Who could beat a prime George Foreman?

[Kid Achilles]

I refuse your reality and substitute it with my own.

[butterfly1964]

If you're not used to Foreman heaping overly maudlin praise on fighters then you haven't been watching HBO for the last decade.

If I was to believe everything Foreman has said over the years, he was drugged against Ali, he purposely didn't want to knockout Tommy Morrison, he was terrified of Joe Frazier (yeah looked real scared smashing Frazier to the canvas 6 times), he carried Jimmy Young so the network could get their commercials in..... I might as well still put a tooth under my pillow and leave out milk and cookies every December 25th.

Foreman won the title from Frazier in early 1973. At the end of 1972 Quarry wasn't even ranked in the top 10. Foreman then proceeded to defend against Norton (who was #1 from March-Sept 73) and sign for Ali who had been the #1 contender for the better part of four years. Ali-Frazier II in January 1974 was a heavyweight elimination fight with the winner to fight Foreman.

If signing to fight Muhammad Ali the mandatory #1 challenger by defeating Frazier (Foreman had yet to make a mandatory) for a then unheard of $5 million dollars instead of substantially less money against a 4th rated fighter who hadn't even been in the top 10 the previous year constitutes ducking, then you're stretching the realm of believabilty.

I was thinking the same thing. When Quarry was top-rated, Foreman was just started out and was not experienced enough to even think about fighting Quarry. Then when Foreman was highly-renked himself, Quarry was on the slides, and did not deserve a crack at Foreman.

Foreman ducking Quarry is just speculation.

[Yogi]

There were plenty of offers and talk about matching Foreman & Quarry up, both when Foreman was champion (and not just after Quarry beat Shavers either, as the offers were presented to Foreman right after Quarry defeated Lyle and continued), and previous to that when both were highly rated, top five contenders (from the fall of 1970 on...each and every year starting then promoters tried matching them up, whether it be MSG on a few occasions, Don Fraser, London matchmakers, etc.).

[butterfly1964]

There were plenty of offers and talk about matching Foreman & Quarry up, both when Foreman was champion (and not just after Quarry beat Shavers either, as the offers were presented to Foreman right after Quarry defeated Lyle and continued), and previous to that when both were highly rated, top five contenders (from the fall of 1970 on...each and every year starting then promoters tried matching them up, whether it be MSG on a few occasions, Don Fraser, London matchmakers, etc.).

That doesn't necessarily mean that Foreman was afraid of Quarry.

[Hydro]

If I was to believe everything Foreman has said over the years, he was drugged against Ali, he purposely didn't want to knockout Tommy Morrison, he was terrified of Joe Frazier (yeah looked real scared smashing Frazier to the canvas 6 times), he carried Jimmy Young so the network could get their commercials in..... I might as well still put a tooth under my pillow and leave out milk and cookies every December 25th.

You left out "I was about to knock out Ali but I was distracted when I saw my friend in the audience cheering for Ali", "No one is the best p4p until they beat James Page", and "Lennox Lewis is the greatest heavyweight of all-time" (a couple months earlier he said Lewis wouldn't have lasted 2 rounds with him if George was in his prime).

I take 99% of what Big George says with a grain of salt.

[hemichromis]

You left out "I was about to knock out Ali but I was distracted when I saw my friend in the audience cheering for Ali", "No one is the best p4p until they beat James Page", and "Lennox Lewis is the greatest heavyweight of all-time" (a couple months earlier he said Lewis wouldn't have lasted 2 rounds with him if George was in his prime).

I take 99% of what Big George says with a grain of salt.

foreman says some very smart things and somevery dumb things. he is very humble and rates some fighters above him even though he would destroy them in the ring. foremans a good man though

[Hydro]

foreman says some very smart things and somevery dumb things. he is very humble and rates some fighters above him even though he would destroy them in the ring. foremans a good man though

Foreman is just a strange individual whose statements are all over the place.

He talks about how he finally accepted the ali loss but in his autobiography which came out in the 1990s, he was filled with excuses, including the great one i quoted above.

I take what he says with a big grain of salt, but he's an entertaining guy who does some good things for the community.

To me, he's quite possibly the greatest salesman/pitchman in sports history. Michael Jordan had a carefully constructed image cultivated since he entered the NBA. Foreman, on the other hand, completely re-invented himself, from the scary angry mo-fo in the 70s to the smiling teddy bear. And he didn't have a company like Nike or Phil Knight to help him with the image.

[Liaison]

George just says different things to please certain audiences. Example: When he said Lewis is the greatest of all time, he said it to a British reporter.

[Kid Achilles]

Yes, Foreman says some strange things. The confession on his website doesn't prove that Foreman was afraid of Quarry, but it certainly raises an eyebrow and definitely lends ammunition to the Foreman ducking Quarry theory. In fact, this is a theory that will likely never die, like it or not. Why? Because there is a good reason to think he did avoid Quarry. The good reason is that the fight was made several times but it never happened. You can state various reasons for this but Foreman wanting no part of Quarry has to be a possibility, one of the numerous reasons, if you are being truly objective. To say there's no chance that Foreman ducked Quarry, who was so consistently destroying bigger and more powerful men than himself at the time, is just preposterous. It's much harder to prove that Foreman wasn't ducking Quarry than the contrary, because he never fought him and the su****ious that he ducked him will always be there because of this.

Will we ever prove that Foreman ducked Quarry? No, but he didn't fight him either and so the Quarry question will always be there.

[SABBATH]

The good reason is that the fight was made several times but it never happened.

When was the contract made several times or more accurately how do you define "the fight was made several times"?