THE 100 GREATEST BOXERS OF ALL-TIME #76: BOB FOSTER
56 WINS (46 BY KO), 8 LOSSES, 1 DRAW
World Light Heavyweight Champion 1968–1974
Boxing Writers Association of America Fighter of the Year 1968
International Boxing Hall of Fame Inductee 1990
Long and lanky New Mexico sheriff Bob Foster was not the kind of officer you wanted to mess with, for he was also the king of the light heavyweights of his time. A 6’3” tall boxer-puncher, he towered over the 175-pound ranks like a monarch in his high castle, his artillery mowing down any pretender who came for his crown. Either fist could do the job, be it his slingshot left hook or catapult right hand. Both came in fast and hard to flatten those who dared invade his realm, the boxing ring. 46 of Foster’s 56 wins (82%) came by knockout, as did 11 of his 15 title fight victories (73%). He was not just the best light heavyweight of his generation; he was one of the truly elite of all time.
Foster was undefeated in 100 amateur contests when he entered the Pan Am Games in 1959 and took home the silver medal in the light heavyweight division. He intended to go to the 1960 Olympics, but the committee chose a kid from Louisville named Cassius Clay instead and offered him a place on the team as a middleweight, an offer the 6’3” Air Force veteran refused.
Already 27 years old when he turned pro, Foster found that most light heavyweights would not get in the ring with him. His management, therefore, began matching him with some of the best heavyweights around. It proved a miscalculation. Though he beat several good heavyweights, he was often at a weight disadvantage, and he lost to the best men in that division at the time (Doug Jones, Ernie Terrell, and Zora Folley).
Disheartened, Foster flirted with retirement for a time but returned to both boxing and the light heavyweight division in 1967, where he quickly became a dominant force. He went undefeated in his next 19 fights, winning all but one by knockout, establishing his credentials as one of the hardest punchers the division had ever seen. Many of those bouts were against the division’s best men at the time, including champion Dick Tiger.
On May 24, 1968, Foster annihilated two-division champ and future Hall of Famer Tiger with a picture-perfect left hook to the jaw delivered in the center of New York’s Madison Square Garden ring, producing one of the most memorable highlight reel knockouts in championship boxing history. Delighted at finally achieving his potential, Foster then launched himself straight into the air, a missile hurtling to the stratosphere fueled by pure elation.
Foster dispatched his following opponents with similar violence, none more impressively than contender Mike Quarry (brother to heavyweight star Jerry Quarry). Mike was undefeated in 35 fights going into their fight in the Las Vegas Convention Center on June 27, 1972, and he boxed well against Foster. But all of Quarry’s jabs and movement amounted to nothing once the champion caught him with another perfectly delivered left hook with one second to go in the fourteenth round. Before the bell sounded, Quarry was as flat as the canvas.
Foster yearned to be the first light heavyweight champion to take the heavyweight honors, and so he took on the big men twice more during the early 1970s. And they were two of the best big men ever: Smokin’ Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali. He lost to both of them, dashing his ultimate plan.
By the time he voluntarily relinquished his championship (no man had taken it from him), Foster had defended his championship 14 times, still a division record. He was 35 years old. Not all his opponents were topflight world-beaters, but there were good men among them (Quarry, Vicente Rondon, Chris Finnegan, and Jorge Ahumada, for example). No one can doubt that he cleaned out his division of all capable challengers as one of the era’s most dominant champions.
After his abdication, Foster fought on against lesser opponents, winning five fights over the next three years (four by knockout) before two back-to-back knockout losses in 1978 (at age 39) convinced him to retire.
A quiet, unassuming, but confident man outside of the ring, Foster spent much of the rest of his life developing a successful career in law enforcement in Albuquerque and was part of the inaugural class of inductees into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Bob Foster’s Record vs. Hall of Famers & Lineal World Champions:
5/24/1968 —W (KO) 4 — Dick Tiger
11/18/1970 — L (KO) 2 — Joe Frazier
11/21/1972 — L (KO) 8 — Muhammad Ali
