I just posted in another thread about how a hyper focus on boxing technique has led to a deficit in fans' understanding of punching techniques.
This thread is a case in point.
I certainly Agree
Killer links to show what Big George was great at. Another thing not mentioned is styles make fights and his style was incredibly deceptive. His muscle bound body and brute style when he was young played a roll in his deception. He used his natural strengths to his advantage to hit people. As you mentioned keeping his hands low to push incoming punches up and then making his opponents pay was a serious strength in his favor because of his punching power. When he hit somebody it hurt them and that was just 1 part of his overall ability.
Truth bomb. Foreman mastered timing. The punch, for example, that allowed him to reclaim the one and only Heavyweight Championship of the world, didn't travel at a fast speed, didn't travel at a slow speed; it traveled at the right speed, and guess who's face was right there lined up to meet it when it got there? The rest.....impervious tp anyone's feeling or opinions, is history. These are not complicated concepts. The ground near George Foreman's feet is littered with "better boxers". Lol.
Calling Foreman a two time world champion is a joke, as so was his fight (if you can call it that) with Moorer. After losing every round he got lucky.........and that is all it was. He didn't earn that title shot (look at his record) it was a gift.
How you can't call it a joke is beyond boxing. (whatever that means)
History doesn't care what you call it.
If what you're seeing when you watch boxing doesn’t match up with the results, chances are you're simply not good at reading what you're looking at. Consider this the voice from ouside the echo chamber. Forman is a GREAT fighter.
Boxing's history is long enough and deep enough to be regarded as a field of study and an area of expertise. Sugar was an Historian. Not a fighter, not a sports writer or journalist, not a promoter or announcer or a blogger and most certainly not just merely a fan. His choices were carefully considered. An unpopular thing to say on a message board (any topic), but Stay in you depth! Many of these corrective suggestions here are cringe worthy. A few are simply...simple. Most people dearly want to be smart, handsome, brilliant. But life can seem cruel in the way that superlative competence is dolled out. Stop telling the pilot how he might better fly the aircraft, or people may die.
Boxing has been around for so long, that fighters from 100 years ago fought with the same science and technique that they do today.
Very unique among major pro sports.
To discuss the question of all time greats seriously, you've got to really know the history as very few fighters or fans do.
not sure where you got your stats from but boxing doesnt even make the top 5 for most followed sports in the US.
My info comes from the Harris Poll, which is generally regarded as the last word on poll numbers.
Deontay got got in the long run though
he didn’t know how to throw a right hook at close quarters when Zhang was mauling that ass
I suppose they all do. Zhang included.
Well said. That's a solid list of just amazing fighters. Who do you have pegged from the current group of active fighters as having a chance to break into ATG territory?
Thanks for asking my friend. Canello Alvarez, Oleksandr Usyk, Naoya Inoue, Terrence Crawford, Boots Ennis, David Benavidez, Gervonta Davis, Dmitrii Bivol, Vasily Lomachenko, Junto Nakatani, Shakur Stevenson, Ryan Garcia, Jai Opetaia, Keyshawn Davis, Agit Kabayel. Each, I think, has a shot.
There are others, of course. There always is.
We'll all find out together when the fat lady sings.
Boxing is worldwide now and fighters aren't marginalized like in the past in favor of a few homegrown US talents. It turns out US dominance was never the default, the game was just manipulated that way.
Interesting.
So, when exactly did Boxing become a worldwide sport?
Here in Aus boxing is pretty dead compared to UFC which f sucks. Think it’s to do with there being too many broadcasters, people don’t know where they have to tune in, means boxing ain’t in the mainstream. Also what doesn’t help is the wait times between fights, the lack of depths on cards and the lack of star power since mayweather left… Canelo only Recently came to English. Inoue, Crawford, Usyk and Crawford don’t exactly sell their fights in the lead up for the casual fan, as much as we may love em. ALSO the top fighters only f fighting once or twice a year ! It’s hard to get behind them and root for a fighter when he’s barely fighting.
That is all about marketing.
Dont know why you wouldnt post this in the history section, you would get great responses there and lots of good discussion. In fact there is a similar thread there right now (though it is p4p not just heavy).
I think there are two different lines of thought on this. One leads you to Ali, who threw fast, but not as heavy punches. Usually a lightning fast, flicking jab, often followed by a quick straight right. If we are talking about speed of punches in regards to getting a punch out there regardless if force you have Ali as that standard.
But then you get the other end, guys who were fast handed at throwing power punches, fast while sitting down on the punch. Tyson is a good answer here, though I would rank him just behind his proto version- Floyd Patterson. To be fair, Tyson had a lot more power than Patterson, and Patrerson fought mostly at a modern cruiserweight, but man he had hand speed.
Just when I was about to marvel at the lack of.......anyway, yes. Muhammad Ali and Floyd Patterson are the fastest, and Gene Tunney to round out the top three.
Jeez.
Tell that HBO, Showtime, Fox Sports, CBS, NBC, ABC, etc. And ESPN is exiting boxing this year.
That's simply platform evolution. No relationship to boxing's viewership health. Where were those platforms during the prime of Dempsey, Louis, Ali?
Presentation platforms change. Always.
To be clear; boxing being number 4, behind only Football, Baseball and Basketball; and ahead of Ice Hockey, Golf, Tennis, Soccer, MMA in the US. That's a fact.
https://www.boxingscene.com/forums/boxing-forums/boxing-history/31592510-boxing-is-the-number-4-most-popular-sport-in-the-us-harris-poll
started in the early 90s then with internet becoming more mainstream U.S boxing promoters can't simply sweep quality fighters from other countries under the rug.
I've never heard that before.
Ah f it, it’s Wilder time or Miller or Whyte would be decent after their history. Ruiz in the states would be decent fun.
Wilder vs. Joshua would still be a cool show.
I too acknowledge the tremendous work that Parker has done since getting laid out by Joyce; and I support his petition for challenging Usyk for the one real world championship, with or without going through Dubois first.
But overall complaints about the activity level among the Heavyweights, I don't understand at all. The division has been Red Hot for awhile now.
Everyone loves to lodge a complaint, for sure. Especially boxing fans. But honestly; if anyone wants to slag boxing based on how the heavyweights are moving along; try being a UFC FAN, where there have been precisely FOUR heavyweight title fights in FOUR YEARS, and all the other action has featured 2nd level fighter-athlete midgets rolling around in their underwear in between their 3rd level boxing.
That's unnecessarily harsh, I know; but let's maintain some perspective.
ryan garcia an all time great lol
pass me the beer quick
Too early to know, too soon to write him off.
But he's got some star power. Although, that's the easy part.
too bad wilders record confirms he doesnt. doesnt matter what fury says. its called saving face after getting dropped by a non skilled fighter. ngannou dropped fury. usyk had him completely gone as well. is usyk a hard hitter? are steven cunningham and more etc...no of course not. fury just gets dropped a lot which is why you have to actually use a big sample size and look at wilders record and it shows his power was massively overrated and largely dissapeared against the best opponents he fought which is why he only has 2 ko's against 8 top 10 ring ranked opponents and those 2 kos came against the same guy. just not impressive at all and utterly laughable to say hes up there with the biggest punchers ever when his ko ratio is worse than almost all of the best heavyweights in history and those guys fought competition which was much better than wilder and yet they still have better ko ratios
A racist or anti-American viewpoint as always.
But if you'd seen him live and watched him train, as I have; and seen the majority of other top Heavyweights who've earned the spot during the last half century, as I have; you'd have quite an awakening.
Yes indeed. Wilder was this generations top puncher among all combat sports, all weight classes.
One of the dozen or so hardest hitting humans to ever live. No question about it.
so hes the hardest puncher despite all the evidence proving otherwise because you say so? this is why we use stats, so we dont have to rely on your subjectivity. i dont know how you could say my argument is racist or anti-american since i didnt mention either of those things? guess that would just be a distraction tactic since the stats i listed completely destroy your argument about him being some huge puncher but your hyperbole is making me laugh so thank you
More silliness. The building of your theory based on ignoring all the facts, inventing new ones and on shameless criticism... Pretty sure that is driven by something that's not good; and it's probably racism. Fortunately, we have experts on the subject of boxing who post here, able to objectively, analytically asses the relative merits of a fighter's career; who can run interference on people's racism.
Wilder, because of his amazing power and how he was able to put it to work in defending successful against so many WBC top 10 contenders; is a hall of fame bound fighter; the highest honor obtainable in combat sports.
Even if he is an outspoken black American.
I agree 100% with the thread starter. Miller has time for a real camp here, for the first time since he frightened off Eddie and Josh. Not a good opponent for Wardley.
And NOBODY ever ducked Wilder.
They all wanted him. Joshua wanted him. Ruiz wanted him, but Wilder ducked saying "Ruiz wanted to price out". Fury came from couch to fight Wilder. Parker said: fine, just do it. Zhang took it when offered.
Just stop with that s.hit how was anybody afraid of him.
Well hold on now.
In fairness to the flawed but nuclear powered Wilder....
Joshua wouldn't go past Wilder's first clean shot and we all know it.
Ruiz indeed priced himself out. if he'd wanted Wilder, he could've had him.
Fury had two fights between the couch and Wilder. Same as Ali had before meeting HIS epic encounter with Frazier after a similar layoff during his prime. Fury was 100%.
Wilder was pushing 39 for the Parker and Zhang fights. they meant very little.
Be fair.
if someone accepts that why even follow such a sport? it's not like we need boxing like air and water. nobody needs constant frustration. if you accept such disappointing state of boxing then it's better to just stop following. and that's exactly what a lot of fans did.
inactivity is the worst for me. it directly impedes boxer's chance to develop their skills, to become a star, to build a legacy, to earn big money and not destroy broadcasters and promoters in the process. less skills and less star power equals less fans. very simple.
Still.....Straight people need a combat sport too.
Oh stop.
No **** he never lost "in his prime years" when he spent them fighting guys like Szpilka and Duhaupas.
...and Fury, Ortiz twice.
It's all spin.
Does Josh have more very good opponents than Wilder and Fury? Yes.
But is it by a wide enough difference to offset the fact that Joshua frequently LOST to them while in his prime?
I don't think so.
Joshua beat nobody as good as Fury, ever. Wilder drew with him.
Joshua beat perhaps 2 guys as good as Ortiz (Parker and Whyte), who Wilder beat twice.
Klitschko (lol), Povetkin, Pulev...previous era leftovers.
Joshua lost 4 times in his prime years, each time to an underdog. Wilder lost once, to Fury in fight II, after an epic draw in their first fight.
Gavern, Molina, Breazeale and Helenius were common opponents. They were fishing from the same pond.
Joshua's edge in opposition quality is being vastly overinflated by his die hard fans!
Hell, Duhaupas KO over Helenius is Far better than Joshua's was.
Heavyweights are nothing special and Jalolov is a big strong southpaw with a good power. One bad night doesn`t have to mean a bad career.
Heavyweights are nothing special? Quizzical. Do you mean that due to the effects of physics and physiology, a heavyweight will generally be unable to execute movement and technique the way a similarly trained and qualified smaller man might?
I agree, of course.
But we've been hearing for years and years now that Jalolov is the future of the combat sports, and .........I'm not on board.