Foreman weighed in for Norton in street clothes

This makes me feel silly for taking recorded measured weights as gospel.

 

Foreman liked to intimidate opponents.My guess he would look bigger with clothes on? To keep this in perspective, i'm under 5'9 have 16 1/2 inch biceps and 15 plus forearms and weigh 155/180 with these measurements...foreman being at 6'3 would be relatively average today is what im getting at as far as looks go

Foreman was considered the biggest boogeyman in boxing then with the most girth ,intimidation was a big part of his game but he would be VERY small today for a HW.

i consider 90's foreman tougher and more difficult is my point.

The answer to the thread itself is things werent done more strict then ,i think even guys used weighted objects to hide during weigh ins at times.Its a bit more professional now...i do miss those meaningless measurements though like calf /forearm and wrist..etc....lol

 

It doesnt really matter they aren't far off .Its good to keep stats it tells alot.

 

Them was some dope threads.

 

Well...at some point, weight does matter...obviously.
There's a balance between the often regurgitated extremes.

 

Especially when the gambling crowd gets involved fans and gamblers know what is a good weight for each fighter based off historical performance...other than the physical health side actual weight is irrelevant in an unlimited division

 

No, he didn't typically weigh in with his clothes on. For example, here he is weighing for Roman.

This content is protected

It didn't have anything to do with intimidating Norton.

The Foreman-Norton fight was filled with problems. One of the reasons the fighters agreed to box there was they were supposed to receive their money tax-free (from the Venezuelan government). But there was corruption everywhere. People who booked hotel rooms in Caracas arrived and found they had to then bribe the people in the hotel to actually get a room. Attendees were robbed on the way to the arena and in the hotels. The city of Caracas was out of control.

The Venezuelan sports commission decided they were going to choose the referee and the judges. The Foreman camp said no. If that happened, they wouldn't fight. The day of the fight - which was also the day of the weigh in - Foreman said he injured his knee and wouldn't be able to fight. He wore long pants and boots to the weigh in to hide his knee and left his boots on because he couldn't bend down to take his boots off. Then Foreman had to be helped out of the building to be taken to the hospital, because he supposedly could barely walk.

Everyone freaked out and thought he was leaving the country. So the sport commission relented. When Foreman returned from the hospital, suddenly his knee didn't hurt anymore. And Foreman agreed to go thru with the fight. He then entered the ring bouncing on his toes, which showed to everyone that the knee issue was a lie. Then he wiped out Norton in less than two rounds and his team quickly raced to the airport.

Unfortunately for them, the government had guards there and when Foreman and his team tried to board the plane, the guards refused to let him board until he paid his taxes on the $750,000 he earned for the fight. They said they had an agreement that they didn't have to pay taxes, but the guards said the new government had been elected and there were new leaders in charge and Foreman's team didn't have an agreement with them. They demanded like $120,000 right then or he couldn't leave. So Foreman went back to his hotel. Norton got to the airport, paid his "tax" in cash (like $50,000) and fled the country. Then the new government said George owed double what they demanded at the airport - like $300,000.

I don't know how long George ended up staying there. Every time they wanted his taxes, they demanded more than they had before.

So it was a trainwreck all the way around. It was one of the reason's Howard Cosell always referred to the event as "The Caracas Caper."

That's one of the dangers of getting third-world governments to bankroll boxing events. Same thing kind of happened in Zaire. When Foreman got a cut eye and the fight had to be postponed a month, the President of Zaire was afraid everyone would leave and not return so he took Ali and Foreman's passports from them so they couldn't leave the country.

 

How should I know. I wasn't there. Here's a picture. https://www.flickr.com/photos/boxingmemories/5416273477/in/album-72157625976925608/

 

YES. Crazy. Foreman's title defenses weren't your typical events. I think the Tokyo defense went off without a hitch. The Venezuela and Zaire promotions took place in dangerous cities. I don't know if he was forced to weigh in when they heard he was leaving for the hospital. All week there were rumors he was going to bolt.

The government sent cops to the airport to block him (and did) and Norton from leaving unless they were paid hundreds of thousands in cash. Two of Foreman's three defenses came in country's where the government wouldn't allow him to physically leave, as in we have guns, you can't leave.

In Venezuela, the camera equipment for the closed circuit broadcast arrived and the equipment was held at the airport and they wouldn't hand it over to the company broadcasting the fight all week until they paid a "tax" to the cops and the airport officials to release it. So even the outlets that sold closed circuit tickets didn't know until the day of the fight if the bout would even be broadcast, should it take place, because the cameras were basically stolen until bribes were paid.

Foreman's first reign was very chaotic. If he had it his way, George probably would've left Venezuela and Africa and the Norton and Ali fights would've had to have been rescheduled elsewhere.

There's a reason they quit holding those fights in 'exotic' locales. I'm surprised all those fighters and their entourages got out alive.

When Ali got back to his dressing room after the third Frazier fight, there was a Manila cop with his brains blown out in the hallway outside his dressing room. The 'story' was the cop was nervous during the fight and spinning his revolver on his finger when he accidently shot himself in the head. But that place was crazy, too. On top of all the Ali-Veronica Porshe-Belinda Ali chaos, Ali was flirting with Imelda Marcos, the president's wife. Imelda was flirting with Ali. Ferdinand Marcos started getting jealous and was at a golf course with a reporter (and a bunch of armed guards) just before the fight and kept pulling out a pistol and shooting birds that might hamper his golf game. And Marcos told the reporter his wife was in love with Ali and if Ali was a Filipino he (Marcos) would "have to kill him."

Considering Marcos had his political opponent Aquino gunned down the moment he got off a plane in Manila, those weren't idle threats.

Just nuts.

 

Foreman could have weigh in with diapers on he was gonna khtfo Norton

 

That's so funny. I'd heard the story of Arum, Ali and the orgy but I thought it was in Tokyo for the Inoki fight.

Every time I hear someone bring up an orgy in the 1970s I think of the scene in "Walk Hard, the Dewey Cox Story" when Dewey is sitting on the floor and a guy keeps walking up talking to him with his junk about eye level. I'm sure the orgy in steamy in Manila with droopy balls Arum and Bundini licking Ali's sweat and that whole crowd was one foul-smelling room. I hope they burned the sheets the rug and everything else when those guys checked out. (LOL)

 

That might explain why Foreman was only 219 against Roman instead of the inflated 225 he weighed against Norton.

 

It really did not matter anyway on March 26 1974 in Caracas, Vebezuela, George Foreman totally destroyed Ken Norton in 2 rounds to retain his title.