BERNSTEIN ON BOXING
“You know, Mike Tyson is a thoroughbred and I’m just an old gaited horse that walks and trots well, but if I get him in the ring, I’ll beat him.”
for my book and he produced it in all of three days. He laughed and told me, “Hey, I didn’t type it, but I DID dictate it.” I did a show called “Boxing By The Book” at the Caesars Palace Race and Sports Book where I sang some specialty numbers, showed boxing videos and interviewed boxers. George got wind of it and volunteered to be a guest. Over 1,000 people showed up and crowded into the space to see him – I think his appearance got me renewed for another six months. I told George and thanked him. He just winked – he knew he was doing me a solid.
said, “You know, Mike Tyson is a thoroughbred and I’m just an old gaited horse that walks and trots well, but if I get him in the ring, I’ll beat him.” I didn’t believe that then or for a while after, but the more George repeated it to me, the more I came to believe it. He explained he would fight him like he did Joe Frazier, pushing him off to disrupt his rhythm, tying him up if he did get inside and waiting for his time to land a big counter uppercut or right hand that would change the fight. If I thought I was crazy to believe him, well, I felt less crazy when the great trainer, manager and savant-like broadcaster Gil Clancy told me that he agreed with George on this one. We will never know if George would have achieved that goal of beating Tyson as he did so many others. We do know he ended up winning the world title again, and he left very little undone in his life. Perhaps the great Mae West said it best: “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” George did it right. I ronically, around the time of George’s death and the flood of remembrances about him, there came the release of a definitive work to help us honor the memory of one of George’s great contemporaries. A brilliant film called I Am Joe Frazier was released on The CW Network, and it demands the attention of boxing fans. The triumvirate of Ali, Frazier and Foreman created boxing folklore in the 1960s and ’70s. The documenting of Frazier’s amazing journey has been done mostly through the prism of his rivalry with Ali… until now. This remarkable film by Pete McCormack provides us with a vivid, accurate and entertaining retelling of the Frazier story. I assure you: It will surprise and illuminate you, no matter what you think you already know about Joe. This film fulfills a mission that is decades overdue. It is a piece of art that needed to be made.
George and I had many phone calls about our shared passion: horses. We both were devoted riders. George rode and raised gaited horses. I rode mostly quarter horses, and that breed is not naturally a gaited horse. So, I learned from George about gaited breeds that he had on his ranch in Marshall, Texas. I was, however, able to provide some equestrian knowledge to George, because he didn’t do much of the rodeo event known as team penning, and I did. So I shared my knowledge on that sport with him. Demonstrating his quick wit, he once chuckled and said to me, “You know, I never thought anyone with a last name like Bernstein would ever give me tips on team penning.” On a Big Fights Boxing Hour show on ESPN, I delivered these words about him: “Before George Foreman was a personality, he was a puncher. Before he was a sportscaster, he was a puncher. And before he was a product pitchman, he was a puncher. Being a big puncher made all that possible.” Indeed, the young Foreman was all about raw power as much as any boxer we might remember. The singularity of this persona in the ring was mesmerizing and successful, but it ultimately led to his downfall in act one. The older, wiser, patient and more nuanced George that I covered and announced in act two was a delightful
surprise and revelation to fans and pundits. An amazing fact is that the older, heavier Foreman was just as durable physically and more so mentally than the younger version. He survived any big punch landed and was undaunted by setbacks within fights or overall. He overcame adversity in a way that sometimes eluded him in his younger years. Two weeks before he fought Michael Moorer for the heavyweight title, I interviewed him for ESPN. During that interview, of course, he said he would win by knockout. Most people were skeptical of that at the time. After the interview, we had lunch. At one point, he leaned across the table, looked at me intently and said, “What I told you in the interview, I want you to know I really believe it. He’s probably gonna beat me up some, but I tell you what: I’ll get to him eventually and I WILL knock him out.” In every detail, that turned out to be an accurate description of the match. When Foreman started his comeback, Mike Tyson was the champion and George stated his goal was to win the title. Most folks thought it would be suicide for him to fight Tyson. During one of our horse breed-related conversations, thoroughbreds came up because my horse at the time was part thoroughbred. Out of the blue, George
RIDERS ON THE STORM By Al Bernstein
The man with famously heavy hands had a soft spot for horses.
me, watched the first act as a spectator before joining the supporting cast for act two. The intermission provided time for personal growth that made the professional redemption and reinvention of George possible. He told me on several occasions that the lessons he learned while out of the spotlight fueled his future accomplishments. The details of his amazing story have been well-chronicled on video, in print and in the digital world, but his personal strengths sometimes get lost in the shuffle. After his death, we have heard personal stories that buttress those attributes. Let me add to that. There was never anything I requested from George that he didn’t do. I asked him to write the foreword
O n March 20, I received a residual check for the voiceovers I did for the movie Big George Foreman . As I looked at it, I thought about the fact that I had not talked to George in a while and wrote a note on my calendar to reach out to him the next day. On the next day, George died. Irony does not even cover it. That check was the final gift of many related to him that I received in my life. Much has been said and written about George since his passing. Every
person who knew him, covered him or even admired him from afar has something to add to chronicling his unique life. And you need many voices for that, because his journey was so varied and jam-packed with important events and moments that one perspective doesn’t do it justice. George’s professional life is like a Broadway play. It had act one, followed by an intermission (a long one), and then act two. Some people in boxing and the media were in George’s personal orbit for both acts. Many, like
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