History-making George Foreman faced Joe Frazier, Evander Holyfield, Muhammad Ali, Ken Norton and Michael Moorer amongst other big names, but one man stood out as both the hardest-hitter and toughest challenge.
Known for his own clubbing power, Foreman was an Olympic Gold Medalist and two-time heavyweight world champion, those stints coming an incredible two decades apart.
Speaking to the Ring Magazine, the man who still holds the record of the oldest world heavyweight champion named one Ron Lyle above all others when it come to punching power.
“This guy hit me so hard that it didn’t even hurt. Joe Frazier caught me with the left hook but he couldn’t hit like Lyle and although Muhammad knocked me down I was exhausted and still got to my feet. Lyle was the hardest hitter.
The thing about Lyle was he was completely unafraid and challenged me at ring center. Nobody, other than Sonny Liston in sparring, stood and punched it out with me with any success. Joe Frazier only tried once and even the great Muhammad Ali couldn’t back up quick enough. Ron Lyle would not back up.”
The courageous Lyle is best known for that Foreman fight. Both men were coming off recent losses to Muhammad Ali, Foreman’s first defeat and Lyle’s sole world title challenge across his career.
Lyle had just knocked out the hard-hitting Earnie Shavers, and took all of that confidence – as well as the fear of being closer to the end of his career than the start – into the ring with ‘Big George.’
He stormed out of the gate and missed with a wild right hand, but would find success quickly and take the first round through sheer aggression. Foreman grabbed back momentum by hurting Lyle in the second – a round mistakenly called at two minutes rather than three – and what transpired was a brawl so brutal and thrilling it earned The Ring Magazine’s Fight of the Year tag.
Lyle scored two knockdowns in the fourth and was dropped himself before Foreman had the final say with a fifth round knockout.
Those 15 or so minutes prompted Foreman to brand Lyle the best he ever faced – a nice compliment when Ali is on the record.
“I have to say Lyle because he gave me the toughest fight of my career. He hit me so hard, knocked me down, got knocked down and picked himself up. That was the hardest fight I ever had in my life.
With Muhammad Ali I could do whatever I wanted, but I got tired and he was able to knock me down. If I had been more respectful of Ali I could have coasted at stages in that fight, and preserved energy, but I couldn’t coast with Ron Lyle because he would have killed me.”
Ron Lyle hung up the gloves in 1995 with a record of 43-7-1 with 31 KOs. He passed away in 2011, aged 70.
