Who is more powerful- David Tua or George Foreman

It's hard to explain. When getting hit, there is a certain feel to the punches. Some fighters have just a dull, heavy punch that will physically move you, even if you're not hurt and even if it doesn't land clean. Foreman was this type of puncher. He could knock you backwards even if you blocked the punch.

There are sharp punchers, punchers who won't be physically moving you with punches that are blocked, but the punches will shake you up and thinking "when did this happen?" Often times the sharper punchers have higher 1 punch KO rates than the raw power people, even when they don't punch as "hard."

Raw power people are guys like Foreman, Shavers, Tua, Dempsey, Marciano (had genuine 1 punch, unconcious power, which is kind of rare of this type of puncher), Bruno, Cooney, and Cooper.

More sharp kind of power is more rare at heavyweight. Guys with "sharp" power are Tyson, Holyfield, and Moorer.

 

Holyfield was without a doubt never in any trouble

 

Don't forget Tommy Hearns, who was not a physical specimen, who was not very strong, but whose whipcrack follow through with his right hand generated awesome force. He, to me, is the definition of sharp sniper.

 

He absolutely was. I was keeping it to heavyweights, but P4P Hearns proves that sharp punchers can be, at the very least, as dangerous as those who are huge, thudding punchers.

 

Sharp accurate punchers will target pressure points and sensitive spots which does immediate damage thats hard to recover from. Especially if aimed at the body.

 

If I was going to get stopped I'd rather it was over and done with quickly, not some prolonged beat down that leaves me feeling like I've been through a meat grinder the following morning. Shots that turn your lights out can still be put down to "fluke". You can more easily tell yourself, "**** happens" and get on with things.

On the other hand, if you're getting physically battered to the point where your body can no longer take it, getting ribs busted, arms pummelled, face battered and broken, you're not as likely to be able to delude yourself that you just lucked out. Aside from the experience itself, you also have the pain of your injuries to carry around with you for weeks, perhaps months afterwards.

You often read about how such and such a fight ruined a fighter or turned them old overnight. Such fights are almost always sustained beatdowns, or gruelling wars in which a large degree of physical and mental trauma is absorbed over the length of the fight. The human psyche can only take so much, and those types of fights seem to deplete the warrior reserves more than most.

 

Well if I'm gonna get my ass kicked, then yeah, I want it over with quickly. But when fighting someone I feel safer when they are the big, dull, thudding puncher than when in against a sharp puncher.

 

Being in the ring with George Foreman is a hellish experience that is very hard to recover from.

 

Cooney and Morrison hitting harder than Tyson

Yeah I'm sure that's true

No heavyweight power puncher was able to get the kind of acceleration and velocity on their punches like Tyson. That alone puts him in the very upper echelon of power. Power comes from speed.

 

I have to agree with you somewhat. I think Tyson is getting sold short here. There's a lot of guys (fighters) who have attested to Tyson's awesome punching power. A sharp puncher without a lot of power is not going to produce the types of highlight-reel knockouts that Tyson did.

 

As have been mentioned already, fighters can be downright unreliable when rating other fighters.
The magazine GQ had a write up about Holyfield and Lewis just prior to their first fight. Each fighter was interviewed, and during Holyfield's interview, he was asked which of his opponents was the strongest. His response was something like: "Oh, that's easy -- Riddick Bowe!"

Later on, just after beating George Foreman, Holyfield said that Foreman was a hard puncher but that George never really hit him cleanly. He said that Michael Dokes probably hit him (Holyfield) harder because his punches were so fast and hard to defend against.

Also, there have been several opponents that fought both old George Foreman and young Tyson that have said Tyson was the harder puncher. I read a lot of these quotes and interviews in old boxing magazines; I'll have to dig them out to find the exact reference.

 

Nobody is doubting Tyson had huge power, what is being doubted is that he was on the same level as Shavers, Foreman, Tua, etc in terms of raw power.

 

Hey thanks buddy, appreciate it.

Tua's power is over rated just because you sparred him doesn't mean he must hit harder then George.

The sparring video of Tua vs Holyfield on youtube, Holyfield takes some brutal shots repeatedly and keeps coming but in his fight against Foreman when Evander tried to exchange with Foreman he nearly got KO'd.

There was like 4 or 5 belts around at the time and this big hard hitting couldn't snatch one?

 

Punching power has nothing to do with success.

Also that clip wasn´t the whole session, the Tua sparring sessions might have been the reason he was such a big underdog against Tyson

 

True but if you are being compared to George Foremans power then punching power and success has to go hand in hand.