambers were).

And Tyson has more devastating one punch knockdowns than either of the two men put together. That isn't hyperbole; the video footage is out there. But I don't quite see what you're arguing here. You acknowledge that Shavers didn't have the sort of punch to truly put someone's lights out, and lacked the ability to finish them when they were hurt (a point I addressed above) so where exactly does that leave him?

Shannon Briggs thought Vitali punched harder than Lennox or Foreman. It doesn't stand to reason that he's true. When you're getting your brains rattled to the point of near-unconsciousness I'd imagine it's kind of hard to accurately gauge anything, let alone the relatively minute differences between two or more heavyweight punchers.

Saying that it would be interesting to see what Ron Lyle and Ken Norton have to say about Gerry Cooney's power. Both men were destroyed in a far worse fashion than either of the above managed to achieve.

 

Shavers has enough universal opponents that will ALL say he was one of the hardest punching heavyweights ever. Ali, Holmes, Lyle, Norton. Lyle said Earnie hit him harder than Foreman did.

Ruddock's power is not overrated. Tyson once said Razor punched like a mule kicks. Watch his knockout of Dokes and Bonecrusher Smith.

Bob Foster cleaned out his division with quite a few knockouts. I think you're way off on this one.

Tyson, Liston, Dempsey, power overrated? Very real power IMO. Can't see how anyone would call these guys overrated by punching power.

 

Ali - old, shot, wasn't knocked down, won the fight
Holmes - knocked down once in 23 rounds, won both fights
Lyle - knocked down, got up, won the fight
Norton - TKOed in one by Shavers, knocked unconscious in one by Cooney

Got any more winning quotes? Maybe from Berbick, Mercado or Jerry Quarry perhaps?

 

I'm starting to wonder whether you were one of Shavers victims.

 

No one can say who is underrated or overrated because none of you chumps took the punches. Tomasz Adamek would KO all of you yet he's not known for his power. What does that say?