George was as ready as he'd ever be for his Ahab-like quest to recapture the heavyweight title. His mental state, his stamina, and, yes, his weight were exactly what we wanted them to be. All that stood in his way was the champion: Evander Holyfield.
Almost from the moment George decided to return to the ring, he had told anyone who would listen that his dream was "to become the heavyweight champion of the world." Further, he told those who hadn't thrown their backs out trying to hold in their laughter that he had the perfect style to beat the then-champion, Mike Tyson. But, as so often happens in boxing, being a champion is subject to immediate revocation and Tyson, who had won the World Boxing Association (WBA) version of the crown a scant two days before George had started his comeback, was now no longer the heavyweight champion, having lost his belt to Buster Douglas who, in turn, had lost the valuable bauble to Evander Holyfield. And so George now set his sights on Holyfield.
The man who stood between George and his fistic dream was an under-sized overachiever. Called "The Real Deal" by his promoter, Holyfield might better be described by his alternate nickname, "The Warrior," for, to use an old boxing phrase, "he came to fight." Possessing the arms of a village smithy and a steel-tough anvil body, Holyfield was a one-man strong-arm crew who more than compensated for his lack of size and poundage with a heavyweight heart. He also had a heavyweight punch, one he was able to deliver from both inside and outside. If Holyfield had one flaw, it was his propensity to get hit. He admitted as much, saying, "I don't try to get hit ... it just happens." And even though he had a great set of "whiskers," George would test them, the same way he had tested his comeback foes, reducing twenty-three of the twenty-four to resin dust.
This being my first fight in George's corner, I really didn't know what to expect. Would it be the same George Foreman I had seen in Zaire, the George Foreman so stricken by self-doubt that even as he entered the ring he would be saying to himself, "You shoulda worked in this. You shoulda worked on that"? No this time around the "new" George Foreman was "loose as a goose," supremely confident in himself and in his mission to win the heavyweight title. Again.
And when I say "loose as a goose," let me tell you how loose that was. The eve of the fight I dropped into the pressroom to visit with some of my old friends, newspapermen like Pat Putnam, Eddie Schuyler, and Mike Katz. And what to my wondering eyes should I see but George holding court with the press. In all my years in boxing, I had never seen a fighter the day before a fight in the pressroom. Almost to a man they were up in their rooms resting, the way Willie Pastrano was that day in Louisville when a young kid named Cassius Clay called up to the room and asked to visit Willie and yours truly.
But there was George in all his glory, surrounded by hordes of writers, playing them like a musician would a keyboard, with an assortment of smiles, sermons, and plain ol' shtick. And he wasn't talking about his chances in what was being called "The Battle of the Ages" nor his place in boxing history. Instead he was making fun of his size and age, telling them he didn't mind being called "big," "fat," "old," or even "late for dinner." But few thought he could beat Holyfield, most wondering how in the world he had ever maneuvered himself into a position to fight for a title he had won some eighteen years before. There were even some who thought he was on a suicide mission—including my friend Ferdie Pacheco, who worried that a man Foreman's age could suffer a heart attack, and Evander's trainer, Lou Duva, who said, "It's going to be stopped by the referee or the Red Cross." Despite the skeptics George continued to play to them, knowing that through them he was reaching the fans who had adopted him as a folk hero.
Now you know me, I'm the guy who gets up to speak at the sight of half a grapefruit. But not around George, who not only commanded attention but center stage as well, allowing nobody, me included, to upstage him. One time during the preparations for the Holyfield fight, while George was in the locker room resting after his workout, several members of the media approached me for comments. Well, wouldn't you know it, but the next thing I heard was George's thundering voice hollering from the back, "There goes Angie again, you got to watch him!"
From that point on I let George do all the talking for the both of us. It was his pulpit and by talking to the press he was, in effect, talking directly to his fans. And I sure wasn't going to get in his way. After all, it was his show. Still, I was able to be of help by giving him one small piece of advice. Watching him give out his homespun philosophy and what had become known as "sound bites," I couldn't help but notice that he was chewing gum about as fast as he was talking. So, calling him aside I said, "Look, George, never let the media take pictures of you chewing gum. It doesn't look nice in the papers, you moving your mouth all funny." And wouldn't you know it, he stopped chewing gum from that moment on. Of course, his mouth never stopped moving as he continued to talk ... and talk ... and talk.
And talk on he did, right up to fight time, telling one and all, "I'm going to show the whole world that forty is not a death sentence." And, "When I win it's going to be a compliment to the earth itself. It's proof that the water supply is just fine, that the fish in the sea are multiplying, and that acid rain didn't bother the food at all." Boy, was the Reverend George ready to go to battle.
George's one-man promotional campaign had worked. The Atlantic City Convention Center was jam-packed with eighteen thousand cheering fans, and early reports indicated his ballyhoo had generated over a million buys on HBO's first-ever pay-per-view boxing telecast. Hard as it was to believe, the champion, Evander Holyfield, was but the party of the second part, merely a bit player in this drama called "George."
To say that the night belonged to George would be an understatement as celebrity after celebrity—including Donald Trump, Jesse Jackson, and several other uninvitems—dropped into the dressing room before the fight to wish him good luck. Not since the days of Ali had I seen anything like it, not even with Sugar Ray.
And then came the walk to the ring. This time there was no dash down the aisle as in Zaire, but a slow deliberate walk, almost a processional, led by co-trainer Charley Shipes and myself to a chorus of "George ... George." This time George wanted to conserve his energy knowing there would be no early knockout, but, as he told me, he "would get him sometime before the tenth round." This was all fine with me; I was too old for that running stuff anyway.
From the very first second of the fight, those doubting Thomases, Jerrys, and Marks posing as savvy newspapermen who had thought the fight was a joke—some called it a "flimflam"—were proven wrong. George, after blocking several of Evander's right-hand howitzers, began to land his jab with metronomic repetition, beating Evander to the punch time and again. In the second, George, after patiently waiting for Evander to throw his hook, countered with a hard left hook of his own and then caught the champion with a ponderous right, snapping Evander's head back and stunning him. All of a sudden the crowd, now believers, began chanting, "George ... George" and the echoes in the cavernous convention center came back, "George ... George." No, this fight was anything but a joke. This was for real.
Between rounds I told George to continue using that jab whenever Evander made as if to throw his hook and to look for a place to drop that powerful right of his over the top. All of which wasn't easy to convey inasmuch as George was standing between rounds, refusing to use the stool since he thought that sitting down and then standing back up took more physical exertion than merely standing for the entire one-minute rest period. (And, not incidentally, standing gave him a chance to sneak a peak at the opposite corner to see what was going on over there.) As short as I am, I was getting a kink in my neck looking up somewhere in the direction of George's ear to talk to him.
And then in the third, in what Charlie Goldman would have called an "Oy vey!" moment, Evander got through George's cross-armed "armadillo" defense with an overhand right from hell, catching George flush—the same overhand right that had knocked out Buster Douglas and Michael Dokes. It was one of those moments that causes you to
question your faith in Gibraltar as the 207-pound Holyfield shifted the 257-pound Foreman's center of gravity. But unlike the Foreman of Zaire, who would have submitted to the punch, the "new" George showed his thoroughbred heart, willing himself to remain upright. He not only survived the right but also Holyfield's follow-up assault to last out the round.
The fourth, fifth, and sixth rounds were give-and-take violence with the two standing mid-ring on a square of canvas no bigger than the biggest white napkin swatting away at each other. Evander's punches were more frequent and more surgically precise, while George's were more ponderous but fully capable of bisecting his opponent if they had landed. The only problem was every time George tried to throw his power right over the top, the quick-footed Holyfield would move back out of the way and then come back in with a countering punch.
And then came the seventh, the most savage two-sided round since the first round of the Hagler-Hearns all-out war five years before. George started the action with a huge right that sent Evander reeling backward. Then he reverted to the George of old, throwing punch after punch, most of which were either deflected by Holyfield or missed. Evander then returned the favor, responding in kind. But even though winded by his efforts, George never budged and traded combination for combination and punch for punch in a "take that" exchange as the two fighters took turns beating the bejabbers out of each other. The punches were so brutal that after the round Evander returned to his corner and asked, "Are my teeth still there?"
Two rounds later, there was none of the give-and-take of the seventh, as Evander rattled punch after punch off George's head—one ringside observer counting twenty in a row. Later, Evander would say, "I hit George with everything I had." They were blows that would have felled buildings, blows that would have felled the Foreman of old, the Foreman of Zaire, but George, calling on a will and determination he didn't have then, took them all, proving that, contrary to Bob Fitzsimmon's famous line, the bigger they are the harder they don't fall.
You could see that Evander was exhausted by his effort, and Charley and I, figuring it was now George's turn, told him to throw his right hand more during the closing rounds. And throw it he did, finally catching Evander with one perfectly placed right hand in the twelfth and final round. A hurt and tired Evander fell into a clinch and held on ... and on ... and on ... even after referee Rudy Battle had warned him several times to break. I'll never understand why Battle, who had deducted a point from George on a questionable low blow, didn't penalize Evander for holding. But them's the breaks. Anyhow, the fight ended with an exhausted Evander grabbing George in a bear hug.
Then came the damnedest thing I had ever seen in all my years in boxing. George walked over to Evander's corner to thank Evander and his trainer, Lou Duva, "for the opportunity."
The decision came moments later, a unanimous decision for Evander. But the real winner was George, who, having established the improbability of the calendar, said, "We didn't retreat and we kept our dignity. So everyone at home can take pride that while we may not have won all the points we made a point."
And he had, proving to all that while Evander Holyfield may be called "The Real Deal," Big George was "The Real-Real Deal"
Many are the fighters who have been defined more by their losses than by their wins. Take Billy Conn, for example. Conn's gallant but losing effort against Joe Louis completely obscured the rest of his great career, which included a light-heavyweight championship and sixty-three wins. Or Tommy Hearns, more remembered for his losses to Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler than for his forty-eight KOs and seven titles.
Determined that he would not be one of those seen through the wrong end of boxing's looking glass, George viewed his loss to Holyfield merely as a dream deferred. There was no reason not to continue. He wanted one more chance at the brass ring, one more opportunity to climb his Mount Everest, one more shot at the heavyweight championship. And he didn't care which heavyweight champion it was, saying, "The heavyweight championship is a mountain I consider the top and I've been climbing that mountain so long they can call it the WBO, the WBC, the WBA, or the WBwhatever, but I'm going to win it."
With no unconditional surrender to the undeniable fact that time might be running out on him, George soldiered on, refusing to take no for an answer to his dream. And after three more wins, he finally got his second chance at one of those alphabet soup group's titles, a fight for the vacant World Boxing Organization's (WBO) heavyweight championship versus Tommy Morrison.
We didn't think that Morrison would be all that difficult. After all, he had been brutally knocked out two years earlier by Ray Mercer, and Ray's punches were nothing like the bombs George threw. But rather than standing and fighting, Tommy came in with an all-new battle plan and won going away. And I mean going away. Admittedly, I was never a good score-keeper, but I really didn't think he deserved to win since all he did was run. But you know what? The more I looked at the tapes of the fight, the sharper he looked. He fought a good, smart fight. He had a good jab, and by coming in and landing and getting away before George could retaliate, he might have won. I say "might have won" because I still think George won, but I'm willing to give Tommy the benefit of my doubt.
Whatever, here it was seven years and twenty-nine fights into George's comeback and he still had no championship belt to show for his efforts. Nor for his dream. But in one of those little tricks history continually plays on us to make sure we are paying attention, despite his loss to Morrison, George was once again given a chance at the heavyweight title, this time by the International Boxing Federation (IBF) and WBA champion, Michael Moorer. In a scenario not unlike that followed by the man he had beaten for the title, Evander Holyfield, Moorer and his handlers decided he could make the most money with the least risk by making his first title defense against the same man Evander had made his first defense against: Big George.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the fight that almost derailed George's dream of making fistic history. Seems that the WBA, in their classic nonwisdom, citing something or other in their rules about their champion having to face a top contender, refused to sanction the fight. They even threatened to strip Moorer of their title if he went forward with his plans to fight George. Nonsense, said George, who was having none of such tomfoolery. He had hoped for this fight, trained for it, even prayed for it. Now he would sue for it. Believing that this was his last shot at the WBO, the WBC, the WBA, or the WBwhatever championship, George, after consulting with his attorney, Henry Holmes, and his promoter, Bob Arum, determined to fight the WBA ruling and filed a suit against them, along with Michael Moorer, his handlers, and the Nevada State Athletic Commission.
During the trial it was shown that the WBA had more than occasionally gotten caught in their own mental underwear and hadn't exactly followed their own rules, especially the one about their champions fighting a "top contender." Moreover, in keeping with the longtime tradition of alphabet groups not only taking money under the table but over the table, around the table, and even taking the table itself, some of the testimony concerned someone associated with the WBA trying to get a piece of the action for gaining a sanction for a title fight between Moorer and Joe Hipp. Joe Hipp, for crying out loud!
Finally, after hearing from everyone, including George himself—who testified, "I've wanted to be heavyweight champ ever since I entered the ring in 1987. I wanted to fight for the title to show the world not only that I can win this thing, but that age forty is truly not a deficit"—the judge, Ronald Mosley, ruled in George's favor, holding that the WBA rules weren't worth the paper they were written on and that the organization had violated their own rules in the past.
George's win over the WBA was merely the appetizer. Now it was on to the main course: Michael Moorer.
One of my favorite words is blend, a word I tend to overuse. Just ask Helen. To me it means to mix, to harmonize, to bond, something I tried to do with all my fighters so that the two of us became comfortable with one another. By "blending"
with my fighter, I was always there for them, to hear them out, to do what was best for them—or as Ray Leonard once said, "I knew I could ask Angie anything, and I knew he would always tell me the truth."
"Blending" was a matter of mutual trust, and having been in George's corner for five fights, I had earned enough trust from George to be able to "blend" with him. He trusted me enough to look for me to come up with a winnable battle plan for his fight with Moorer.
At our first meeting, we discussed the fact that since Moorer was left-handed—the first southpaw heavyweight champ in history—we had to come up with a strategy that would enable George to counteract Moorer's most effective punch, his right jab. Since George's jab was much stronger than Moorer's, the plan was to put it to good use, sometimes just sticking it out when Moorer leaned forward to throw a punch and touching Moorer's face with it and other times countering whatever Moorer threw with a jab. The only times George would throw his right would be whenever Moorer started to throw his straight left. Then, with Moorer's body crossing over in front of him, George would unload that atom-smashing right of his, a right called by Teddy Atlas, Moorer's trainer, "a sneaky right." It was made all the sneakier by George frequently pawing out with his jab, almost like a shot across the bow, then coming across with what I would call a "stealth right" right behind it. It was a simple strategy, but one I thought would work, even if George had to take three punches for every one he landed.
But strategy wasn't the only thing George and I talked about. During one of our daily discussions, George unburdened himself, confiding that he was still, as he called it, "haunted" by Zaire. He had, he said, never even tried to get up after Muhammad had knocked him down and "for years couldn't live with that." For twenty years he had lived with that mental scar, spending every waking hour obsessing over his failure. Now he had, in his words, "a chance to exorcise the ghost once and for all."
My View from the Corner Page 36