1987 George Foreman vs peak Floyd Patterson

[goose 5]

12 rounds.

[f read]

George Foreman knocks out Floyd Patterson early. Even the 1987 version. Yes to big strong and he could easily dent Floyds chin. This would be one sided and stylewise a very bad match up for Floyd.

[margaret thatcher]

both the young and old versions of george are all wrong for floyd

[LeRoiDuRing]

Floyd Patterson was a glorified light-heavyweight even for his era. In today's standards he would certainly end up fighting between super-middleweight and light-heavy.

He is an ATG for sure and the 1987 George Foreman is certainly the worse we can find condition-wise but he was still a very powerful heavyweight able to break wall with his jab, destroy the body with uppercuts and most importantly cut the ring very well.

Floyd Patterson had a good footwork and great handspeed I can see him able to score a couple good counters but once George capture him inside a corner and start trowing those bombs to the body the fight is basically over.

[gilgamesh]

This was George's first year back. I don't figure he would've handled a fight with this level of opponent too well. I'll take Patterson by UD.

[DrDuke]

Patterson would lead on points, but Foreman would catch him at some point.

[Djanders44]

IMHO, for various reasons, I'd go with even that version of Big George by first round knockout.

[scorpio83]

The 1987 George Foreman would knock the peak Patterson out in the late rounds. The young prime George Foreman would knock the peak Patterson out in the 1st or 2nd round.

[Ambling Alp II]

I don't knw if people really remember well how Foreman looked when he first came back. A lot of these fights were on USA and ESPN. there was a reason why fought such terrible competition. He was naturally very rusty and out of shape. He simply did not have the energy to go after a hurt opponent like he used to. He only overcame this to a limited extent during his comeback.

I am going with Patterson all the way. Yes Patters on did not have a good chin. Yes Foreman still had some power. but there is a lot more to consider. How much trouble is Foreman going to have nailing Patterson/ with his very slow hand speed, and low punch output, not that often. Even if he does hurt Patterson, he probably would not be able to follow up.

Really foreman's best chance would be a one-punch knockout, but the odds are against that. He might go the distance, but Foreman is very unlikely to win at this stage of his career, This was the worst stage of his career.

[margaret thatcher]

Patterson would lead on points, but Foreman would catch him at some point.

agree, even this george gets to him eventually

[elmersalsa]

I don't knw if people really remember well how Foreman looked when he first came back. A lot of these fights were on USA and ESPN. there was a reason why fought such terrible competition. He was naturally very rusty and out of shape. He simply did not have the energy to go after a hurt opponent like he used to. He only overcame this to a limited extent during his comeback.

I am going with Patterson all the way. Yes Patters on did not have a good chin. Yes Foreman still had some power. but there is a lot more to consider. How much trouble is Foreman going to have nailing Patterson/ with his very slow hand speed, and low punch output, not that often. Even if he does hurt Patterson, he probably would not be able to follow up.

Really foreman's best chance would be a one-punch knockout, but the odds are against that. He might go the distance, but Foreman is very unlikely to win at this stage of his career, This was the worst stage of his career.

I got to agree with Ambling Alp on this one. There is no way an out of shape 267lbs fighter, that has been out of retirement for 10 years beats a prime Floyd Patterson, even though Patterson never reached or weighed in to 200lbs in his heyday.

[bwu]

This is one of those discussions that makes me ping pong back and forth. I have to go with the Patterson camp, though that was not my first instinct.

The key word for me is “peak.” Peak Patterson was the one from the second Ingo fight. He had an edge that he never possessed before or after that match. He was a genuinely dangerous man.

Stylistically, it’s a bad fight for Floyd in most years. But from the beginning of Foreman’s comeback until about the time he beat Dwight Muhammad Qawi, peak Floyd wins.

[985802]

This is a mismatch cause floyd was a lw no matter what style he used he would be destroyed

[HomicideHenry]

When George came back in 1987 he was knocking over a group of guys who were basically tomato cans and journeymen. The best guy he beat was Rocky Sekorski (20-7-0) and that was a guy who was 3-2-0 in his last five contests before fighting George, and one of those losses was a unanimous decision to a pretty ancient Jimmy Young.

If the diminutive Dwight Qawi went 8 rounds with George a year later, I have no doubt that Paterson would go the entire 12 round distance. I fully expect a Foreman-Morrison kind of performance where Patterson is able to escape the vast majority of George's power punches and win a unanimous decision.

[985802]

Well

When George came back in 1987 he was knocking over a group of guys who were basically tomato cans and journeymen. The best guy he beat was Rocky Sekorski (20-7-0) and that was a guy who was 3-2-0 in his last five contests before fighting George, and one of those losses was a unanimous decision to a pretty ancient Jimmy Young.

If the diminutive Dwight Qawi went 8 rounds with George a year later, I have no doubt that Paterson would go the entire 12 round distance. I fully expect a Foreman-Morrison kind of performance where Patterson is able to escape the vast majority of George's power punches and win a unanimous decision.

Well you need to watch floyd he was a lw and didn't fight like tom he was a brawler tom wasnt with george

Floyd couldnt take shots from son what makes you think he could take shots from a man who hit harder makes no sense the match would be over the 1st round by ko from george

[HomicideHenry]

Because Patterson, until the arrival of Muhammad Ali, was arguably the fastest heavyweight in history. Very difficult to see the slower than molasses George Foreman, in his first year coming back after 10 years in activity, being able to catch a man who was originally a light heavyweight.

Patterson's chin is overblown. I'm more interested in whether somebody gets up and come back to win, which Patterson did more times than not. Sure, he got blasted out by Sonny Liston but so did a lot of guys.

Chuck Wepner insists that Liston hit harder than Foreman, and I tend to believe him because Liston had more of a snap to his punches.

Anyways, the key operative word is "peak". Physically Patterson may have been at his peak when he was world champion but I have always been of the opinion that he was a better heavyweight after being the heavyweight champion because of his performances against Chuvalo, Quarry, and Ellis--- and it's without question or doubt that those people were superior to the opponents that Patterson defended the title against.

Regardless, Johansson was one hell of a puncher and Patterson was able to weather the storms and come out on top. I think Patterson was just simply too fast for 1987 Foreman and he would have landed punches in bunches, while being able to get away from George's shots.

Lastly Foreman fought out of a crab shell defense when he came back and you can throw the jab pretty easily in such a defense but unloading your power hand takes a bit of time. After the Holyfield fight Foreman dropped the crab shell defense because he realized he couldn't get his punches off fast enough. In 1987 he would have been at his rustiest and slowest using that crab shell defense so I don't think he would have been able to hit Patterson all that much.

[gilgamesh]

This was George's first year back right? I'm thinking he still would've had too much ring rust on him to catch Floyd Patterson in 1987. Give him 3 more years and make it the Foreman who fought Holyfield, and he wins, but at this time he was coming off of 10 years inactivity, and even though he rose back to the top eventually he didn't do it overnight. He had to fight a lot of scrubs to get his groove back. If you just threw him in there with a Floyd Patterson, he ain't winning.