Just thought that I'd like to ask the question of where you rank George Foreman among former and current heavyweights. I think he's at least top 10, above 7. his power was unmatched and he was a daunting and formidable character, in his early days. His ring IQ and defence, especially in his comeback career was underrated, and he knew how to walk somebody down. Although he wasn't the most technically skilled or smartest fighter, he fought all kinds of pugilists, from the out fighter Muhammad Ali, the puncher Joe Frazier, the boxer Evander Holyfield, and the mover Michael Moorer, and at times, if he did lose, he did give those mentioned before some trouble to deal with. And so, my final verdict is he is, at his highest, top 4. Maybe below or at a similar level to tacticians like Larry Holmes or Lennox Lewis, but he has a puncher's chance in any fight he gets into, and it's anything but something to deny.
Mid to lower top 10… even with his incredibly unique career I just cannot rank him above guys with long dominant runs. My other issue with Foreman is that I’m not entirely sure how good he was. If I took the 20 greatest big men over 200 lbs and had a round robin tournament, I wouldn’t have any idea where he’d end up… The harsh truth is that he never went the distance against a skilled big man and won. And there’d be guys in that top 20 who he just wouldn’t be able to blow out in the first half of the fight… then whether he’d be able to outpoint them over the distance I just couldn’t answer that. Great career though.
Can we agree that conducting this poll the day after the man died will heavily skew the results toward an emotional rather than a factual choice?
Live or dead, he’s long been No. 6 on my list behind Ali, Louis, Holmes, Johnson and Marciano, and ahead of Frazier, Liston, Tyson and Lewis. And before someone says he’d destroy Marciano … and I agree that he would … my rankings are not based on who’d win H2H.
For me, he is certainly in the top 10 and just outside the top 5. Ali and Louis are obviously ahead of him, I would put him behind Marciano/Johnson/Holmes (very arguable with the latter). Ahead of Tyson/Holyfield/Lewis/Frazier/Klitschko/Liston.
Somewhere between 5-10 all time. As impressive as his comeback was I can't really rate those wins higher just because George was old.