Who hit harder: Muhammad Ali or Evander Holyfield?

I've had this debate before.

Not counting the fights of the faded versions: Ali after 1976 and Holy after 2000.

Both fighters were not known as big punchers but both managed to knock out tough guys.

Evander couldn't even drop an old man Holmes and needed to land 300 uppercuts on Bert Cooper before the ref stopped it (with Cooper on his feet and not really looking BADLY hurt to be honest)..yet Evander stopped Tyson, dropped Bowe hard, and knocked out Buster Douglas with one punch.

Ali couldn't hurt Norton in 39 rounds, couldn't hurt Chuvalo, but remains the only guy in history to have knocked out George Foreman and completely short-circuited guys like Lyle, Bonavena, Williams, Foley with single strikes.

I take Ali.

 

Knocking out Foreman is a red herring and you know that Sly (cheeky, cheeky!), but even though I think of Alis punch as somewhat under-rated, I say Holyfield is the reasonably clear answer.

Curiously, Ali did put Quarry and Lyle on queer street, though. That was impressive.

 

Ali was a natural heavyweight who didn't need to add weight in order to be a heavyweight. Evander did. Young Ali seemed to have heavier hands---probably because he had greater footspeed and faster body mobility to put it behind a shot.

Evander did his best to add power, and he definitely got much better at it towards the end of his career. Even in training for the 2nd Bowe fight, Steward was correcting him on leaning too far forwards on his lead foot when he threw the left hook or the right hand.

Pre-exile Ali takes it for me. Speed multiplies power in most cases---and it did for The Greatest: Ali had terrific handspeed and footspeed.

 

I think Ali hit with more power (not necessarily more authority) during the 70s, not the 60s.

 

Ali hit harder. Holyfields routine was to get through what the other guy hit him with, then see what effect his own punches had down the stretch.

If Ali's KO of Foreman is a red herring, then Evanders KO of James Douglas is likewise.

And there were no pills back in Ali's age either. Ali was a naturally bigger man who combined greater natural mass with better speed, timing and technique to make him an all round bigger hitter than The Real Syringe.

One proviso could be that Ali did not add up to squat as a body puncher and Evander did have Ray Mercer and John Ruiz down on body shots.

 

Ali put Liston down with one punch

 

Exactly. He hit harder than people give him credit for. Sharper more damaging punches than Evander IMO.

 

I'd say holyfield was the better one-shot puncher

a lot of Ali hurting guys had to do with the blinding speed... you can't see the punches coming, you are more likely to get hit cleanly by them

Ali could certainly hurt you, but in terms of just brute force of each guy's hardest shots, Holyfield hit harder to me, though even his punching power was partially due to his excellence in countering

 

It would be interesting if Foreman was capable of giving an honest answer.

 

And do not forget that he also knocked out Jean Pierre Coopman and Richard Dunn.

 

Holyfield had more force behind his punches, Ali had more deceptive power

 

You mean how he was drugged against Ali or how "Nobody's pound-for-pound until they beat Page"

 

Ali also stopped Bonavena, which Frazier did not, granted Ali found Bonavena with a very good shot very late in a longer-distance fight. He also stopped that other epic talent, Wepner, and unlike a lot of the others who stopped Wepner, Ali didn't do it on cuts.

 

Holyfield EASY

 

Mostly the former but it's a question very few fighters ever answer honestly anyway.

It's not even just power, the majority of fighters will even say the best guy the fought wasn't somebody the lost to.

One exception i can think of is Wilfredo Gomez who said Sanchez was the best. However it makes me wonder if the tragedy of his death played a part in that answer.

 

GTFOH!

 

Ali stopped Bonavena & Wepner much the way he did Foreman --- with exhaustion, not punching potency --- being the deciding factor. In any event, Ali did stop Bonavena in highly contentious circumstances (bullsh!t, if you want to be less diplomatic about it), because he was permitted to give no regard at all to the neutral corner regulation.

 

WRONG! He actually fucked himself up for the Holmes fight by taking thyroid medication, and steroids have been around since WW2.

I'm not saying Ali used roids at all, but they were around. Holy, on the other hand, was trained by Lee Haney, Mr. Olympia (professional bodybuilding's highest contest).

 

Steroids weren't used by American athletes u ontil the 1960s, and even then it was limited to bodybuilders. They didn't know how to cycle properly back then or what a reasonable dosage would be, either. I would bet my life that Ali was not on steroids.

But Holyfield, as you alluded to, has almost certainly been juicing for over 2 decades now. I'd hate to see what his blood panels looks like.

 

....to anything.

 

I'd say Holy, slightly.

 

Yep