George Foreman was one of the very best the heavyweight division has ever seen. A champion in the greatest heavyweight decade of the 1970’s he was good enough to come back a decade later and then become champion again in the 1990’s(another very strong era of heavyweight boxing) well into his 40’s.

Big George may be better known for his tremendous punching power, you could make a case for him being the hardest puncher ever alongside Earnie Shavers, but Foreman also had a number of old school boxing tricks under his belt too which he doesn’t get enough credit for and I’m going to look at one of them in this article.

Controlling Your Opponent

One of the tricks Foreman used was controlling his opponent, a big strong and imposing man, Foreman would often push, shove and even grab his opponent with either hand or both hands to wreak havoc on a boxer’s rhythm. Foreman would start off doing this by using his rear hand to obstruct the opponent’s lead hand which prevent them from getting their jab off, of course without the jab not only is your rhythm compromised but you become more predictable as you are essentially now one armed. From obstructing the jab with his rear hand George Foreman would then use his lead hand to push his opponent away from the shoulder’s, forcing the opponent to reset and start over again.

Now from there Foreman could obstruct your jab with his rear hand and then throw his jab off this, which makes it difficult to predict what Foreman is going to do because he is now using the lead hand to either push you off or throw a jab or jab, cross. By using this two armed shove Foreman was accomplishing a few things, firstly he had stopped his opponent from closing the gap and getting inside as he would push you out of reach which meant you now had to cross that line all over again against a puncher as scary as George Foreman, he would also employ this shove when he missed a punch, pushing you away so you couldn’t counter his missed punch.

The push off also meant Foreman had created space between him and his opponent so he could free his arms to unload those big hooks and uppercuts as you tried to work your way in again. If he wanted to continue controlling you Foreman could instead grab you and turn you or spin you around with both hands and again completely ruining your rhythm by manipulating your position again forcing his opponent to reset and start over again. Watch the video below to see how George Foreman would use all of this to control his opponent.