Sonny Liston v Evander Holyfield

I think that fighters knows exactly who hit him harder.I am fighter and I remember which punches i felt hardest.From every fight or sparring in 15 years of boxing.

 

Again, though, it gets murkier as you make more comparisons. The evidence shows that Foreman definitely hit hard by today's standards, and that Shavers was at least comparable to Foreman in the 1970's, but I don't think that comparisons of testimony 20 years apart from two sets of people is enough to say that Shavers hit harder than anybody around today.

 

Agreed,

And another thing to consider was that Ali was 35 year old when they met in 1977, three years after fighting Foreman. Its possible that a man's punch resistance and heightened sense to pain can change within that time. Holmes also said that Shavers hit harder than Tyson, which could have been the result of the very same phenomenon, ( or his disdain for Tyson. )

Incidentally, Jimmy Young rated who his hardest hitters were and he ranked them accordingly:

1. Shavers
2. Foreman
3. Cooney.

 

Memories corrode over even short time periods. The legal system's trouble with witnesses (and the reason for its ridiculous evidence rules) stems primarily from this problem, as does a lot of fact-checking in oral history and news reporting. Psychologists agree that memories alter over time -- not by forgetting them, but by subtly changing the details. The human mind rewrites its own memories. Boxing exacerbates the problem, since each fighter is trying to damage his opponent neurologically. Quarry, for instance, didn't even remember that Shavers had hit him after their fight.

I'm not saying that these guys would forget hard punches they took, but that their memories aren't reliable enough to match the subjective impression that the punch made on them at the time with (for instance) some specific PSI measurement.

In other words, let's say that you listed all of the hardest punches you took, and you ranked them according to how they felt. If we could somehow measure those punches on a PSI-meter attached to a heavy bag, I'm not sure that your ranking would correspond to the machine's readout.

(Then again, it might. As far as I know, nobody has experimented with this. I'm just skeptical).

 

For some reason this post is really funny, and I don't mean that in a derogatory way. Read that text with Patrick Stewart's voice.:yep

 

Right. To use an extreme example, I bet that some of the hardest punches that some boxers remember are the ones they took when they were kids boxing other juniors.

 

LOL.. The effect was rather humorous when I tried envisioning it myself.

 

The difference between Patterson and Holyfield? Holyfield goes into every fight knowing he can take a punch and strongly believing he can win. Floyd has confidence issues a lot of the time, not believing he's capable of beating the opponent. He should have performed a lot better against Liston but left his boxing skills and confidence in the dressing room. It's amazing how a fighter with arguably considered the fastest hands in heavyweight history by man, performed so poorly.

 

Holyfield too mobile unanimous points win .

 

It wasn't about Floyd performing poorly, it was about Liston performing beastly.

 

Evander wouldn't bring a false beard and moustache to the arena with him in case he lost. Boxing is as much mental as it is physical and Evander had the mental toughness to go along with his physical talents. This fight could go either way as far as I'm concerned.

 

whatever speed edge holyfield has is negated by liston's reach and his power. that's not really debatable. bowe's jab found holyfield easily, so would listons