NO MORE GRUDGES
But there were more developments in Foreman than merely his once- rudimentary boxing skills. In the 10 years out of the spotlight, he had clearly evolved as a person, too. Where once he was smoldering and openly intimidating to the media, he now was open, friendly and funny with the press. He invited reporters to his ranch in Marshall, Texas, to watch him drag the carcass of a pickup truck around the property. He was relaxed to the point of comedy even on the day of a fight;
before the Holyfield fight. She saw it in his happiness with his fifth wife, Joan. “Before, he didn’t worry about no family,” she said, referring to Foreman’s four previous marriages. “If he didn’t like his woman and baby, he’d just go out and get another. He never did stay with any of them for more than a year. You can tell he’s changed because this new wife can stay with him.” And stay with him she did; at the time of his death – in March at age 76 – George and Joan had been married for 40 years.
remaining box office appeal, there was nothing that really qualified Foreman for that title shot. There were far more deserving heavyweights, including Riddick Bowe, who was still an elite force. By then, I was writing for the New York Post and wrote a scathing column ripping Foreman and the fight and picking Moorer to win. I was also working as a pre- and post-fight analyst for ESPN along with a West Coast-based announcer whose name I will not mention, although he certainly deserves the embarrassment.
on the afternoon of his heavyweight title challenge of Evander Holyfield 15 months and four more KOs after the Cooney massacre, Foreman wandered into the press room to chat while chowing down on the free fried chicken. Stunned, I remember blurting out, “Don’t you have to fight tonight?” Foreman just laughed.
On the morning of the fight, my “partner,” who was not a boxing guy but was desperate to ingratiate himself with the fighters, took the column to Foreman in an attempt to discredit me with him. Foreman read the piece, chuckled and handed it back. “So what?” he said. “The guy’s my friend. He had to write something.”
“I think George simply decided he wanted to be liked.”
Then he went out and fought a tremendous fight, losing on points to a man more than 10 years his junior. “I think George simply decided he wanted to be liked,” Sharnik said. “He never cared about being liked before, and he never really liked people before. Now he does.” By this point, even I liked him. I had long forgiven him for what he did to Frazier and didn’t do to Ali. I looked forward to talking with him because I knew he would usually pick up the phone and always provide good copy. “That old George, he’s gone,” Foreman said a few days before the Holyfield fight. “I got his money and his appetite, but that’s all.” The difference between the old Foreman and the new was even noticed by his mother, Nancy, who was 82 when I interviewed her a few days
As competitive as he was in the fight, the loss to Holyfield seemed to put an end to Foreman’s quixotic title quest. He beat Alex Stewart a year later but got beat up badly in the process, then lost a decision to Tommy Morrison. Before the Morrison fight, a rumor was floating around that Foreman was going into the tank in exchange for a piece of Morrison, who was being groomed as a Caucasian version of Tyson. The rumor was so pervasive that a woman at one of his open “workouts” actually went there during the daily Q&A portion. She asked him point blank if it was true he was going to throw the fight. The old George might have thrown her into the Atlantic Ocean. The new George just laughed. “No, no,” he said. “I don’t look very good in swim trunks.” Still, he somehow got the call for another shot at the title against Michael Moorer, a southpaw who had recently dethroned Holyfield. Aside from his
Foreman had seen the gambit for what it was and wasn’t having any of it. My “partner” slunk out of the room. That was as definitive a knockout as any Foreman had scored in the ring. And that night he climbed into the ring and lost every second of all 9½ rounds before knocking Moorer out with a right hand that traveled no more than six inches. Believe me when I tell you that despite having covered a dozen Super Bowls, the Michael Jordan three- peats, all five Yankees World Series championships and the New York Rangers winning the 1994 Stanley Cup to end a 54-year drought, it was the most thrilling event I had ever covered. I thought the roof would come off the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Never was I happier to be wrong. And never was I more ashamed of a pre-fight column. George Foreman had now been a pivotal figure in three of the most shocking and improbable knockouts in heavyweight history. I hated him for the first two. I couldn’t help but love him for the third.
Michael Moorer lost concentration, then consciousness.
RINGMAGAZINE.COM 43
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs