Who hit harder, Foreman or Shavers?

Caldwell, Ali, Polite, Lyle, Norton and Young all said Shavers hit harder.


It should be clear enough who is the harder puncher.

 

Shavers looks like the harder puncher to me. Also iirc all their common opponents said that Shavers hit harder.

 

I see what you did there.

I'd have gone for Shaman. He had almost mystical power(s).

 

Hasim Shaman's KO of poor Lennox was especially magical.

 

agreed.

 

Why would anyone cite KOs, skills or any other sign of effectiveness except to show who was better overall?


Everyone who faced Shavers said he was the hardest puncher. Literally everyone.
Anyone here; tell me if there is any exception.
Whether they won, lost, took a long battering or were finished off early.

This eliminates the plausibility of an agenda.
It is also a remarkable consensus.

Many of them faced other candidates for hardest hitter, including Foreman.

Combine this with the eye test & Shavers commitment & of course his KO ratio with significantly less skills than Foreman.
Consider his build combined with long arms & huge hands & wood choppin' training...
The one thing Shavers was really efficient at was hitting extremely hard.

I am only unsure if very few much larger HWs might have hit harder.
Given the law of diminishing returns...
It is no foregone conclusion either way.

 

Every common opponent, and there were quite a few, nominated Shavers. Many spoke in awe.

 

I think Foreman may have hit harder on his best punch, simply due to his sheer clubbing size. But if they measured them on one of those force machine thingies and it said Shavers hit harder I would not be shocked. Nobody truly knows.

 

I think there are several hw punchers who had harder one shot power than foreman, shavers included. Wilder, Baer... Hell i wouldn't be surprised if it turned out Frazier's hook or maricanos Suzy Q had more psi in it than any one foreman punch.

But all those guys loaded into those shots more, threw their weight so much they were often off balance. Foreman stood like a monolith and threw what were often arm punches that had devastating effect. That is why he's the greatest hw puncher ever in my opinion. Even his glancing blows were apparently damaging.

 

Does that mean that by default they both hit harder than Wilder?
I pick Foreman; not Shavers.

 

Their's a couple people in between Foreman and Shavers imo.

 

I think it's possible wilder has the most devastating right hand down the middle, but part of that is due to his height and the leverage he can get with long arms and a basketball frame. It's also obvious he doesn't practice much else other than his jab and hook and hopes to end his fight with the right hand. If you spend the majority of your training developing just 1 punch and that's your plan A, B, and C, you're bound to hit harder with that punch than most other boxers.

 

IMHO. I think Ken Norton would be most competent to say who hits harder; Foreman, or Shavers.
Norton's destruction by both is proof of that.
And Foreman’s punches (and misses) in the fight with Norton were terrifying.

 

Having multiple pages/tabs open can catch you out like that.

I thought I was still on WB Forum but it was P/Hub and I innocently searched for the Turpin Brothers, first names only. Well boy, howdy doody didn’t the results come flooding in!

As it was, I was then surprised to find another brother, Hotrod Turpin. He wasn’t a pugilist but it looked like he punched for all he was worth.

In the real world, the Turpin brothers lost 3 out of 5 to a boxer who went by the nick - The Croydon Woodpecker. It just keeps giving, right?

I wonder if P/Hub has anything on him. I’m hitting the “search” button right now……..

 

Granted this was an Ali who was much easier to hit and less able to effectively dodge, deflect, or pull away from punches. He was often taking punches at their full force, rather than dissipating it. Without his reflexes the butterfly became Shavers punching bag much of the fight. So I think there is a little bias from Ali toward Shavers since he got a much worse beating from him thanks to Ali's age and mileage and early parkinsons by this point.

15th round of Ali v Shaver is as dope as it gets though and one of my all time favorite rounds.