Old Foreman was more durable because he had improved his defence, learned to roll with punches better and had also learned to pace himself better. It simply isn't possible for a fighter's chin to improve with age, it just doesn't happen. It was a stylistic and mentality improvement that made George more durable with age.
Watch from time 1.19 This content is protected I have watched this round dozens of times and at one point I thought that if instead of an Old Foreman there had been Foreman of Kinshasa tthat young athlete after 6, 7, 8, 9 consecutive blows from Holyfield would have been KDed/KOed for sure...instead from old he absorbed passed the middle of that fight nearly 20 hard hits almost without batting an eye. If one considers that Old Foreman has come to decision even with Morrison and Briggs (harder hitters than Ali and Young), one can conclude that George Foreman is one of those few cases of fighter in boxing history with a bone-muscular-nervous-vascular structure of the head (chin) + stamina incredibly better than when he was younger. Dont ask me how that was possible because the only who can explain this is the same Foreman imo. Many say Tyson dodged Foreman because too hard to drop even for him. Bob Goodman a famous boxing matchmaker and promoter witness of a speech between Tyson and Don King some years ago said: “You’ll never believe this but Tyson is scared s***less of Foreman and wants no part of him. I was there when Don was trying to make the fight. He was telling Tyson that Foreman represented huge money, plus he was old and slow and would be no problem. Tyson got up and screamed at King saying, ‘I’m not fightin’ that f****ng animal. If you love the motherf***er so much, you fight him!".
I get what you're saying but alot of those punches didn't land cleanly because of George's cross arm guard and second Holyfield was never a big puncher and by that point in the fight he was tiring and had taken some big punches from George so his some of the pop would have gone from his offense. If a young Foreman has used the cross am guard and learned to pace himself would he have been able to take those punches from Holyfield ?? I believe he would have.
If he was competitive with an all round complete and tougher fighter than Louis in Holyfield, then he is going to be there at the end with Louis. I wouldn’t be surprised if Louis hit the canvas on his way to a very hard fought win
Totally agree, when I think of this match I recall the sequence where Evander landed over a dozen straight shots on George. Joe Louis drops anyone he lands multiple combinations on and when it comes to combination punching in heavyweight history, Louis has no equal. Louis TKO's a 42 year old Foreman,,,badly.
Louis unquestionably hit harder than Holy, and was about as fast. George was dazed after Holy's blitzkrieg; his eyes would be rolling up in his head after Louis. Fight stopped.
Young Foreman would have knocked the bejesus out of Holy way before he'd have gotten the chance to fire that many punches. I am a huge fan of Holy, but young Foreman....though he would have had a tough time with prime EH, i think George punched too hard for him imo. Slower than Bowe, but even more bullying and an amazing finisher.
A prime Joe Louis could make an older Foreman nervous, thus losing his composure. George's jab would be essential to have a chance to win.
