Would the Klitschko's beat the ZIare version of Foreman

Excellent. Thanks.

I'll take a look and try to respond. :good

 

These match ups don't take scientific analysis...save that for Ali vs Louis.

You need to be durable to beat prime Foreman...these guys are far from it.

 

I definitely agree that 70's Foreman didn't emphasize power training as much. He was "leaner and quicker", as you say.

But a lot of that excess 90's weight wasn't muscle. It was fat. Add 40 pounds of fat to 1970s Foreman, and you'd get a guy who looked a lot like 1990s Foreman. He wasn't bigger and bulkier as much as over his fighting weight.

As far as people being as strong in their 40s/50s as they were in their 20s, most sports (not to mention fitness training knowledge) doesn't necessarily bear that out. Even powerlifters, who generally use all sorts of chemical assistance and are training for a pure strength sport for decades, generally peak in their 30s. You see a gradual but steady decline in the over-40 categories.

Most athletes in sports that rely on power (combined strength and speed) decline even faster.

 

Professional boxers and their coaches spend hours poring over their opponents' footage. They often "see somezing," as Schmeling would say.

Surely the Classic forum can spare a couple of minutes.

Vitali is durable. You can argue about his will to win under anything but the highest-stakes circumstances, but he's shown himself capable of absorbing punches.



EDIT: And part of your argument hinges on Vitali and Wlad being inferior boxers. This, in turn, depends on everybody in the modern heavyweight division being skill-less amateurs. You'd definitely need film to prove that proposition.

 

Foreman was a 220 lb Miguel Canto skillwise.

 

Durability can be defined in several ways...one brother has a china chin and a quitters mentality. The other a quitters mentality. Either way neither man is durable.

 

Wlad doesn't quit, though. He freaks out when you hit him, but he keeps getting up when knocked down.

As for Vitali, he quit against another contender in a relatively less important match. He didn't quit against Lewis when his eye was falling apart. A fight against Foreman would presumably be a high-stakes championship match for all the marbles, so it'd fall under the second category.

It may not be an admirable trait, but Vitali's willingness to quit isn't relevant for this particular matchup. Unlike, say, Sonny Liston's willingness to quit in a title bout would be.

(Unless you're arguing that Vitali's fragile shoulder might give out.)

 

Silly. He quit when his shoulder gave out against Byrd. Why would he not do the same when hit to the liver, kidney and heart as Foreman did to Ali?

Wlad has a glass chin and if you watch all three of his ko losses once hurt it's obvious he does not want to fight anymore.

Both men would be hit harder than they ever were hit if they fought prime George. they do not have the capability to withstand that level of power.

It's a silly thread. No knowledgable poster would choose these walking statues over prime Foreman.

 

...Because he didn't quit against Lewis with his eye hanging out, as I've posted above? Higher stakes.

I assume you have Liston quitting against Foreman as well.

Yes, we established this.

You originally said that Wlad's a quitter. Now you say that Wlad doesn't actually quit, but you're certain that Wlad secretly wants to quit. (Even though he keeps getting up, which is rather counterproductive for a boxer who wants to quit.) This is moving the goalposts just a bit, don't you think?

Lewis wasn't quite at Big George's level, but he hit extremely hard. Vitali was still standing. Hurt in the last round and bleeding from every pore, but Lewis didn't even knock him down.

Foreman was none too mobile himself.

More importantly, the unsupported claim that everybody who disagrees with you doesn't understand boxing doesn't strengthen your case much. Especially since many knowledgeable posters on Classic have picked Vitali and/or Wlad in the past in these matchups.

 

When you weightlift or perform sports activities your whole life you could wear
out the body. This will cause obvious decline. In regards to Foreman, he did next to no boxing or training for 10 years. He probably didn't touch weights in the 70's so when he did train for strength in his 40's, he wasn't worn out.
He began doing new things for strength later on which allowed him to get even stronger than when he was younger.

 

Bringing up the layoff is a fair point, and well taken.

However, the body's ability to gain strength still declines as you get older, whether you weight-trained in your 20s or not.

Also, I'll just note that the injury rate for weightlifting and powerlifting is extremely low compared to almost any other sport -- and physical therapists often use weight training to reduce the risk of injuries rather than increase them. Abstaining from weights for ten years won't make you stronger when you start up later on.

 

I didn't mean that stopping activities for ten years and starting up later would make one stronger. It's just that there was no wear or tear for 10 years. George decided to restart his career 10 years later so he built himself up then. The 10 years put him at a higher age, that's all. He didn't have to wait at all. Weightlifting is fine except when someone over does it or uses bad form, too much weight, etc. Then you have injuries and problems.

 

Meneses definitely did not follow any prearranged script for this one. He circled left, and circled right, while Ed kept turning to face his 6'2" opponent in deploying a flicking jab, making use of his 88 inch reach.

Early in round six, Yaqui suddenly lashed out with a wild left hook which drove Jones upright, but did not produce an instant knockdown. To me, it looked as though additional punching would have been necessary to create a legally legitimate decking, or force a stoppage, but that's not what happened.

Meneses instead kept his left planted on the right side of Too Tall's head where it had landed, and plowed forward [much like Firpo did with his right when he straightened it out to illegally push Dempsey through the ring ropes]. After being knocked upright and off a solid base, Jones staggered backwards a few steps before toppling over, Yaqui half falling on top of him after wrestling him down. Only then, with Jones sitting upright, did Meneses illegally crack him with a follow-up hook which snapped Ed's head to the side, after Yaqui had bounced back up. This cheap shot may have been the more damaging blow.

Referee Buddy Basilico then escorted Meneses to his corner after seeing the cheap shot, not realizing how hard it actually was until viewing the CBS replays after the bout. While his back was turned, Too Tall's trainer Murphy Griffith very illegally jumped up on the ring apron between two corners where Jones was stuperous along the ropes after tenuously regaining his feet as the knockdown timekeeper counted "eight." [Factoring in that cheap shot on a helplessly floored Too Tall, I was actually impressed Jones got up that quickly.] Murphy was flagrantly administering smelling salts, and Basilico had to twice push his arm away and warn him off the apron.

Since he did see Yaqui hit Ed on the floor, then Too Tall's trainer illegally jump on the ring apron and administer smelling salts, neither side was penalized.

As soon as Ed's trainer retreated, an overeager Yaqui charged prematurely out of his neutral corner to be intercepted by Basilico and pushed back in there. Only after Basilico correctly wiped the resin off Too Tall's gloves did he allow action to resume. By then, Jones had regained a clear head.

Basilico later said if Meneses had gone directly to a neutral corner and stayed there after the shove down and cheap shot, [followed by the illegal ammonia capsule stunt by Murphy Griffith] that Ed was ready to be taken out after getting up at eight [and Jones may have gotten up faster without that additional chop on the floor, although the eight count was mandatory]. Around 30 seconds elapsed from the time that first hook connected until the resumption of legal action.



Now, a few things here. Too Tall's bell may or may not have been badly rung by that first left hook, but it should not have counted as a knockdown because of the follow-up shove after Yaqui's left maintained prolonged contact with Ed's head. Nonetheless, although Basilico himself never administered a count, he did rule it as an official knockdown, changing the official scoring. It seems pretty clear that he might have instantly disqualified Meneses if he'd realized how hard that second cheap shot hook while Jones was on the floor actually was, making Murphy Griffith's intervention immaterial, as the fight would have been over. Ed was obviously in la la land after getting back to his feet, but how much of that was from the legal impact of the first hook, and how much of it was from the illegal impact of the floor shot?

Yes, I had Jones the clear winner of his debut, on the basis of his flicking jab. He was about as impressive a physical specimen as boxing had ever seen in a man of that height, but Jesus Meneses showed his chin would have limited his prospects, whether the first hook, cheap shot hook, or both together were responsible for how wobbly he was when he got back up.

In a later televised bout, Gil Clancy noted that there was some progress made in the development of Too Tall's jab, but I think Ed already realized he'd been exposed as somebody who could be hurt with a good shot, and not be able to recover as quickly as needed, regardless of how Meneses put him on ***** Street for such a prolonged interval.

Boxing did make him a better player when he returned to the gridiron with the Cowboys, however. Jones came back lighter, quicker, and better conditioned, a defensive stalwart throughout the entire 1980s.

 

Vitali didn't look too durable when he quit against Chris Byrd.

 

No way.