Was Mike Tyson scared of fighting George foreman?

Why would Cus D'Amato be schooling Tyson on avoiding Foreman when D'Amato died in 1985 and Foreman didnt come back until 1987 which was met with a skepticism. The idea that anyone thought Tyson was scared of the jolly grandpa that most felt was jousting at windmills is ludicrous.

 

according to Bowe, they decided not to fight because they were from the same neighbourhood.

Bowe and Newman did visit Tyson while in prison to try and setup a fight. There's no real information as to what happened after that .

Tyson was meant to unify the titles against Moorer once he got past Holyfield but it never happens, so Holy took on Moorer instead

the best time that Tua/Tyson could have happened was 97-99 however Tyson was banned during this time due to the bite

 

When Holyfield was making his first defense against Foreman in a big money PPV.

Tyson was taking on the harder opponent in Ruddock.

Tyson ended up with hurt ribs, missed out on Holyfield, and wound up in prison until 1995.

By 1995, Foreman was talking big but never fought anybody regarded top 10 ever again. A rematch against Holyfield, possible superfights with Bowe, Lewis, Tyson..nothing came of them as he defended his "lineal" claim sporadically against lowly regarded fringe contenders, while Holyfield became the recognized man in 97.

Doesn't appear Foreman/Tyson was ever a realistic possiblity unless Tyson kept the titles against Douglas and defended them against Holyfield. Foreman would have been a logical defense as he was for Evander in early 91.

 

I think a fight between the two would have been a mega event. Both guys were proper household names, and they had completely contrasting images outside the ring. The fight would have been one of the biggest seller of the decade, if it had happened after Foreman went the distance with Holyfield. (I think he needed that fight first for real credibility.)

I've never been able to decide if this fight would have been a blowout in Tyson's favour, or a surprisingly competitive fight.

 

pretty much how i see it. But some believe Tyson went out of his way to avoid foreman and they put weight on this alleged Statement which Tyson made which has never been confirmed or proven

 

Spinning wheels here. Tyson never "ducked" Foreman...

Foreman was, "...more afraid of signing with Don King than fighting Tyson." Yet to get to Tyson you had to go through Don King as well. Foreman kept calling Tyson out but never signed the contract.

Now, I'm sure Foreman would have called out anyone who had the championship, but he didn't want to work his way up the ladder. He went straight for the champion. To be credible he had to fight credible opponents, which he never really did until facing Holyfield. When Tyson was champ he called Tyson out but Foreman hadn't fought any top contenders to earn his spot.

To be honest I wanted to see a Tyson-Foreman fight more than Tyson-Holyfield. I loved comeback Foreman because of his historical impact. But in hindsight his second career was all smoke and mirrors, as Azzer85 has stated.

 

It was not smoke and mirrors.

 

Frazier fighting Foreman in the seventies and Tyson fighting him in the nineties are two totally different kettles of fish. In the nineties,it's of my opinion that Tyson would have beaten Foreman on points. George would have stopped Tyson in a prime for prime scenario,though.

 

http://www.boxingforum24.com/showthread.php?t=423244&page=2 see my comment Ricky42791

 

why were there no reports on this at the time then? just reports of foreman getting offered contrats and refusing to sign.



1st attempt:

"...In December promoter Don King offered Foreman $5 million to fight Tyson sometime in 1990. "He gave me a contract and told me to sign on the dotted line," says Foreman, who rejected the offer. "I was more afraid of Don King and the dotted line than I am of Tyson..."

Read more:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vau...95/2/index.htm


2nd Attempt

"After Tyson's win over Razor Ruddock in their June 28 rematch, King set out to land a bout with Foreman. It was a power move that could well have left Holyfield with his crown, but with little opportunity to parlay it into another megabucks fight. However, the 42-year-old Foreman, whose gallant loss to Holyfield in April left him the heavyweight division's most popular figure, reportedly turned down a $20 million offer from King. Big George, it seemed, wanted a Holyfield rematch..."

Read more:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vau...0013/index.htm


3rd Attempt

"Tyson is scheduled to fight for a title in March. Foreman, who said he will retire after one more fight, is tentatively scheduled to meet Michael Moorer in March. Foreman has said he would like to fight Tyson, but not if King is involved in the promotion. King said he is confident that could be worked out.

Foreman did not elaborate upon the reason he is against King, who is responsible for promoting the 1974 "Rumble in the Jungle" title fight in Zaire, West Africa, where he and Ali became the first fighters to receive $5 million each in an unprecedented guarantee. King, named "Greatest Promoter of All-Time" by the World Boxing Council, inspired President Mobuto Sese Seko's government to promote the first one-billion viewer fight spectacular between Ali and Foreman in Zaire's capital city, Kinshasha. The government guaranteed the $10 million which was split between Foreman and Ali, who regained his heavyweight title..."

Read More:

http://books.google.com/books?id=fTk...page&q&f=false
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I took this from another thread, i did not write this originally I just didnt know how to quote it outside its own thread.

 

I guess it is just possible that he was so overawed by the young Foreman, that he retained a healthy respect for the older Foreman.

If he was scared, then he was certainly misguided.

 

There were also tentative talks to match them in the late 1990s but surprise surprise nobody wanted to see Foreman get hurt so the talks never went anywhere. It blows my mind that people can look at the career trajectory of Foreman's comeback and see anything other than a big con. How many times did Foreman admit on air while he was active that he would never fight Bowe, or Lewis and yet people on here want to believe Tyson ducked him when it was Foreman who turned down offers for a fight? I dont see what Tyson would have had to fear from Foreman. As an old man he was a big, stationary, slow target that was easy to hit. Yes he was big, yes he was strong, and yes he could punch but Tyson didnt exactly have a glass jaw, wasnt exactly slow, wasnt scared of fighting bigger fighters, and wasnt typically known for standing there and letting a big slow grandfather wail away on him. Its a silly notion. In fighting Ruddock twice he was facing a guy who was just as big, hit as hard, and was actually more mobile and more dangerous at that point. Foreman pretending Tyson was running from him was just more of his schtick along with paying 100s of thousands of dollars to get bums ranked so he could defend his "title" against them. If Foreman was such a badass why did he have to do that? Why wasnt he fighting all comers? Nobody seems to be able to answer that question.

 

Respectfully disagree here. He did not fight the elite heavyweights (Holyfield aside) but his second career was pretty remarkable as it was.

He knocked out Cooney with devastating precision, and although we can certainly say that Gerry was well past what little prime he had, it was a crushing knockout.

He knocked out fringe contender Adilson Rodrigues in two rounds, went 12 hard rounds with a prime Holyfield, beat fringe contenders Coetzer and Stewart, knocked out the highly respected Moorer and although losing to Morrison and Briggs, he made these two power punchers constantly give ground to him. (I also thought he was unlucky not to get the nod against Briggs.)

So if you shave off the top guys (Lewis, Bowe, Holyfield, Tyson) he probably did as well and had just as credible a career as any other contender of the period.
All this while he was an old man in his forties, at least a decade or more past his best. It's a pretty remarkable achievement I think.

 

A B-level version of Tyson in Stewart turned his face into the Elephant Man, so naturally George was thrilled to face Mike.

 

The peek a boo is not close to what Frazier used, Frazier bobbed and weaved with his head down bent at the waist and arms crossed in a rythmic motion. Tyson had his hands tight to his chin and he slipped punches not bobbed and weaved; every punch he threw had purpose and torque behind it or bad intentions as Tyson put it. Frazier had good two handed power but his left hook ws his bread and butter. Tyson threw blindingly fast and accurate power punches in beautiful deadly combinations. Frazier in his prime was a sold barely a shade over 200 lb lb fighter Tyson was a 220 lb fighter. Fraziers style was built around fighters close to his size which was norm for the time. Tysons style was built around the large behemoths of his time. In Fraziers time Foreman at 220 was as big as they got in Tysons time Foremans size and strength was average on the smaller side of the time.