George Foreman : Overrated?

[Hawkins]

George Foreman is a living legend, and a 2 time champion.

Well, thats not in dispute. The question of the thread is George Foreman : Overrated? Not whether or not he is a legend or if he was a champion.

[Mike Tyson77]

Well, thats not in dispute. The question of the thread is George Foreman : Overrated? Not whether or not he is a legend or if he was a champion.

Anyone that claims the heavyweight title at age 45 is NOT overrated.

[brownpimp88]

Ok, but who did he dominate? He dominated Frazier. Like I said that is the only elite fighter he dominated. He beat Ken Norton,a good but not great heavyweight.

What other fighters did he beat to warrant a high placement?

Of all the fighters he faced in his prime here are the only ones that could be considered noteworthy.

Joe Frazier (w)
Ken Norton (w)
Muhammad Ali (l)
Ron Lyle (w)
Jimmy Young (l)

I can understand all of your opinions, still yet, no one has come forth with a valid argument as to why we place Foreman at such a level.

Ken Norton is considered a top 25 heavyweight, michael moorer is in the top 30, rony lyle is top 50 for sure, joe frazier is top 10. How the **** does that not make foreman top 10 of all times?

[Hawkins]

Ken Norton is considered a top 25 heavyweight, michael moorer is in the top 30, rony lyle is top 50 for sure, joe frazier is top 10. How the **** does that not make foreman top 10 of all times?

I never said it did, however if you compare Foreman's accomplishments alongside anyone else in most Top 10 All Time lists he pales in comparison. That brings into question if he is/isn't overrated by most.

And another thing..Norton, Moorer and Lyle are not considered great by any stretch of the imagination. Good, yes. Great, no.

However if you had taken the time to read any of the thread you would have seen all of this laid out for you.

[grayfist]

See thats where my struggle comes in. I too thought well maybe you lump together what he did do with his title win at age 45. But when you do that, it seems to me you'd have to do the same for someone like Joe Walcott.

I guess thats the entire problem with a list. What works and quantifies one fighters doesn't mean it will do the same for someone else. I think thats where the hypocrisy of lists come in..you laud one for doing it, yet another gets condemned are hardly the same credit.

On a sidenote, I just used those rankings as part of a presentation to rationalize whether a top 10 placement was warranted. By no means do I base my entire rankings process around something like that.

Yeah... making lists is a tough chore, even making one for Santa. Even to-do lists...

Like I said, I stopped doing most lists a long time ago. Not even one for Santa. I still do the tasks enumeration, though. The last one is a curse I'll have to live with...

Re: the sidenote: okay...

[hemichromis]

this isa rare thing on boxing scene......

Mature discussion!

I'm leaving it now because i rate fighters differently to the way you do.

you rate them by accomplishments.
i rate them by their fighting prowess on their best day.

in the very prestigious ME ratings foreman tends to drift between 2 and 6 in all time greats. i can see very few fighters who could beat foreman in his prime.

[grayfist]

this isa rare thing on boxing scene......

Mature discussion!

______ ____

[Jim Jeffries]

I never said it did, however if you compare Foreman's accomplishments alongside anyone else in most Top 10 All Time lists he pales in comparison. That brings into question if he is/isn't overrated by most.

And another thing..Norton, Moorer and Lyle are not considered great by any stretch of the imagination. Good, yes. Great, no.

However if you had taken the time to read any of the thread you would have seen all of this laid out for you.

"Pales in comparison," who exactly did Jack Johnson beat again? And he is on a lot of people top 10 ATG lists. And please don't give me some guy who hadn't fought in 6 years, or some puffed up middleweight, or some 5'7" "champ."

[Hawkins]

"Pales in comparison," who exactly did Jack Johnson beat again? And he is on a lot of people top 10 ATG lists. And please don't give me some guy who hadn't fought in 6 years, or some puffed up middleweight, or some 5'7" "champ."

So are alot of guys that don't belong if you compare them to others. But thats what brought the whole debate about to begin with. Because of this I'm redifining my entire way of ratings, trying to at least.

[QueensburyRules]

Is Geroge Foreman overrated by everyone? It so happened to occur to me while watching Bert Sugar's Top 10 Heavyweights Of All Time.

Why does Foreman get such praise?

Lets look at his accomplishments -

*Devestating power puncher.
*Has one of the highest KO% in the history of the division.
*Won the heavyweight championship.
*Destroyed Joe Frazier & Ken Norton.
*Returned to action and regained the title at age of 45.


These are the things most attributed to George's greatness, but lets look at them a little closer.

*Devestating power puncher - True he was a devestating power puncher, but he wasn't very good at anything else. Power is about all he had. His skills weren't anything to write home about, especially compared to alot of other fighters of the period.

*Has one of the highest KO% in the history of the division - True, a path to the title for a power puncher is littered with tomato cans and over the hill fighters but when you look at Foreman's resume thats what 90% of it consists of.

*Won the heavyweight championship - He destroyed Joe Frazier in route to capturing the title, then defended it twice (one being a KO of Ken Norton) before losing it to Muhammad Ali in one of the biggest upsets in history.

*Destroyed Joe Frazier & Ken Norton - As described in the above he won the title from Frazier and one of his two defenses was against Norton. But other than Frazier, is defeating Norton an all-time list worthy accomplishment?

*Returned to action and regained the title at age of 45 - True, at 45, he regained the title. But lets be honest he got lucky against Moorer. Got a gift wrapped decision against Schulz then got stripped of the belts for refusing to fight the aforemention Schulz and Tony Tucker.


Now I'm not distancing myself from the pack because I'm right along with everyone else. But when you compare Foreman's resume to everyone else in the Top 10 All Time he severely lacks. Lets look -

*He only defeated one elite fighter - Joe Frazier
*He had two unspectacular title reigns.
*He held the title a total of 1025 days(if you subscribe to the fact that he lost when he was defeated by Shannon Briggs)and his record as champion was as follows. 7-2 (4)

Joe Frazier (w)
Ken Norton (w)
Jose Roman (w)
Muhammad Ali (l)
Michael Moorer (w)
Axel Schulz (w)
Crawford Grimsley (w)
Lou Savarese (w)
Shannon Briggs (l)

Of the above mentioned list, only Frazier could be considered a true elite great. Fact is Foreman hasn't faired well against other great fighter throughtout his career.

So my question is why do we rate Foreman so high? What has he truly done to deserve it? Why do alot of fans/experts/historians (myself included) rank him ahead of people such as Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield or Ezzard Charles etc? Each of the aforementioned has done just as much, or not more, within their respective careers?

What affords Foreman to held above them?

- -First international heavy champ for starters.

I could go on, but let's face it, as a HS delinquent adopted by the Jobs Corp age 19 going into the Mexico City high altitude Olympics with barely 20 AMA fights, he KTFO the Soviet and Cuban pros to promptly fall on the wrong side of the nascent black revolution still ongoing and the ******* American public because he waved a tiny American flag a Job Corp trainer gave him.

Helluva a start for any 19 yr old kid. Who wants to testify what they was up to, age 19?