BoxRec

Not pound for pound, not a list of a lot of punchers, just one who could punch harder than anyone else.


My pick is George Foreman.

For pure weight and force, I'd agree with Foreman. It was a sledgehammer, and so accurate at its best. If you watch against Frazier, he nailed him with almost all the bombs he threw, even though Joe was bobbing and weaving...menacing. For pure speed and power, possibly Louis

joe louis


sonny liston hits harder than george foreman

Tyson's got to rank up there. His upper-cuts were devastating as well as his right-crosses/hooks.

BrocktonBlockbuster49 wrote:sonny liston hits harder than george foreman

George is pretty old now, but I still think he hits harder than Liston, who's been dead for about 35 years now.

A conventional choice perhaps but even after all this time I am astonished at the way he would send grown men flying across the ring with one punch. Honorable mention for Danny Lopez, he would seemingly tap an opponent and they would collapse in a heap.

George Foreman. In 2002, Ring Magazine did a list of the 100 greatest punchers of all time. It's available for your perusal at Wikipedia. If you go to en.wikipedia.org and do a search for "Greatest Punchers" you'll find it. I'm not saying I agree with it but it's very interesting. They rate Joe Louis as Number 1. Their top five are Joe Louis, Sam Langford, Jimmy Wilde, Archie Moore and Sandy Sadler.

Rocky Marciano hands down....then tyson

george foreman rarely knocked guys out with one punch.

the hardest hitter is defitnely joe louis or sonny liston. one punch and gone.


guys like max baer and rocky marciano's right hands rank them very high

Well this topic really restricts us to the Heavyweights because they are generally just so much bigger, stronger and more powerfull than the lighter weights for the obvious reasons.

Pure one shot KO power I lean towards Earnie Shavers.

Non heavyweight the likes of Julian Jackson, John Mugabi, Wilfredo Gomez and Jimmy Wilde etc.

top ten greatest punchers (overall)

1. Joe Louis
2. Mike Tyson
3. Sonny Liston
4. Jack Dempsey
5. Rocky Marciano
6. george Foreman
7. Lennox Lewis
8. Joe Frazier
9. Max Baer
10. James Jeffries

top 10 hardest punchers

1. Joe Louis
2. Earnie Shavers
4. Sonny Liston
5. George Foreman
6. Rocky Marciano
7. Max Baer
8. Jack Dempsey
9. Mike tyson
10. Joe Frazier

Louis, Shavers, Liston, and Foreman are always bantered about in this catagory. When I look at the tapes I remain most impressed with Foreman. On occasion he seemed to have a superhuman ability to bring people down. I think He knocked 4 out of 5 people down in that exhibition of his.

He has had humility when asked for self assessment but I think he owns the crown on this one. Others may have had some "one or more punch moments" that may have transcended Foremans by way of straight, fast and direct shots. But he did not depend on angles or placement of his shots he could hit people in the arm and seem to hurt them. He seemed to have a different delivery system. He was even too slow to take best advantage of this ability. People could see them coming and think they could weather the moment and find themselves staggering.

Louis's accuracy made him more devastating because they landed where they belonged thus getting more damage done on a wholesale basis. But I think Foreman gets the 'high intensity impact award"

Tyson, Jimmy Wilde, Thomas Hearns, Julian Jackson.

I would have Naseem Hamed high up on this list.

I recall reading that Sonny Liston himself said that he thought Cleveland Williams hit as hard as he did.

liston did say that in his book, but i doubt it. I think liston hit harder. if williams hit as hard as liston did, he would have finisished liston when he had him out on his feet in the 1st round.

its funny cause cleveland williams never beat any big names besides knocking out ernie terrell and then terrell won the rematch .

a name that could defifintely be included in here is bob sattferfield

joe louis...

the great james j braddock said that if you put lightbulbs on his feet they woulda lit up everytime joe louis punched him

Ability to absorb punishment could also be a very important factor in determining who won between power punchers. Ron Lyle vs Earnie Shavers would appear to be a good example of this. In my opinion, the fact that Liston beat Williams does not necessarily mean he hit harder.

My List of the Hardest Punchers of the Past Thirty-Five
Years

Heavyweight- Earnie Shavers
Light-Heavyweight- Bob Foster
Middleweight- John Mugabi
Welterweight- Thomas Hearns
Lightweight- Roberto Duran
Featherweight- Alexis Arguello
Bantamweight- Carlos Zarate
Flyweight- Humberto Gonzalez

Chuck1052 wrote:My List of the Hardest Punchers of the Past Thirty-Five
Years

Heavyweight- Earnie Shavers
Light-Heavyweight- Bob Foster
Middleweight- John Mugabi
Welterweight- Thomas Hearns
Lightweight- Roberto Duran
Featherweight- Alexis Arguello
Bantamweight- Carlos Zarate
Flyweight- Humberto Gonzalez

Hard to argue with any of those, but I guess I'll try. Actually, I'd just tweak this list of punchers since 1970 by having Cyclone Hart at MW, and Pepino Cuevas at WW, although I'm not really sure they hit harder than your picks.

Chuck1052 wrote:My List of the Hardest Punchers of the Past Thirty-Five
Years

Heavyweight- Earnie Shavers
Light-Heavyweight- Bob Foster
Middleweight- John Mugabi
Welterweight- Thomas Hearns
Lightweight- Roberto Duran
Featherweight- Alexis Arguello
Bantamweight- Carlos Zarate
Flyweight- Humberto Gonzalez

I agree with most but instead of Mugabi I would put Mclellan.

I never really thought of Duran as a "one-punch" puncher; he was a hard and accurate and effective puncher. If we are talking straight one-punch get you out and end the fight type of power, then here is my list;

Fly; Carbajal
Bantam; Olivares
Feather; Little Red Lopez
Light; Rosario
Welter; Trinidad
Middle; Mugabi
LightHeavy; Foster, M \Spinks
Heavy; Shavers

hardest hitters is a lot different from greatest punchers

top 10 hardest hitting heavyeights

1. Joe Louis
2. Mike Tyson
4. Sonny Liston
5. George Foreman
6. Rocky Marciano
7. Earnie Shavers
8. Jack Dempsey
9. Max Baer
10. Joe Frazier


straw-fly: Jimmy Wilde
Bantam: Carlos Zarate
Feather: Sandy saddler or Terry Mcgovern
Light: Roberto Duran
Weltwer: Heanrs or Ray Robinson
Middle: Stanley Ketchell
Light-H: archie Moore or Bob Foster

rocky marcianos punches sure look damm hard i would have to have him no1
followed by in no paticular order mike tyson, george forman, sonny liston ,max baer & joe louis

i would agree that rocky hit harder then most heavyweights ever, put louis tyson liston and foreman i would say are a bit ahead of him. not saying rocky didnt possess one hell of a punch, he did. but these guys just hit a little harder