Evaluate George Foreman's Legacy Pre-First Retirement

[bklynboy]

No way did Dempsey, Tunney or Pattterson accomplish more at heavyweight than Foreman. That's ridiculous. Dempsey defended his title 5 times in seven years. And the only truly top notch fighter he fought, he lost to. Dempsey never beat anybody on Joe Frazier's level. He lost to fighters like Willie Meehan. Not to mention he never fought Harry Wills. That would be like Foreman not fighting Norton. Tunney doesnt have enough wins at heavyweight to rate over Foreman. And Patterson got knocked out twice as heavyweight champion. He was knocked out twice in the first by Liston. None of those fighters careers surpass Foremans as a heavyweight. Or even match it. Theres nothing borderline about Foreman being top 10 unless you're using different standards for him that you're not using for other fighters.

Regarding Jack Dempsey and other early fighters:

It’s hard to judge fighters from the 1950s with grainy film that doesn’t catch the details and close to impossible to judge fighters from the 1920s and earlier when the film was hurky-jerky.

So how do we judge Jack Dempsey and others from that era? I take the opinion of people, especially professionals, who saw both them and later fighters who we have a better understanding of.

In the 30s, 40s and 50s there were many people who said that Jack Dempsey was perhaps the best ever. These were men who saw Johnson, Dempsey, Tunney, Sharkey, Max Baer, Primo Carnera, Max Schmelling, Joe Louis, Jersey Joe Walcott, Ezzard Charles, and Marciano.

Even as late as the 1970s Nat Fleischer, Bert Sugar and others rated him above Joe Louis. Dude, I don’t know. The film sucks so we can’t tell from the film. One camera, to far away, with too low a resolution and not enough frames per second to be able to know what’s happening.

Regarding ducking Harry Wills and not fighting enough as a champion; the people back then took that into consideration. It’s hard enough to know if Mayweather is ducking Pacquaio, or had avoided Margarito, let alone really know what happened 80 years ago.

Regarding Tunney and Patterson I agree with you. I would put Foreman above both of them, that’s why I put them in the maybe list. Nonetheless I’ve heard many speak quite eloquently about both, putting them as definite TOP 10 fighters.

[bklynboy]

No way did Dempsey, Tunney or Pattterson accomplish more at heavyweight than Foreman. That's ridiculous. Dempsey defended his title 5 times in seven years. And the only truly top notch fighter he fought, he lost to. Dempsey never beat anybody on Joe Frazier's level. He lost to fighters like Willie Meehan. Not to mention he never fought Harry Wills. That would be like Foreman not fighting Norton. Tunney doesnt have enough wins at heavyweight to rate over Foreman. And Patterson got knocked out twice as heavyweight champion. He was knocked out twice in the first by Liston. None of those fighters careers surpass Foremans as a heavyweight. Or even match it. Theres nothing borderline about Foreman being top 10 unless you're using different standards for him that you're not using for other fighters.

My previous post was getting long so I split this into two posts.

Foreman was a monster who intimidated his opponents and, in many cases, won before either fighter stepped into the ring, in much the same way as Liston did a generation earlier and Tyson did a generation later.

He destroyed people with his power but I think that Jersey Joe would defeat him much the same way Hopkins defeated Pavlik. The wide punches would not hit clean; Foreman would miss badly and get hit by two or three shots; rounds would go by and Foreman would get frustrated and run out of gas and be pummeled in the last few rounds. I’m not saying that Foreman couldn’t learn to fight differently – after all he did. If the Foreman who fought Moorer could be combined with the Foreman would destroyed Frazier then we’re talking about a definite TOP 5 if not the GOAT.

This is all to say that I can see one easily having Foreman at 8, 9, 10 on ones all-time list (I do) and it's not inconceivable for Foreman to be off the list.

Here's Burt Sugar from 1991.

Jack Dempsey
Joe Louis
Muhammad Ali
Jack Johnson
Gene Tunney
Rocky Marciano
Joe Frazier
Larry Holmes
Sonny Liston
Mike Tyson

Foreman is not on the TOP 10 list. Now, I don't agree with this list, but so what? Burt Sugar is a knowledgeable man. I put it here to show that knowledgeable people put Dempsey and Tunney high on their list and Foreman isn't even on it.

[bklynboy]

[/B]

No way. Jersey Joe would go any time Foreman connected. Jersy Joe would be giving away too m uch size and strength. Walcott was knocked out by Abe Simon. So how is going to beat Foreman?

Yeah, that's the problem with ATG match-ups. It's possible that I rate Walcott higher than I should. I remember my uncles and their friends talking about him and Archie Moore as the craftiest fighters ever; that Marciano and Liston had more power, Ali more speed, etc... but Walcott would defeat you with his head. When Foreman came up for his second run I started to understand even more this idea of craftiness. You might not have the speed, the reflexes but you have a ring guile that makes you tough to beat. I'm seeing that again in Hopkins. Now experience doesn't mean everything of course. Holmes had experience and some guile but it didn't help him against Tyson.

I just went back to boxrec to check up that fight. He fought that 3 weeks after his previous fight. This is not an excuse, but a reality for that period, lots of fighters were better than their record indicates. The favored fighters were able to fight on their time-table. The others literally took fights to put food on the table, sometimes with little to no preparation.