Re: George Foreman: Best win?
Posted: 06 Apr 2022, 10:37
Yep. That's why he was one of the greatest heavyweights of all time. After Ali and Louis, you can make a serious argument that he should be #3.
It was on the level.bjornborgbook wrote: ↑01 Mar 2022, 18:41 The Moorer fight looked suspect. The sudden drop like he got shot and the whole reaction after looked contrived. Also the fact that Moorer did not demand an immediate rematch and was later rewarded with another IBF shot. No disrespect to Foreman, he was a big moneymaker and Moorer was a boring dud as champ. Wouldn't be shocked if Moorer sold the belts and got a percentage of future Foreman title fights like the Louis-Braddock arrangement.
Mind you the knockout shot looked weak, until you look at different camera angles where Moorer literally walked into the one-two. The jab stunned him and the follow up right hand put him on queer street.
It's ironic that to this day Moorer refuses to acknowledge he got outsmarted by Foreman, when if you watch the fight back Teddy Atlas kept telling the heavyweight champion that he needed to stop taking risks because he would fall for a trap--- Foreman wanting Moorer to get so close and comfortable that he could maneuver Moorer into alignment to be hit with that one-two combination.
Foreman lost every second of that contest, but the patience paid off. No, George wasn't the banger he was in his youth but he still hit harder than anyone else in the division. I think to this day Holyfield says that Foreman hit him with the single hardest punch he ever took.
Moorer being a former light heavyweight was certainly not going to take those kind of power punches as well as natural heavyweights could. But, Foreman had been keeping an eye on Moorer from the beginning--- him being a special guest commentator for HBO let him be able to sit ringside and watch Moorer up close and personal.
He recognized something in Moorer that was similar to how he was in his youth, a man of bad temperament with a grudge. I think Foreman knew that he could one way or another get into Moorer's head, feeding into his ego, and part of that would be the champions downfall.
As for suspect wins, the only matches Foreman had in his comeback that were remotely suspicious was Morrison, Schultz, and Briggs. It seemed Foreman wasn't as aggressive as he could have been against Morrison, and the Schultz fight was clearly a gift decision for George.
The Briggs fight was clearly a win for George but because of the controversy of the Schultz fight, and Foreman's reluctance to defend the lineal title against anyone legitimate (he was stripped of the WBA for refusing to defend the title against Tony Tucker) it seemed as though the powers that be needed to put an end to Foreman's claim to the title.
No sense calling him the lineal champion when he simply was not facing the best in the world. Back-to-back defenses against fringe contenders was just not suitable of the world champion. He should have been fighting the likes of Lennox Lewis, Riddick Bowe, etc.
As for the initial question of what was Foreman's best win it's clearly Joe Frazier, followed by Ken Norton. I think his win over Ron Lyle is certainly a solid number three even if Lyle never was a world champion himself, largely because it's considered to be the greatest heavyweight non-title fight of all time.
Of course Michael Moorer is number four because it was nearly 20 years to the day when Foreman lost the title. Nowadays you see boxers in their late 30s and 40s all the time, but I'm not so sure it's something that will be surpassed in my lifetime: winning the heavyweight championship at the age of 45.
Every once in a great while I hear Vladimir Klitschko hint at a comeback wanting to break Foreman's record but I'm not so sure that he will actually do it, especially with everything that is going on in the Ukraine right now.
https://apnews.com/article/ad1ab3d74c85 ... 09eb5157ea
Furthermore it seems that your theory doesn't hold water because the rematch between Foreman and Moorer was supposed to take place but fell apart due to money issues.
https://buffalonews.com/news/foreman-mo ... 31cc0.html
Foreman was 47 when this rematch was supposed to happen. So it seems to me that Moorer did not have a rematch clause in the initial contract, which meant that Foreman had to defend the title against the number one contender (WBA) Tony Tucker which he did not do and was there for stripped and left with just the lineal championship.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm ... story.html
Here Foreman says he willingly drops the IBF title after Shultz because the rankings were wonky:
"I was shocked when I couldn’t find Michael Moorer, who less than a year ago gave me a chance to fight for the championship. Nor did I find the man who I feel is the best heavyweight in the world today, Riddick Bowe, or the best keeper of the heavyweight championship in the last 20 years, Evander Holyfield."