George Foreman Is Overrated

[MikeyMike100]

Yes I know he's a legend Big George im a fan of his too. But his resume is thin. In his 1st career he was protected and after 37 fights fought Joe Frazier for the title. He completely dominated him, great win. He had 2 other defenses one vs Ken Norton, who was coming off a loss, and dominated him, great win. He then lost to an older Ali. He had a few more fights and the lost to Jimmy Young. He then retires from boxing.


Years later (10) he makes his come back and changes his image around. He fights a bunch of tuneups (most notably against a coming out of retirement Gerry Cooney) and then fights Evander Holyfield for the title. He does better than people thought but still loses clearly. He then cherry picks Tommy Morrison after Morrison got chined by Ray Mercer and loses almost every single round. He then cherry picks Michael Moorer after Morrer beat Holyfield (he didn't fight Bowe after Bowe beat Holyfield) and knocks him out after losing every round prior. Great win and great accomplishment.

He then vacates the belt to avoid fighting his mandatory Tony Tucker and doesn't fight any of the major competition for the rest of his career ruining the lineal title.

He has a padded record. He has like 10 fights vs legitimate competition and lost around half of them


George Foreman for me doesn't have enough strong wins to be considered better than Larry Holmes, Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis or Wladimir Klitschko but often times is ranked ahead of them on all time lists. History remembers him well because of his personality and being in the Golden era of heavyweights with Ali, Fraizer, and Norton.

What do you guys think?

[Willow The Wisp]

I understand your argument, and you're not, in my opinion; entirely wrong. The crux of it with George is that the argument avoids what's great about his career and sheds light only on what's weak about it, and even the greatest of the greats have a few of those weak spots. Corbet fought like a fencing master, Johnson left too many great contenders without a title shot, Dempsey did too. Louis got prime KOd by a <200 lb. Guy, Marciano was a 5'10.5" bleeder, Ali never went to the body and had slipped by the age when Lewis and Klitschko were just heating up, Tyson was a pure front-runner, Lewis got smashed not once but twice, Wladimir presided over the worst division ever; Fury wants to bounce out into history with less quality work done during his reign than Wilder or Joshua did; and so it goes, each complaint holding some degree of legitimacy.

It is not an especially difficult task to declare a fighter (or any other kind of noteworthy person) "Overrated", and then support the declaration by listing what the didn't get done and what they did imperfectly. It's just not that hard, and whether you've talking Julius Ceasar or Ghandi or Churchill or Lincoln or Ganghis Khan, the principle applies.

George Foreman's argument is not that he jam packed his professional years with legions of top contenders like Ali did. Or that he stayed atop the mountain for more than a dozen years straight like Louis. He did not reset the punch stat expectations of history like Dempsey did. Indeed there was plenty that Foreman didn't get done.

But listen to me and listen good (please)........
Foreman lost his title in 1974 and later in 77' he retired. He Really retired. Out and with a new life for well over a decade. Then, in 1994, 20 YEARS after relinquishing that one and only real world title, he regained that same one and only real world title!!!! This aint tennis and this ain't golf. This ain't any kind of game! This is the one and ONLY form of hand to hand combat that matters enough to the eyes of history to be remembered for centuries and matters enough so that it pays the really big bucks!
Nobody every came close to doing what Foreman did with this.
But there's allot more greatness to Big George Foreman than just that, friends.
The PRB applies the sciences of demography, statistics, anthropology, historical record integrity to estimate that some 110 to 125 billion “modern” **** sapiens (that is, people who were roughly like we are now) have lived since we first walked the Earth around 50,000 B.C.E. When the steps to the harnessed mastery of punching power are correctly regarded, it is VERY likely that among these 117,000,000,000, NOT ONE OF THEM PUNCHED AS HARD AS FOREMAN, when measured by footpounds of force x Reliability of target achievement. No weightlifter, no biker, no bouncer, no Roman Legionnaire, no Viking, no Spartan, no master of Gung Fu....nobody.
Nobody EVER.
No need to dispute that accretion with musings about the inability to prove it. It's not that type of a claim, and what Viking ever scored more KOs than Foreman anyhow?
If we're talking fighting, and that doesn't strike you as highly rated, as highly as you can imagine, then we need to be talking about some other topic together, cuz neither of us stand any chance of learning a dammed thing.

[MikeyMike100]

I understand your argument, and you're not, in my opinion; entirely wrong. The crux of it with George is that the argument avoids what's great about his career and sheds light only on what's weak about it, and even the greatest of the greats have a few of those weak spots. Corbet fought like a fencing master, Johnson left too many great contenders without a title shot, Dempsey did too. Louis got prime KOd by a <200 lb. Guy, Marciano was a 5'10.5" bleeder, Ali never went to the body and had slipped by the age when Lewis and Klitschko were just heating up, Tyson was a pure front-runner, Lewis got smashed not once but twice, Wladimir presided over the worst division ever; Fury wants to bounce out into history with less quality work done during his reign than Wilder or Joshua did; and so it goes, each complaint holding some degree of legitimacy.

It is not an especially difficult task to declare a fighter (or any other kind of noteworthy person) "Overrated", and then support the declaration by listing what the didn't get done and what they did imperfectly. It's just not that hard, and whether you've talking Julius Ceasar or Ghandi or Churchill or Lincoln or Ganghis Khan, the principle applies.

George Foreman's argument is not that he jam packed his professional years with legions of top contenders like Ali did. Or that he stayed atop the mountain for more than a dozen years straight like Louis. He did not reset the punch stat expectations of history like Dempsey did. Indeed there was plenty that Foreman didn't get done.

But listen to me and listen good (please)........
Foreman lost his title in 1974 and later in 77' he retired. He Really retired. Out and with a new life for well over a decade. Then, in 1994, 20 YEARS after relinquishing that one and only real world title, he regained that same one and only real world title!!!! This aint tennis and this ain't golf. This ain't any kind of game! This is the one and ONLY form of hand to hand combat that matters enough to the eyes of history to be remembered for centuries and matters enough so that it pays the really big bucks!
Nobody every came close to doing what Foreman did with this.
But there's allot more greatness to Big George Foreman than just that, friends.
The PRB applies the sciences of demography, statistics, anthropology, historical record integrity to estimate that some 110 to 125 billion “modern” **** sapiens (that is, people who were roughly like we are now) have lived since we first walked the Earth around 50,000 B.C.E. When the steps to the harnessed mastery of punching power are correctly regarded, it is VERY likely that among these 117,000,000,000, NOT ONE OF THEM PUNCHED AS HARD AS FOREMAN, when measured by footpounds of force x Reliability of target achievement. No weightlifter, no biker, no bouncer, no Roman Legionnaire, no Viking, no Spartan, no master of Gung Fu....nobody.
Nobody EVER.
No need to dispute that accretion with musings about the inability to prove it. It's not that type of a claim, and what Viking ever scored more KOs than Foreman anyhow?
If we're talking fighting, and that doesn't strike you as highly rated, as highly as you can imagine, then we need to be talking about some other topic together, cuz neither of us stand any chance of learning a dammed thing.

I understand your point about the comeback and yes it was an incredible achievement. But you said that no one ever came close and that is not true. Larry Holmes almost beat Oliver McCall at age 45. Wladimir Klitschko almost beat Anthony Joshua at age 41. Even Holyfield really shouldve gotten the nod vs Valuev at age 48 (Although he was a paper champion). Foreman was great but I don't think he did enough to be considered better than fighters who had long sustained runs such as Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes, Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis, or Wladimir Klitschko.

[QueensburyRules]

Yes I know he's a legend Big George im a fan of his too. But his resume is thin. In his 1st career he was protected and after 37 fights fought Joe Frazier for the title. He completely dominated him, great win. He had 2 other defenses one vs Ken Norton, who was coming off a loss, and dominated him, great win. He then lost to an older Ali. He had a few more fights and the lost to Jimmy Young. He then retires from boxing.


Years later (10) he makes his come back and changes his image around. He fights a bunch of tuneups (most notably against a coming out of retirement Gerry Cooney) and then fights Evander Holyfield for the title. He does better than people thought but still loses clearly. He then cherry picks Tommy Morrison after Morrison got chined by Ray Mercer and loses almost every single round. He then cherry picks Michael Moorer after Morrer beat Holyfield (he didn't fight Bowe after Bowe beat Holyfield) and knocks him out after losing every round prior. Great win and great accomplishment.

He then vacates the belt to avoid fighting his mandatory Tony Tucker and doesn't fight any of the major competition for the rest of his career ruining the lineal title.

He has a padded record. He has like 10 fights vs legitimate competition and lost around half of them


George Foreman for me doesn't have enough strong wins to be considered better than Larry Holmes, Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis or Wladimir Klitschko but often times is ranked ahead of them on all time lists. History remembers him well because of his personality and being in the Golden era of heavyweights with Ali, Fraizer, and Norton.

What do you guys think?

- - U any relation to Mickey Mouse?

[Willow The Wisp]

I understand your point about the comeback and yes it was an incredible achievement. But you said that no one ever came close and that is not true. Larry Holmes almost beat Oliver McCall at age 45. Wladimir Klitschko almost beat Anthony Joshua at age 41. Even Holyfield really shouldve gotten the nod vs Valuev at age 48 (Although he was a paper champion). Foreman was great but I don't think he did enough to be considered better than fighters who had long sustained runs such as Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes, Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis, or Wladimir Klitschko.

That's all fair. But they too, those ATGs who you've selected to name, they each had their imperfections from which to build a criticism as well. As a guy who's met and talked to many, many of the fighters that we discuss on this board, dating all the way back to Dempsey (not bragging, I had to grow old and fairly weak in order to earn that claim), I am a person who is generally preferring to talk up the fighters rather than berate them. That is neither right or wrong, up or down or black or white; it's just my thing. I've crossed paths with plenty of people in my travels who've made great lives for themselves, made headlines, achieved high academic honors and made allot of money, who have used their time alive well and garnered much respect in so doing; but for me, it's always been those big hearted souls who placed their precious anatomy in peril for our entertainment who got the biggest slice of admiration from little ol' Me.
That colors all of my opinions when it comes to boxing dialog. And I've sat, so many, many times listening patently as some of those great men struggled to form the words to thank me for remembering who they were and what they did, at times recalling better than they could. Those experiences, that I am deeply honored to have had, informs the vast majority of the thoughts I share on the forums.

[The Old LefHook]

I understand your argument, and you're not, in my opinion; entirely wrong. The crux of it with George is that the argument avoids what's great about his career and sheds light only on what's weak about it, and even the greatest of the greats have a few of those weak spots. Corbet fought like a fencing master, Johnson left too many great contenders without a title shot, Dempsey did too. Louis got prime KOd by a <200 lb. Guy, Marciano was a 5'10.5" bleeder, Ali never went to the body and had slipped by the age when Lewis and Klitschko were just heating up, Tyson was a pure front-runner, Lewis got smashed not once but twice, Wladimir presided over the worst division ever; Fury wants to bounce out into history with less quality work done during his reign than Wilder or Joshua did; and so it goes, each complaint holding some degree of legitimacy.

It is not an especially difficult task to declare a fighter (or any other kind of noteworthy person) "Overrated", and then support the declaration by listing what the didn't get done and what they did imperfectly. It's just not that hard, and whether you've talking Julius Ceasar or Ghandi or Churchill or Lincoln or Ganghis Khan, the principle applies.

George Foreman's argument is not that he jam packed his professional years with legions of top contenders like Ali did. Or that he stayed atop the mountain for more than a dozen years straight like Louis. He did not reset the punch stat expectations of history like Dempsey did. Indeed there was plenty that Foreman didn't get done.

But listen to me and listen good (please)........
Foreman lost his title in 1974 and later in 77' he retired. He Really retired. Out and with a new life for well over a decade. Then, in 1994, 20 YEARS after relinquishing that one and only real world title, he regained that same one and only real world title!!!! This aint tennis and this ain't golf. This ain't any kind of game! This is the one and ONLY form of hand to hand combat that matters enough to the eyes of history to be remembered for centuries and matters enough so that it pays the really big bucks!
Nobody every came close to doing what Foreman did with this.
But there's allot more greatness to Big George Foreman than just that, friends.
The PRB applies the sciences of demography, statistics, anthropology, historical record integrity to estimate that some 110 to 125 billion “modern” **** sapiens (that is, people who were roughly like we are now) have lived since we first walked the Earth around 50,000 B.C.E. When the steps to the harnessed mastery of punching power are correctly regarded, it is VERY likely that among these 117,000,000,000, NOT ONE OF THEM PUNCHED AS HARD AS FOREMAN, when measured by footpounds of force x Reliability of target achievement. No weightlifter, no biker, no bouncer, no Roman Legionnaire, no Viking, no Spartan, no master of Gung Fu....nobody.
Nobody EVER.
No need to dispute that accretion with musings about the inability to prove it. It's not that type of a claim, and what Viking ever scored more KOs than Foreman anyhow?
If we're talking fighting, and that doesn't strike you as highly rated, as highly as you can imagine, then we need to be talking about some other topic together, cuz neither of us stand any chance of learning a dammed thing.

Very nice indeed--Vikings, Spartans and bouncers.

[Willow The Wisp]

Very nice indeed--Vikings, Spartans and bouncers.

**** sapiens, lol. Some of my best work.

[Willie Pep 229]

Took a beating from Holyfield; took a beating from Morrison; took a beating from Moorer - still kept taking and throwing punches until he got to where he wanted/needed to be one last time - the HW Champion of the world.

What does a fighter have to do to gain respect around here?

How can he be overrated? Overrated by whom? By what criteria is he being rated that he is overrated?

On this forum 'Overrated' is overrated.

[MikeyMike100]

Took a beating from Holyfield; took a beating from Morrison; took a beating from Moorer - still kept taking and throwing punches until he got to where he wanted/needed to be one last time - the HW Champion of the world.

What does a fighter have to do to gain respect around here?

How can he be overrated? Overrated by whom? By what criteria is he being rated that he is overrated?

On this forum 'Overrated' is overrated.

He should never be ranked ahead of Larry Holmes ever. Under any circumsances. I have seen that a lot.

[DeeMoney]

Foreman is such a unique fighter to analyze because he is a combination of a great 'what-if', mixed with an amazing unique accomplishment. Now if you just look at resume, then Foreman probably is a bit over rated, but lets look at why he is so.

If we accept that the early to mid 70s was the greatest era in heavyweight history, then being the generally accepted second best of the best era has to count for something. I think most people crown Ali the best of this era; and while Frazier sometimes lays claim to being second best, Foreman whopping him twice probably gets him the nod as being the second best. Mix is his win over Norton and that further solidifies it. Once again I am referring to best, as in what they would do to the other in the ring, not accomplishments or resume.

But remember, going into the Ali fight, most people viewed Foreman as the clear favorite. So most people at the time thought that Foreman was the best heavyweight, during the time that most people consider to be the pinnacle of heavyweight boxing. Now consider the 'what-if': it took Ali's (who most rank the best heavyweight ever) best rabbit out of the hat performance to beat Foreman, something that probably no heavyweight prior to could have done. Add that up with the circumstances around Foreman's injury postponing the fight, and him being forcibly trapped in Zaire for a couple months, and its easy to see why many feel that despite the loss mid 70s Foreman couldve whooped any heavyweight that came before him more often than not.

That being written, Foreman lost, and a lot of people accept that messed with is head and he never recovered mentally, leading up to the Young loss. After which, he was basically done for a decade. The great what if, a man who maybe could've beaten anybody who came before him, but one tricky loss to the greatest heavyweight ever derailed him. People saw what he was in the ring and what couldve been and ranked him highly on potential, and being the second best of the best era....

Now, mix in the uniqueness of the KO win over Moorer, and him earning a title as an old man, and it validates that previous belief in him. We mix together the ability of the young slugger, with the good head on his shoulders of the old guy. Add that he was the second best of the early 70s, and that he won a heavyweight title in his mid 40s, and its easy to see why hes ranked so highly.