"The Wrong Man" at Heavyweight

Muhammad Ali - (Ken Norton)
Rocky Marciano - (George Foreman)
Jack Dempsey - (Muhammad Ali)
Joe Frazier - (Lennox Lewis)
Muhammad Ali - (Lennox Lewis)
Riddick Bowe - (Joe Louis)
Ingemar Johansson - (Jersey Joe Walcott)
Floyd Patterson - (George Foreman)
Gene Tunney - (Joe Frazier)
Jim Braddock - (Max Schmeling)
George Foreman - (Lennox Lewis)
Sonny Liston - (George Foreman)
Joe Louis - (Jimmy Young)

 

Key word is a "few" times. Wills also beat Langford 13 out of 15 times. I gaurantee you if you give Langford a shot against Dempsey 15 times, he would manage to take dempsey out in two of the 15 oppertunities. Otherwise wills DOMINATED langford, and on the cards too. Wills was so much better than firpo, whom knocked dempsey out of the ring 3 times and dempsey had to be saved by typewriter. Dempsey fans dont want to admit it, but wills accomplished more and beat better opposition than Jack.

I think its a toss up

 

jk

 

Very interesting pick, that. It certainly bears thinking about.

 

To me, Young would have been a disaster..a negative type of disaster for Louis. Just think of how much trouble Louis had with Walcott, with his shifty, quirky, cute style. The problems Jimmy Young would have made for Louis would have been similar, except that Young wouldn't have had the pop on his punches to deck the Brown Bomber like Walcott did, instead, it would have been Young being even more elusive, full time throughout the fight..in the same way as he was vs. Ali and Foreman. Young was a purely defensive kind of animal, far more than ANYONE Louis ever fought..Conn included, and unlike Conn, Young would have successfully avoided the temptation to try to slug it out with Louis, and would have quite possibly won a very unpopular but deserved decision over Joe. I'm talking peak Jimmy Young of course. The trick for Jimmy would have been a replica of the 7th round he had with Foreman..if Louis found him like that, Jimmy would need every last ounce of his slippery skills to evade Louis..and if he did, I'm sure it would never happen again. The other possibility would be if Young, while sucessfully negating all of Louis' offensive effectiveness at the expense of his (Young's) own punch output, he would lose a close decision to Louis.

 

I don't think Frazier is the one for Holmes though, regardless of how well he was cutting the ring off.

 

How many of those 15 times was Langford pretty much shot though? In Langford's early fights with Wills they were competitive and he knocked Wills out in 2 of them. Pretty much the second half of their series you can disregard because Langford was shot.

PS Firpo didn't knock Dempsey out of the ring 3 times and I rank Wills above Dempsey.

 

Again, in fairness to Frazier, George NEVER fought the same fighter, FOTC to PRE-FOTC. I don't care what the general opinion on this forum is because George wouldn't have had an easy fight if Frazier treated him with the same respect he paid to Ali. Frazier was in shape for Ali and was out of shape for Foreman. What people forget the most is the fact that Joe got up six times in the condition he was against Foreman, who was tiring near the end of the round, after the last knockdown. If Frazier made it to the third round against Foreman, I don't believe George would have killed him, as many suggest. Maybe George finishes Frazier by KO? Still, a tiring Foreman seemed quite relieved that the fight was stopped based on the evidence in the post fight interview with Don Dunphy. George could barely catch his breath even though the fight was over.

Even if a prime Joe Frazier was never able to beat Foreman according to the majority on this forum, I'd certainly put my money on the Joe Frazier from 1968 - 1970 to get past the early rounds and make a much better showing of himself. Frazier is more dangerous after the early rounds and it's not unrealistic to believe the best conditioned Frazier could hurt George and quite possibly win the fight.