Why is George Foreman so highly rated?

[Ambling Alp II]

Holyfield throughout his career demonstrated greater durability than Frazier. He was able to go the distance with big hitters like Bowe and Lewis. I don't think any of the guys Frazier beat had Lewis's power.

Not sure why we are now comparing Holyfield and Frazier, but anyway...
Holyfield didn't show he had greater durability than Frazier. The only other fighter to stoop Frazier besides Foreman was Ali. Even that was a tremendous battle that went a brutal 14 rounds. That is no evidence of durability problems.

Frazier showed throughout his career that he was a much harder puncher than Holyfield.

[Ambling Alp II]

Carnera has far more losses in his prime than Klitschko and many to fighters that were far from great. I don't see how bringing up Klitschko's losses helps Carnera given Carnera was so much less consistent.

I don't think Wlad's losses are much worse than Lewis's. Lewis lost to a guy who was ko'd twice by Oleg Maskaev. Losing to a guy who couldn't beat Maskaev (in two tries no less) is pretty bad.

Bringing up Klitschko's losses don't make Carnera less inconsistent. However, Carnera actually has wins over opponents that matter. Not wins over guys with puffed up records or WBS titleholders, but guys who could actually fight. Klitschkos biggest win was over Chris Byrd. Big frikkin deal.

Wlads losses were much worse than Lewis's. Yes he lost to Rahman. I love how you cherry pick. You just ignore the obvious points that hurt your cause.
Klirshko lost three times in his prime. One was to LaMon Bewster. Brewster lost to Charles Shufford and the Black Rhino. How flippin embarrassing is it to lose to someone like that?

Wlad also lost to Corrie Sanders. Guess who Sanders got stopped by? Rahman.

Wlad even got stopped by Ross Purrity of all people. A total journeyman. Lost to tons of mediocre fighters. This includes Larry Donald who you said was not any good. Purrity also lost to guys who? Rahman.

To sum it up; Klitschko got stopped three times in his prime. One was to a journeyman.
Lewis was stopped twice. One was from a premature stoppage. Never stopped by a journeyman.

Wlad is not remotely in Lennox Lewis's league.

[Seamus]

What impresses me about Foreman's comeback is the fact, that if instead of being George Foreman he was Joe Smith from Detroit turning pro at say 22 in 1987, he still almost certainly would have gotten a title shot because at the time of the Holyfield fight he'd be 24-0 (23 KO's)

[Kalan]

Klitschko got stopped three times in his prime. One was to a journeyman. Lewis was stopped twice. One was from a premature stoppage. Never stopped by a journeyman. Wlad is not remotely in Lennox Lewis's league.

After a couple years with master trainer, Emmanuel Steward, Wladimir's skill level was far above anything Lewis ever achieved... His jab was quicker and more accurate.. his left hook sharper and more deadly.. His right counter faster and more skilled.. His footwork cleaner and more precise.. A prime Lewis with finished skills was knocked cold by Rahman.. Rahman couldn't land a decent punch on Wladimir.. Mercer ran a tattoo on Lewis and many thought Mercer won that fight.. Wladimir wasn't at his best, but he took no effective punches from Mercer.. beat on Mercer like he was his daddy.. decked Mercer with a sharp left hook to the head.. and was the first fighter to stop Mercer -- doing it with a shower of power punches.

A vastly more experienced Lewis was a sloppy MFer who Vitali easily outpointed through 6 on all scorecards.. Lewis relied on fouling to win many of his fights, such as the VK fight.. You correctly stated that Henry Armstrong was a fouler who needed to foul to win his fights.. So was Lewis in many cases.

Wlad lost to Puritty because he was weak and underweight from the flu.. But he wasn't down at the stoppage and would have rallied.. Puritty was punching himself out as Wald told his seconds after the fight.. Wlad was easily out-boxing Brewster and only lost because he was drugged.. Wlad lost to Sanders only because he had a major hole in his defense that a tall southpaw could exploit.. Those losses were all before Emmanuel Steward made a finished boxer out of Wladimir.. Lewis wouldn't have had a prayer of beating a peak Wladimir.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Lewis never needed bailing out against the likes of Davarryl Williamson.

[evrenb]

Holyfield throughout his career demonstrated greater durability than Frazier. He was able to go the distance with big hitters like Bowe and Lewis. I don't think any of the guys Frazier beat had Lewis's power.

Foreman had pretty good size and strength -- and Frazier couldn't make him blink with a shot... Frazier couldn't even budge punching bag Bonavena... Oscar decked Smokin' Joe 2 times and Foreman decked the smoker 8 times -- made a regular yo-yo out of the little fatty... Maybe that's why George is so overrated.

You're really horrible aren't you speaking of Frazier that way. Of all people. I will forward your comments to Marvis and the Frazier family. You are a disgusting human.

[Flump]

Holyfield throughout his career demonstrated greater durability than Frazier. He was able to go the distance with big hitters like Bowe and Lewis. I don't think any of the guys Frazier beat had Lewis's power.

Foreman had pretty good size and strength -- and Frazier couldn't make him blink with a shot... Frazier couldn't even budge punching bag Bonavena... Oscar decked Smokin' Joe 2 times and Foreman decked the smoker 8 times -- made a regular yo-yo out of the little fatty... Maybe that's why George is so overrated.

You're really horrible aren't you speaking of Frazier that way. Of all people. I will forward your comments to Marvis and the Frazier family. You are a disgusting human.

Don't bother evrenb, he's an attention seeking kid cramming.

[Kalan]

Lewis never needed bailing out against the likes of Davarryl Williamson.

Lewis didn't need bailing out with the likes of Hasim Rahman either... Except when he blundered into a shot... Then it was too late -- he was KTFO!!!

[Kalan]

Holyfield throughout his career demonstrated greater durability than Frazier. He was able to go the distance with big hitters like Bowe and Lewis. I don't think any of the guys Frazier beat had Lewis's power.

Foreman had pretty good size and strength -- and Frazier couldn't make him blink with a shot... Frazier couldn't even budge punching bag Bonavena... Oscar decked Smokin' Joe 2 times and Foreman decked the smoker 8 times -- made a regular yo-yo out of the little fatty... Maybe that's why George is so overrated.

You're really horrible aren't you speaking of Frazier that way. Of all people. I will forward your comments to Marvis and the Frazier family. You are a disgusting human.

Go FY... You're the dregs from the bottom of a sewer... There's no denying Frazier was overweight for the Foreman debacles punk.

[Kalan]

BTW evrenb... I'll tell you an interesting thing about Marvis Frazier... It was Smokin' Joe who decided to put 10-0 Marvis in with 44-0 Larry Holmes...

Brilliant move.

[Tomasino]

What a vile organism this Kalan thing is. The most disliked, ridiculed and unwanted entity on the web.

[evrenb]

What a vile organism this Kalan thing is. The most disliked, ridiculed and unwanted entity on the web.

You said it. He speaks of great, really great men like Frazier in that way. He should be ashamed of himself.

[Kalan]

What a vile organism this Kalan thing is. The most disliked, ridiculed and unwanted entity on the web.

You're too low to be an organism Tomaswineo. your the crap fetid maggots leave in their wake.

[Kalan]

evrenb, Why is it you enshrine Frazier -- who dumped his son (who had 10 fights) in with Larry Holmes -- and knock contemporary boxers all you want???

Fair is fair... Frazier had some miserable showings where he showed up fat and not ready to fight... And got bounced around like a blubbery basketball.

[Cojimar 1946]

Holyfield by and large faced the biggest punchers of his day and was never blasted out early like Frazier was against Foreman. To me this suggests greater durability. Lennox Lewis was the 90s equivalent of Foreman and he was unable to stop a past-it Holyfield in two fights. I think by and large Holyfield faced more punchers than Frazier did-He fought Lewis, Bowe, and Tyson to name a few and of Fraziers opponents I would say only Foreman was at that level.

[Cojimar 1946]

If people want to rank Lewis ahead of Klitschko I won't argue with that but I'm curious at this perception that there is a huge gap between them.

As far as Carnera goes, Wlad and Vitali were both clearly better. Wladimir dominated the division for an extended period something Carnera never did and beat far more top guys. One win over a probably past-it Sharkey is not enough to offset Wladimir and Vitali's dominance.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Vitali is right there with primo. Lennox was quite clearly greater than wlad.

[Ambling Alp II]

Wladimir beat Byrd and nobody else worth mentioning.
Vitali beat nobody worth mentioning.
Carnera beat Sharkey, Loughran, and Uzcudun.

There is no legitimate reason at all to rate either of the Klitschkos anywhere near Lennox Lewis. Dominance against crappy competition doesn't mean anything.

Love the argument minimizing Foreman's crushing win over Frazier. Frazier wasn't durable because he got crushed by you guessed it - Foreman! That is elmer logic.

[Tuan_Jim]

"But one guy dominated and the other didn't" is a dead end argument. Corrie Sanders was better than Wladimir and he didn't dominate anything.

Primo Carnero would overtake both Klitschkos down the stretch, even if he had to come off the floor once or twice versus the little one.

[Kalan]

"But one guy dominated and the other didn't" is a dead end argument. Corrie Sanders was better than Wladimir and he didn't dominate anything.

Primo Carnero would overtake both Klitschkos down the stretch, even if he had to come off the floor once or twice versus the little one.

Sheer stupidity and hate from Tuan_Jim... Sanders wasn't better than Wladimir---and nobody but you pretends he was---anymore than Rahman was better than Lewis... This is Boxing.. If you're a big powerful man who can throw hard, you can also get hit with a punch on the chin.. Ken Norton got knocked cold by Jose Luis Garcia who weighed 188 and had 12 wins.. Mike Tyson got trashed by a 42-1 underdog.. Sonny Liston was beaten by a Light Heavyweight who couldn't hit.. Ali and Lewis got beaten by massive underdogs -- but somehow it's only a pre-Steward Wladimir who was worse then a guy who scored a massive upset over him when he still had holes in his defense.

Wladimir went over 13 years without getting stopped, between the ages of 28 and 41.. That's a longer stretch than any Heavyweight Champion who stayed active at a high level except Johnson, Tunney, and Holmes.

[Cojimar 1946]

I should think Wladimirs wins over Povetkin, McCline, and Haye to name a few mean quite a bit. Haye was a good fighter back in his prime. I don't see what would make you think Carnera's wins are more impressive. Loughran was past his prime and Uzcuden was a guy who seemed to generally come up short against good opposition.

[Jaywheel]

McCline

[Ambling Alp II]

Same with Povetkin and Haye. Haye got embarrassed by an ancient Carl Thompson.

Uzcudun fought a ton of good fighters. Sometimes he won and sometimes he lost.
Loughran still had a lot left. There was no reason at all to think he was over the hill going into the Carnera fight.

[Cojimar 1946]

Look if we are going to obsess over the negative aspects of someone's career and ignore the positive aspects we can do that for any fighter. Lennox Lewis has two pretty humiliating losses last time I checked. Yet you don't seem to think these humiliating defeats disqualify him from greatness. Carl Thompson was a good cruiserweight.

Dempsey was ko'd by Jim Flynn. I would not be at all surprised if Thompson could beat Flynn. He also lost in his prime to Willie Meehan. Even Brewster and Sanders are arguably better fighters than Meehan who aside from Dempsey seemed to always come up short.

[Ambling Alp II]

Well yes you have to weigh the good and the bad. You always have to do that when rating a fighter. Lewis does have two losses on his record. (The first was a premature stoppage by the referee.) That has to count against him. Lewis also had several good wins that proved he was a great fighter.
Dempsey's loss to Flynn should be count against him. On the hand, Dempsey had several good wins (usually easily) against respectable opponents.

Carl Thompson was a good cruiserweight at one time. He was also 40 and way, way past it when Haye got knocked out by him. That is much more embarrassing that losing to Rahman.

Haye, McCline, and Povetkin have nothing that really shows they were great fighters. The Village idiot will probably start quoting weights, pretty win/loss records, and meaningless title defenses and other nonsense.

However, if you really have a good understanding of boxing history, you can see past all that garbage and see what matters. You need to start watching film, weighing the good vs the bad, and using common sense.