We must find out for science!
I volunteer… someone else to get in a DeLorean and fight both men in their prime.
Why not use the DeLorean to bring one to the other?
By George, I think he’s got it!
Great Scott!
This sums it up pretty well. Bigger, stronger, taller, longer reached and harder jawed Foreman wins. With the stamina Foreman showed in his later career (aided by being wiser and not wasting energy) he could push Tyson around, hold him off with a jab, and win a decision. But if he could land solidly on Tyson then Tyson would go down. I think Ron Lyle, another giant of a man, was the only guy who knocked Foreman off his feet without Foreman being exhausted. And Big George got up from that and put Lyle away.
Buster Douglas fought Tyson exactly as he should have and won the fight without massive power punches. I think foreman would have prevailed in a match up. I also think Tyson would have given Muhammed Ali a very rough time and may have one between the two.
Tyson might have beaten Foreman, though. Standoff punching was not his game; his games was closing, dodging the punches during his approach, and then inflicting combinations in close. Tyson is remembered for his frightening uppercuts (and weird behaviour) but should be better known for his remarkable punch avoidance skills. You can’t be a good swarmer without the ability to avoid punches and my God, he could avoid punches like nobody’s business, and again and again used a dodge to set up a devastating counterpunch. The peek-a-boo style isn’t easy, but Tyson was a master; at his peak he was just as good a defensive boxer as he was a puncher.
It’s hard to imagine two heavyweights as dissimilar as Foreman and Tyson. What would have happened in a fight between them no one can say for sure.
I’d say Tyson’s remarkable punch avoidance skills were based on the old adage: “The best defense is a good offense.” His opponents were busy staying away from his incredible punches. The few quality opponents he had didn’t have trouble hitting him. But he did take a hell of punch.
But for both fighters you’d have to pick a point in each of their careers when this hypothetical match occurred. Both of them had ups and downs. It’s hard to say when George was at his best, it might have been when he first won the title by using Joe Frazier as a Bozo Popup Punching Bag, or maybe when he regained it by flattening Michael Moorer in a tough fight where Big George managed to do everything right against a solid opponent. I think Tyson was at his very best when he knocked out Tim Witherspoon. Witherspoon wasn’t at his best but Tyson hadn’t yet fallen victim to the slings and arrows of stardom and made very short work of a hard hitting experienced opponent.
I really don’t see how anyone could question Mr. Holyfield on this point. How do you think one of us might have a more useful opinion on the subject? I do find it odd that I couldn’t find any hard data on the subject though. One would think that by the 70’s they would have been measuring punching power.
As for a match-up, Tyson didn’t do well against taller, heavier opponents. I was there for Tyson v McBride. Tyson was well past his prime but very few people thought McBride would get a punch in. I really wish I had bet on that one. Even cheating constantly, Tyson wasn’t getting anywhere.
I just watched that an Youtube having never seen it before…wow Foreman was a monster. Ali really was using every “trick” possible–clinching, holding, pulling, leaning…he actually seemed afraid of Foreman.
Can you blame him? Foreman was a freaking behemoth.
I don’t think “afraid” is quite the right word for any of those top fighters. They’ve all been in against very dangerous men and it takes a certain mindset to do that but certainly Ali knew exactly what Foreman was capable of and his response was a smart tactic to nullify it (even though it meant taking a huge risk with soaking up that amount of punishment). Ali knew full well that it could have gone badly wrong.
‘Big’ George was a beast for the time, no doubt. But interesting to see in the Bellew - Haye HW fight at the weekend, two blown up cruiserweights, Haye was slightly heavier than Foreman was against Ali (220 lb) and Bellew was 210. Times have changed.
Ali’s ego was too big for him ever to be afraid. That’s a big part of what brought him to the top. If you weren’t afraid of Liston, you aren’t gonna be afraid of nobody.
In a sense, it did go badly wrong - Foreman did more than his share towards pounding Ali into punch-drunkenness. It’s odd - Ali wins the fight and dies a quivering shell. Foreman loses, and spends the rest of his life making fat guy jokes about himself. And punching out men twenty years younger than himself. Benny Leonard, the great lightweight, once said that the smart fighter was one who was a little bit afraid. Ali wasn’t afraid. He won the fight, but he paid for it the rest of his life.
I think that if it were somehow possible to transplant Foreman’s mind, when he was old and jovial and patient, into Foreman’s body going into the Ali fight, Foreman would have won fairly easily. Foreman was too intent on a knock out. Old Foreman would have said ‘you want to lie on the ropes and take body shots? Fine with me’ and then ignore Ali’s head apart from jabbing, and concentrate on busting in his ribs for fifteen rounds. Ferdie Pacheco said Ali pissed blood for a week after that fight - imagine the shape his kidneys would have been in if Foreman stopped taking big swings at Ali’s head and missing, and took big swings at Ali’s body and landing.
But younger Foreman was too psyched from breaking Frazier and Norton like saltine crackers. Like a lot of big hitters who think they have an easy target, he went crazy going for the head shot knockout. Just jab back at Ali, walk him down, and when you get him on the ropes - break him in half.
Regards,
Shodan
I suspect the real damage to Ali’s brain occurred in the battles with Ken Norton, and Joe Frazier battered him around some as well. Which is not to say that Foreman didn’t ring his bell a few times but the sustained, cumulative punishment that Norton and Frazier inflicted on Ali was truly devastating - and life-altering. Of course Ali gave as much as he took: they both received some pain in return.
Honestly if Ali-Foreman occurs basically anywhere other than an outdoor arena in suffocating heat, Foreman would probably have battered Ali into an early retirement, if not outright death. Foreman was just a nightmare match-up for any boxer, with those long sledgehammer arms that would just drop down from wicked and unpredictable angles. He also had a much underrated defense, using his arms to defend against body blows. He was so good at protecting his mid-section that he basically forced his opponents to become headhunters, which meant that he forced opponents to get in range of his uppercuts and hooks.
The two fighters who had the most success against Foreman were two elite boxers, and the jury is still out on how well Ali would have done in a more conventional environment, and how Evander Holyfield would have fared against a younger version of Big George.
I admit that I rarely get to keep up with boxing the way I once did, but the most intriguing heavyweight I’ve seen on film lately is Wilder. That guy just looks like a damn freak. I don’t necessarily think he’s the most technically sound boxer I’ve seen, but he kinda reminds me of Foreman a little the way his gloves fly in from outer space. He has remarkable killer instinct - that guy finishes people. He’s like a shark that smells blood in the water. He just goes off on opponents until they drop.
I come from an era of Hagler-Hearns-Leonard-Duran on free to air TV and it is a damn shame that any classics are now (ring-fenced (ha!) behind paywalls and don’t get a public airing. It used to be a real talking point amongst the sport-literate but very few people I know are willing to shell out the money for it.
Having said that, I may be tempted if the Joshua-Wilder fight comes off.
True, I think that is when the real damage started to be done. Terribly sad.
It is a fine counterfactual and certainly a good possibility that it pans out that way, but as well as fearless, Ali was smart and if he wasn’t fighting “young” George Foreman then I don’t think he fights in the same way.
I don’t know about that. One side effect of Foreman’s dominating early success is that he had never really been tested at 15 rounds, and it was reasonable to assume that as the fight wore on the advantage would shift to Ali. In that context, Foreman was going with what had worked for him in the past, versus trying something new which there was reason to believe would be unsuccessful.
Of course, with the loose ropes and Ali leaning back, his head was pretty much out of reach for Foreman, so he was in a difficult spot in any event. (Also, Ali had this technique of reaching around his opponents’ heads and pressing down on their necks, when in close.)
Pacing himself sort of comes with the idea of transplanting his mind. Foreman wore himself out against Ali and Jimmy Young, and when he came back, realized he didn’t have to be in any hurry.
He was 45 when he kayoed Moorer to regain the title, and the right he did it with was as far from his pre-comeback swings as can be imagined - keep jabbing until Moorer moved his head the wrong way, and then bang. It traveled about eight inches. I grant you, Moorer had a china chin, but he was way ahead in the fight, but Foreman was in no hurry.
Regards,
Shodan