Was Buster Douglas Really Stronger Than Evander Holyfield?

I got to watch that. That left hook that dropped Ali pretty much got me started into boxing.

 

Even the most severe critics of Foreman admit to his raw strength and power.

However the myth that Foreman is the most powerful Heavy ever is just a ...........myth, end of.

He won his belt from a chinny little guy............waxed a bigger chinny guy who always froze vs Punchers, was handled by Ali like a Man child in a one sided fight, went life and death with the definition of a fringe contender in Lyle and got clowned by a absolute Feather fist.....them met God and disappeared.

Second career he fought nothing but stiffs, bouncers and Longshoreman to get into title contention, acted like a pure Heavybag in his first title attempt and had to wear black shades for a week straight to hide the beating he took. The most powerful Heavy that has ever lived could not stop club fighters like Stewart, Savereasy ,Grimsley and Tommy Chin.............all of them were put to sleep by other fighter in mere seconds....yet the most powerful"shoving" Foreman went the distance with every single one of them.............he finally got lined up vs another feeble minded glass cannon named Moorer who got Evan Fields on a malfunctioning Roid cycle and pulled out the miracle in the 11th hour after again acting like a genuine Heavy bag for the fight. Got a gift against a feather fisted German Palooka and got stripped of all belts by refusing to fight the Ghost of Tony Tucker or give the robbed German a rematch.

That in a nut shell is the "Most Powerful Heavy " that has ever lived.

As far as Fields vs Butterbean Douglas, well, Fields faced the real Douglas becau se Tokyo Douglas only existed for ONE fight when al;l the stars lined up vs a disinterested women partying skip training Champ and all personal tragedies in the Douglas family for one day and one night created Tokyo Douglas, a mountain he could never ever climb again because there were no more sad Family illness and death.Fact.

Tokyo Douglas vs Mirage Casino Fields is at least as good or close to, as Bowe/Moorer /Lewis and Ruiz who handled Fields with relative ease.

 

8 weeks really isn't enough time, but given that amount of time Foreman would accel to a higher level than a lot of people, he has more potential, when he joined the job corps he went into carpentry and brick laying, then initially trained for football, he mentioned having to stop lifting weights for boxing and has never given an answer for his bench press, there were NFL guys from the 70's that did strongman and I just don't see any reason why Foreman could not perform near/on their level with somewhat minimal training, would need more time to compete with the top guys, Foreman wasn't known for his stamina in boxing but it was still probably a lot better than the majority of strongmen

 

Lol. Okay babe, so you’re willing to accept grappling/shoving as an indicator of maximum static strength and an end be all, right! That’s dire - maybe they should add it to powerlifting, who can push someone the furthest!

 

Well Baba Looey, that is clearly NOT what I said but it seems your scope for discussion of this subject is limited.

Give me ‘Vander’s max. lift, verified.

No can do?

Okay, give me ANY notable lift verified for Holyfield.

Still, no can do?

I must say, I’m getting an “Eddie Machen was blinded by Liston because Eddie said so” deja vu vibe about all of this.

Okay, let’s go to something we can at least see for how ourselves - a possible part indicator - accompanied by several testimonies.

Holyfield, your nominated strong and strongest man, described Foreman as the strongest in the ring - yes, that is dire for your position - a testimony you continue to ignore. Why is that?

A max. lift of any type combines ideal form and endlessly practiced repetition.

One can then become a “savant” at that exact type of lift under always identical conditions - conditions that are never exactly replicated in real life.

In the realm of “static” lifting, a bench press isn’t the only possible metric for strength.

I can curl 60 lbs on a dumbbell, single arm, left and right, palm up, all the way through.

That is just one “form” of applied strength. I focus in on (for years) that particular lift among several others that I perform with a 60 lb dumbbells.

The max. I’ve benched was 200 lbs, when younger and inebriated at a party. Dumb. Woeful form. I’m not into bench presses otherwise.

Tbh, if one uses poor form but ultimately pulls off the press, it’s fair to say they’ve likely worked harder and utilised more all round strength to get the weight up there than their well practiced, “savant” counterpart.

Certainly, what I can curl wouldn’t present as a correlate to what I could bench press right now if I tried - different logistics and muscles involved.

Suffice to say, without having dedicated myself to same - my bench press, right now, would be a lot less than what my curled weight “might” imply.

Another thing to consider is the importance of grip and forearm strength - significant links in the power chain for optimal translation of overall muscle strength - subject to the movement type and required form for application.

For forearm and wrist strength, I find heavy duty hand grippers and wrists curls with a dumbbell to be very beneficial.

You stated “End of” in an earlier post? Lol. There’s a lot more to discuss re the subject that you’re not willing to go into lest it impugn your oversimplified position.

 

Too many words for nothing, his strength in the ring was expressed via pushing, shoving, clinching etc: that’s what the “in the ring” guys are talking about- unless you think it’s something else?

George was a strong guy, but for a fact Evander used PEDs and was trained by a Mr O and actively tried to get bigger and stronger, I strongly believe in the weight room he’d make George to school- why is that crazy? Lol Expressed in the ring, the clinch, pushing shoving etc, he GF was a fair bit heavier and pretty strong himself of course he’s going to push a former CW around- it doesn’t mean he’s stronger in terms of raw strength, again a powerlifter would be absolutely man handled by a Sumo- does that mean a sumo is stronger in terms of actual raw static strength? No, it is end of.

There isn’t much else to the argument, believe it or not, you can’t take it further than that it’s speculation so stop acting like a special needs kid because someone thinks Evander Holyfield can lift more then your idol LOL.

Make this easy actually no running! besides in the ring strength which is grappling, shoving etc. what else do you have to suggest Foreman was stronger? I have PEDs and Mr O training for Holyfield.

 

Special needs Kid?

You’re foundering - as usual, the ** Artist formerly known as crash and burn Kamikaze.

You’re not even good at smack talk. My “Idol” - you wish. Scraping the bottom of your intellectual barrel there.

You’ve got PEDs and Mr O on your side but not one verified lift for Mr E.H. So, you have NOTHING. Batting a 1000, aren’t you? Lol.

Okay, what’s Mr Benchpress’s, err, I mean, Mr O’s best verified lift? Crickets I hear again.

You do understand Mr O is judged on aesthetics, right? - and you talk about others being swept away by the sight of big muscles…lol.

Everyone knows what type of strength Forman demonstrated in the ring - even good ol’ ‘Vander, but don’t you dare touch that with a 40 ft pole.

Did Holyfield call in George being heavier/fatter and using same as the “secret” to his strength? No, he didn’t. That’s just your skewed and slanted overlay.

You miss every fact and piece of logic that wouldn’t escape even Blind Eddie - who wasn’t in fact blinded against your nominated villain Sonny Liston - but Eddie said so, therefore it must be so - another exemplification of the thinnest premises you’ll ride on in deference to your blatant bias.

Too many words for nothing?

You know, as it specifically pertains to you, that might be the only correct thing you’ve said - the knowledge and wisdom of a number of quality posters here have been completely lost on you -

Sit Ubu, sit.

 

LOL. Now, what is your evidence besides grappling again? You’ve got zilch, pushing, shoving and grappling-That’s your evidence for thinking he’s stronger than a Mr O trained PED user? Weak as wee wee fan boy.

I’m calling you on it, Yes or no do you have anything else besides grappling which is not a test of static strength nor maximum strength? Again, just yes or no, expand further if yes if no I’m gonna need you to sit yourself.

I never said George wasn’t stronger in the ring by the way, I just don’t think pushing a guy around the ring is any indicator of raw maximum strength. It’s not crazy at all lol. See Mosley vs Quarry for an example. I’m very sure Mosley lifts more than Ol Quarry and guess who gets rag dolled?

 

You haven’t called me out on anything and you haven’t answered any clearly laid out questions.

You just keep ogling what you think are purrdy muscles without even knowing what those “purrdy” muscles can actually do.

As compared to anyone else, I’m afraid the “O” in Mr “O” represents a completely different and somewhat disturbing term/meaning for you.

Again, sit Ubu, sit.

 

I do agree that grappling is not good evidence of overall strength-but Foreman was not good at that, Ali who was not nearly as strong was better at it due to leverage, so his *skill* meant more functional strength in that fairly narrow realm.
Yet how well you can push someone absent technique

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Wow, that’s a really cool emoji - in lieu of an intelligent argument.

Who’s that patting your head btw, your carer?

It appears to be placating you. That’s good.

Sit Ubu, sit.

 

Haney was overseeing the lifting portion of Holyfield's regimen in at least one of Holyfield's mesocycles. I think it was the bulking up portion.

The overall program was created and administered by Fred Hatfield, a guy with a PhD in sports science, founder of the ISSA, and a competitive powerlifter. This is how Holyfield was training:

http://www.sportsci.org/news/news9709/hatfield.html

Hatfield deputized Haney to oversee part of it because Haney was one of Hatfield's former students (aside from his successful bodybuilding background.)

We know now that Holyfield was on PEDs as well, as has already been mentioned.

 

Just a tid bit but somewhat associated to the subject - it seems reliably reported that Chuvalo lifted.

I read a SI Vault article that said, after losing a particular fight in the very early 60s - a DQ loss to Erskine I think - a depressed George took a year or so off and indulged in weights.

However, it wasn’t implied that it was for the first time - rather, it seems that working with weights was something that Chuvalo had done for most of his life.

Interesting for such an old school fighter to not only have dabbled in weights but also for the degree to which Chuvalo apparently indulged himself. Very much against the standard advice of the day.

Imo, Chuvalo def. had the look of someone who lifted - and increasingly so as his career marched on.

Now this comes back to anecdotal, not officially verified, but figures of 400 lb to 450 lb bench press for Chuvalo have been bandied around - even in his 70s, it was claimed Chuvalo was still pressing about 350 lb. Don’t worry, I’m not saying any of these claims must be so.

Again, without verification, we don’t know really know and without same, even though it isn’t the perfect marker by any means, reasonably interpreted strength demonstrated in the ring is the only possible indicator to fall back on.

Floyd Jumbo Cummings lifted in prison (now there’s a surprise, lol) and after. Can’t recall the claims for his lifts or if any were actually verified - but he certainly looked the part. When he faced Bruno, they were a two-man muscle beach in the ring.

Can’t recall their fight exactly - maybe the outcome was a case of which overly muscle bound guy tired out and seized up first. Might have to review their fight in the near future.

Upon checking just now, good to see that Jumbo is still with us, aged 73 yo.

 

Yes, buster was a big dude! Look at the size of his head for Pete's sake! He was peppering Tyson with all kinds of power shots, he ate himself into a coma around 400 pounds. He was very strong, and holy hit him with a beautiful punch. Whenever he jumped up and down, he reminded me of hasim Rahman, a big heavyweight with bouncing muscles lol. The strength of Holyfield is that he set him up for a picture perfect counter right hand, and it was definitely the punch that buster Douglas did not see. And I also too realize he came in overweight/ out of shape, but he did it for something like 24 million I am pretty sure that's what Lampley said on an episode of legendary nights. If I'm wrong maybe it was for less money.