The Mountain That Punches: Young George Foreman

Power and chin are the great equalizer, and he's at least average sized for today. Foreman's one of the few pre Tyson fighters I think would have a shot to be a strong Titleist, though a dominant champion is going to far. Anyway, the nostalgiaists go too far, as always, but he was a superb ATG who was great in two eras, and one of the few old timers who could really make an impact today.

 

Please explain how athleticism, power and chin have changed in 45 years. Today's boxers have access to better training and diets, the boxing science is better equipped but natural talents are gifts from birth.

 

You're getting objective and subjective mixed up. Objective facts tend to support the position that today's boxers would do better h2h than old boxers, because that's what happens in all quantifiable sports. But it's ultimately a subjective call either way. You're a classicist, madballster is a modernist. Can't we all just get along lol

 

We've had this discussion a million times on the forum. I subscribe to the theory that progress happens in all sports. Boxing is no exception. Champions of today's era are on average more skilled and harder to beat then champions from 20, 50, 100, and 150 years ago. The farther you go back in history the less skilled champions were, across all sports, not just in boxing.

That means objective boxing skill declines the farther back you go in boxing history. An Evander Holyfield from 20 years ago could potentially still be a force. A Sonny Liston from 50 years ago much less so. A Jack Dempsey from 100 years ago would not be competitive today. That's just how things go and I am not disrespecting our old champions.

On the contrary, what some of you guys are doing here is highly disrespectful of the heroes of our sport. You are taken them out of their classical era and throw them into mythical matches where they are completely overmatched. Some of you may think you're celebrating old champions that way, when in fact you're ridiculing them. Just don't do it. Other sports don't do it, why do we do it? Foreman and Dempsey were great heroes of our sport in their own respective times, let's leave them there.

 

Yes, but that's the problem. The talent pool is much bigger now. That's why schools are put in divisions, it's not seen as fair to put a smaller school against a larger one, because the odds of them having more talent are much lower. Just so with boxing.

 

Off top of my head, HWs from recent history who weigh on the ballpark of a prime Foreman with average to very good power:

Holyfield
Haye
Povetkin
Wilder
Parker
Chagaev
Ibragimov
Brewster
Mercer
Morrison

Yeah. Big George would still crack today.

 

Based on their respective skill-sets and the way they look on film, I feel pretty confident that Sonny Liston could do well against the likes of Charles Martin, Derek Chisora, and Dillian Whyte. A comparatively unrefined Marco Huck held his own against Povetkin, displaying worse punching technique than Sonny did. A current fighter may have access to more advanced training facilities, but technically they're at best similar and in many cases worse than the counterparts from 50 years earlier.

 

Against smaller men....

 

With better durability, stamina, and chins... they fought for 15 rounds....

 

Not everyone he faced was that smaller than him. Jack O'Halloran was 6'6, 235. Chuck Wepner was 6'4 and weighed more. Vern Clay weighed more than young George and got stopped. So did Mel Turnbow. He faced a lot of guys his size or larger on the way up and most of them got stopped. Dude had power, regardless of whom he faced.

 

And he ony had 3 lbs over Fraizer in his signature win and one of the biggest wins in the HW history. You just can't diminish that display of power.

 

Power is impossible to quantify. The equipment is not reliable or small enough to make comparisons. If we had tiny accelerometers in gloves or training camps we could be able to say "XYZ...."

 

You're comparing schools with boxing, are you talking about regular schools? If you are, then a genius with high intellect would be equivalent to a George Foreman, Ali and other greats. If that's the case then please explain why Mexico has so many great fighters.

 

You're missing the point, in your opinion a boxer from 20 or 50 years ago will fight the same way. Remember they have training camps and they'll prepare and have a plan. Sure if you throw them in UFC style then the new era HW's might have an edge on skills but skills alone don't win the fight.

 

People don't get it, it takes way more than skills to win a fight. Sure Foreman looked like a wild man throwing them bombs when he was young but look at him when he came back, he changed his style. What makes you so sure he wouldn't change his style with new fighters.