Rumble in the Jungle 47 years ago

He never took as much damage over the long term as Ali or Frazier did, not even close to it. Probably why he has escaped visible CTE. Same goes for Tyson.

The one who actually surprises me is Holmes. He took a ton of damage, never had an issue, is still fine and speaks clearly.

Ray Leonard sounds like a retired college professor more than a retired boxer, but I didn't follow his career closely enough to see how much damage he took over the years.

 

Big George is made of some seriously strong and stern stuff.

 

Foreman shipped a ton of leather - particularly in his second career.

 

Ok. Maybe I have misspoken.

Apologies.

 

Just a personal observation, no Science behind it. I met Big George in person. I was impressed with his neck. Powerful looking! I suspect that helps a lot in protecting against brain rattling. Ali stopped him through total exhaustion. It would have been a very tough mountain to climb to have put his lights out.

I'm going with the neck!

IMHO, of course.

 

Like everyone else, I guess George was always seeking the most suitable template to live his life by.

Those close to him said that his brooding, intimidating manner was mainly an act. So maybe George didn’t change as much as it seemed, rather he learned to better show himself and be himself.

Would it have necessarily taken shock defeat in Zaire and the loss to Young for Foreman to have his most significant epiphany? Perhaps it would’ve happened anyway but at least George was able to finally address and attach his own constructive meaning to those experiences for reevaluation and change in direction.

The loss of his daughter must’ve sent him back quite a bit but I haven’t really read or heard him say much on the matter.

 

Man, this dude has so much energy at 72! I'd love a commentary comeback.

 

Maybe it was his years preaching, and then being a celebrity afterward. It can't be that common for boxers to essentially take up a second career as a public speaker; doing that probably kept whatever parts of his brain he needed for verbal communication relatively limber. Or at least limber enough that he still has some standard stories/lines that he can deliver smoothly, like an old actor, lawyer, politician, or other public performer.

Just a guess tho.

 

First, there seems to be a genetic component — some people have the right constitution genetically to take a lot of punches and never sustain brain damage, or minimal damage. Others can take far less punishment and suffer from some form of pugilistic dementia at a relatively early age. (Same with CTE for football players, which I think is basically the same thing.)

But on your point about the neck, concussive and sub-concussive damage occurs from the brain getting rattled inside the skull — you get hit, your head gets knocked back and your brain ‘crashes’ into the side of your skull. Having a strong neck contributes to not getting the head snapped back (or not as often or severely) and thus mitigates that kind of damage.

The interesting thing to me, and George is the only one I’ve known to articulate it, is his theory on how the jab contributes to knockouts.

In his autobiography, By George, Foreman states his belief that repeatedly landing a strong jab breaks down an opponent’s resistance this way: When you land the jab and snap the guy’s head, it sends a neurological ‘shock wave’ through the body, down the spine to the legs. Over the course of a fight, repeatedly sending this shock through the system eventually tires/weakens the opponent’s legs until you reach a point that a ‘big’ punch can knock them down or out … basically the support system of the lower body can no longer absorb the force and keep the man up.

That’s his explanation of how you break someone down with the jab, or the ‘science’ behind it. Where he got that, I have no idea, but it makes sense to me. I think in the book he made the point of this being how his work with the jab over the course of the Moorer fight created the condition that Michael was ‘ready to go’ when hit with the big right … that the same punch earlier in the fight wouldn’t have put him down and out.

(He does not say this is the only way to knock out an opponent or that it is required to do this before landing a knockout blow, only that this is how the jab can be used to ‘prep’ the opponent for the knockout.)

This idea always struck me as being really insightful.

 

George is such an icon.