{"id":422514,"date":"2026-01-21T00:45:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T00:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/422514\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T00:45:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T00:45:07","slug":"way-harder-power-of-george-foreman-and-earnie-shavers-ranked-by-man-who-faced-both","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/422514\/","title":{"rendered":"“Way harder”: Power of George Foreman and Earnie Shavers ranked by man who faced both"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leroy Caldwell suffered second-round stoppage defeats to both George Foreman<\/a> and Earnie Shavers, but one of them punched so hard that it felt like someone was hitting his toes with a hammer.<\/p>\n

By the time he faced Caldwell in 1971, Foreman was a relatively unknown quantity but had been quietly building his reputation as a vicious puncher.<\/p>\n

It was then under three years later that \u2018Big George\u2019 claimed the WBC world heavyweight title, dethroning Joe Frazier with an emphatic two-round demolition job<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Not long after that, Foreman secured another second-round finish, this time against Ken Norton, before suffering an eighth-round knockout defeat to Muhammad Ali in 1974<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is hardly surprising, then, that Foreman, along with formidable contender Shavers, is now considered one of the greatest heavyweight punchers of all time.<\/p>\n

Unlike his fellow knockout artist, though, Shavers did not quite manage to become a world champion after securing title shots against Ali and Larry Holmes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But even so, the \u2018Black Destroyer\u2019 is widely regarded as the most powerful fighter in history, with his first-round finish over Norton<\/a> in 1979 representing a particularly compelling sprinkle of evidence.<\/p>\n

Before his two world title fights, Shavers collided with Caldwell in 1972 and ended their contest in typically destructive fashion.<\/p>\n

As a result, Caldwell told The Mayweather Channel<\/a> that Shavers was a \u2018way bigger\u2019 puncher than Foreman.<\/p>\n

\u201cShavers hit way harder than Foreman, and it\u2019s a different type of punch. Shavers hit me so hard, it felt like someone was hitting each one of my toes with a hammer.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know nothing until they took my gloves off. I don\u2019t believe no boxer in the world hit as hard as Shavers.\u201d<\/p>\n

During his career, Shavers often accused Foreman and Frazier of swerving him, though his power never gave them much of a reason to enter such dangerous territory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leroy Caldwell suffered second-round stoppage defeats to both George Foreman and Earnie Shavers, but one of them punched…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-422514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}