BoxRec

Robinson wrote:Coked up and over weight Dwight Qawi gave the
returning Foreman a tough fight, and proved that
an aggressive and smaller man could take the
fight to Foreman. Yes Qawi lost, but he was also
a specifically hand picked opponent that did better
than what he was suppose to.

And let's not loose sight of the fact that Foreman was back from a 10 year layoff and that it was 15 years since Foreman beat Frazier in Jamaica. I don't think many would pick 1988 Foreman over a prime Frazier. The Qawi fight proved nothing in relation to the 1973 Foreman imo.

Robinson wrote: I would not say Ali and Holy beat Foreman by 'out
wrestling' him. They did it by mixing the ranges
up, working out to in and in to out, and clinching
often. Holyfield won with work rate and combinations,
Ali won by using counters and matching Foreman's
size.

Ali won by allowing Foreman to beat on him until he got tired in the blistering heat. I don't think any other fighter could have taken the body assault Ali took that night. Holyfield beat an old man.

Robinson wrote: Anyone who can not see an improvement and refinement
in Foreman as he got older is daft, Even the 'old man'
adjusted to his age and changed his game accordingly.

The Young fight aside, do you really think he looked refined and improved against LeDoux, Denis and Agosto? He was changed alright but not for the better imo.

yancey wrote:Curly,

Computer day at the psych ward, huh?

Goofball.

It's good to see you and that crazy fat bitch Irene getting aquainted. You have a lot in common.

How are you handling her constant PMs?

This guy never met Collins.....



Is that why he is smiling?

BoxBuzz wrote:Heehaw

Careful Buzz. An arguement might break out and then you would be forced to hide under the table again while AntonS sorts it out.

And you call yourself a moderator, Buzz? Bazza would be most displeased with your limp-wristed style. One thing Baz hated was a silly old poofter!

hhaehre wrote:
The Young fight aside, do you really think he looked refined and improved against LeDoux, Denis and Agosto? He was changed alright but not for the better imo.

I do. he certainly looked better there than he did vs Ali and Luis Pires.

What facet of George's game do you claim was better pre the Ali loss? Post-Ali he was fighting a little more measured, sharper punching technique, better use of the jab. All pluses in my book.

This argument aside I don't think the differences in Foreman was so big as to talk about two major career shifts. To me there is still essentially the '1970s George' and the 'comeback Foreman' in his 40s.

As a sidenote, many seem to bring up the Qawi fight. Foreman looked awful in that fight. He fought at his career low of his comeback but rather than looking fit and healthy he looked drained and depleted, possibly the effects of some odd crash diet he had attempted due to the oft-criticism that was lobbied at him surrounding his weight when he first came back (which he always laughed off but I'm sure deep down affected him). From the first round his punches lacked their usual snap. I have no doubt the Foreman who fought Cooney and Holyfield destroys Qawi much quicker.

"Anyone who can not see an improvement and refinement
in Foreman as he got older is daft, Even the 'old man'
adjusted to his age and changed his game accordingly."

Do you really believe Tommy Gunn and Shannon Briggs would have beat the young George Foreman and he would have needed a gift decision against Axel Schultz?

dempseyfire wrote:

hhaehre wrote:
The Young fight aside, do you really think he looked refined and improved against LeDoux, Denis and Agosto? He was changed alright but not for the better imo.

I do. he certainly looked better there than he did vs Ali and Luis Pires.

What facet of George's game do you claim was better pre the Ali loss? Post-Ali he was fighting a little more measured, sharper punching technique, better use of the jab. All pluses in my book.

This argument aside I don't think the differences in Foreman was so big as to talk about two major career shifts. To me there is still essentially the '1970s George' and the 'comeback Foreman' in his 40s.

Very well put. And I'm pretty condfident that the 70's Foreman would have destroyed Morrison, Schulz, Briggs and even that monster Alex Stewart.

dempseyfire wrote:

hhaehre wrote:
The Young fight aside, do you really think he looked refined and improved against LeDoux, Denis and Agosto? He was changed alright but not for the better imo.

I do. he certainly looked better there than he did vs Ali and Luis Pires.

What facet of George's game do you claim was better pre the Ali loss? Post-Ali he was fighting a little more measured, sharper punching technique, better use of the jab. All pluses in my book.

This argument aside I don't think the differences in Foreman was so big as to talk about two major career shifts. To me there is still essentially the '1970s George' and the 'comeback Foreman' in his 40s.

As a sidenote, many seem to bring up the Qawi fight. Foreman looked awful in that fight. He fought at his career low of his comeback but rather than looking fit and healthy he looked drained and depleted, possibly the effects of some odd crash diet he had attempted due to the oft-criticism that was lobbied at him surrounding his weight when he first came back (which he always laughed off but I'm sure deep down affected him). From the first round his punches lacked their usual snap. I have no doubt the Foreman who fought Cooney and Holyfield destroys Qawi much quicker.

Well I really think he lost a step after Ali but I agree that his career only has two major shifts, pre and post the 10 year layoff.

didnt dwight braxton give holyfield one of his toughest fights??

also how would holyfield compared with out the roids, & if you dont believe he aint you probably think pamela anderson has real breast's.

hurlock wrote:didnt dwight braxton give holyfield one of his toughest fights??

also how would holyfield compared with out the roids, & if you dont believe he aint you probably think pamela anderson has real breast's.

Steroids in boxing were only illegal and tested for in the late 1980s,
before that it was fair game and legal.
Steroids have been in sports since the end of WW2, and became
popular in the US during the 1960s.

Now...here is a question for you...do you think athletes before
Holyfield used PE's and steroids ? When it was considered fair and
legal ?

Sure Holyfield and a lot of other fighters used PEs and steroids...
I gurantee alot of heroes to people here used them as well ;)

Steroids and PEs are a big part of every sport. It is a fact.

a true sportsman dont use such substances,or use needles like a crazed junkie

We are talking about elite athletes. And not...."true sportsman" or
other such fairy tale entities.

I have to concur with Robinson there. It's reality, sorry to say.

Robinson wrote: Sure Holyfield and a lot of other fighters used PEs and steroids...
I gurantee alot of heroes to people here used them as well ;)

Steroids and PEs are a big part of every sport. It is a fact.

Can steroids make someone a better fighter, Kym?

EXACTLY how do they do that?

I can see how they can help in other sports where muscle mass is critical but I'm confused about how EXACTLY they help a fighter.

I know a little about this subject in terms of how steroids can help with healing. And perhaps for a mid grade boxer it could give him more power. But a first rate boxer who must depend on a critical relationship between strength and endurance via cardio vascular improvement over a long period of time, Steroid use would seem more counter productive.

Any other opinions on this?.....I'm speaking of INFORMED opinions here.

Of course steriods can make you a better fighter. Designer drugs like Primobolan builds strengt without bulk and is used in sports such as baseball. EPO will increase endurance and enable harder workouts, used in cardio-intensive sports such as cross country skiing. You'll find a suitable drug for any sport. Performance-enhancing drugs are used it virtually all of sport and it's because they work, make no mistake about that.

I think your referring to some concocted drugs which contain more than just steroids. I do agree with that. But steroids alone would not turn the trick for a boxer like it would for a weight lifter as I recall. Though things are moving fast in this field and perhaps that fact really has been relegated to the past. It's becoming souch a boutique industry. Have they come up with some that can not be detected by tests?

Collins2000 wrote:

Robinson wrote: Sure Holyfield and a lot of other fighters used PEs and steroids...
I gurantee alot of heroes to people here used them as well ;)

Steroids and PEs are a big part of every sport. It is a fact.

Can steroids make someone a better fighter, Kym?

EXACTLY how do they do that?

I can see how they can help in other sports where muscle mass is critical but I'm confused about how EXACTLY they help a fighter.

What they do is allow an athlete or fighter to train longer or
through recovery period.

Say, your are training 3hrs a day, hard, you get sore and tired
the next day. Steroids (athlete geared ones...not body building
anabolic), allow a fighter to keep training when they should
be recovering, because they are not sore.

So in fact it does let them get better as a fighter because they can
train longer, harder and more often.

Other PEs used have been amphetimine sorts which help lower
body fat, keep energy levels up and so on.

And off course these days HGH, which is why guys in their
40s etc can keep fighting with massively impressive physiques.
HGH is legal in the USA, and is hard to test for.

Most of the fighters I know that use it, and know of that
use it do not take it to LOOK the part or for strength, but
so that they can keep training and training and training,
without injury and needing to rest like a normal person.

The reality is, it has been in sports a long time and has
only been illegal (steroids) in boxing since the late 1980s.
It would be naive to asume that peak athletes would be
advised to, or themselves take some PEs to help them perform,
after all it was not taboo, illegal, nor was it a known element
in the sport.

Steroids do not give a fighter heart, courage, instinct and
so on. It just lets them train longer and harder and from
there it is up to the fighter to make do with that what they can.
Plenty of low level figters are on it, and no doubt plenty great
ones who were not.

I am not making excuses for it, I am just illustrating that this
is a fact. Me personally would never take PEs, but I would not
say that I have days at my low level of comp, where I am so
sore and tired that I wonder if it would be worth taking. That
however is for others and not me.

Buzz

There are many different sorts of steroids like there are
cola's.
They all are for different occasions, and results. Most people
when they hear steroids think of body building and big muscles,
heck you take steroids for asthma, hay fever, etc...
They are not anabolic now are they..?

BoxBuzz wrote:I think your referring to some concocted drugs which contain more than just steroids. I do agree with that. But steroids alone would not turn the trick for a boxer like it would for a weight lifter as I recall. Though things are moving fast in this field and perhaps that fact really has been relegated to the past. It's becoming souch a boutique industry. Have they come up with some that can not be detected by tests?

Well, EPO is obviously not a steroid but Primobolan is indeed a steroid. When I say 'designer' I mean that the drug is designed to have very specific properties so that it will work well for certain users. As Robinson mentioned, there are a host of different steroids and the ones used in sports today are very different from the roids they used in the 70's. Expensive and cutting edge stuff like Primobolan does not exhibit many of the side effects usually attributed to roids, like ackne, agression, growing breasts etc. This is because it does not convert to an estrogen in the body like the classic roids did. BTW, all the steroids used in sports to enhance performance are anabolic.

Thanks for that hhaehre.

So most (all?) the great fighters of recent years were on some sort of juice?

Is that the gist of it?

Perhaps we should start refining our dream matches to something like:

Henry Cooper (juiced. ie powerful 250 pound wrecking machine) vs Lennox Lewis (unjuiced. ie 190 pound non-punching weakling).

Not all...but it is unlikely that most are not.

Steroids is not just about size. I know of some guys
that use it and they are very lean, low body fat but
fight at 70kg.

EPO, ephedrine and so on, help with endurance and
conditioning and so on. So not all is size or muscle
building.

In the USA any one can go on HGH over 35, and most
athletes do.

I would not be suprised if some fighters from the 60s
and 70s through to the 80s were also using some
early PE's as well. After all it was legal then.

And to many cocaine was a good training booster too..
and look what that did to some of the talent of the
80s. I still know of alot ...I mean alot of guys that
do well in kick boxing that use stuff to help them with
training and before a fight.

I don't even drink, so Its all too nastyfor me. But I
guess the seduction of that next 5% is always there
for some guys.

Collins2000 wrote:So most (all?) the great fighters of recent years were on some sort of juice?

Is that the gist of it?

Perhaps we should start refining our dream matches to something like:

Henry Cooper (juiced. ie powerful 250 pound wrecking machine) vs Lennox Lewis (unjuiced. ie 190 pound non-punching weakling).

The notion that you always get huge from steroid use is a bit old fashioned. The modern athlete would use specifig PE's tailored to their sport and a boxer would not use the same drugs as a bodybuilder. While I definitively think PE's would benefit almost any boxer I don't think it is paramount in order to achieve success in boxing. In other sports like cross country skiing where a 1% improvement literally is the difference between 1st place and 20th place the lure of EPO is very strong, especially since you know many of your competitors are on it. Boxing is not all about oxygen carrying capacity and strength but it would be naive to assume that all the top guys are clean.

It is naive to assume that some top guys were 'clean'
in the past 30 odd years too.