Aha...And two years later he beat up undefeated guys like Lou Savarese and Shannon Briggs.....Not that bad though!
George Foreman’s comeback set an example that probably wasn’t too good for a lot of men to follow . Leon Spinks, Jerry Quarry, Earnie Shavers, Ron Lyle, and Joe Bugner all had comebacks and most of them didn’t end well
Well. I guess Lyle at least got off without taking any beatings. He fought like four trial horses and beat them all. The rest of them were sad affairs
Bugner was probably the 3rd most successful of the returning legends from the 70's after Foreman and Holmes. Bugner at least managed to end his career on a good note with a few decent wins and beat Smith to win the minor WBF title. It was a very brief blip in HW history and Bugner was still occasionally facing decent contenders and journeymen. Lyle's comeback was completely irrelevant. I doubt he even made any real money at all, but I guess it made sense to try and get active again if he wanted a big payday with Big George. He wasn't delusional enough to try to go for a championship belt, just knocked over a few tomato cans then became a trainer (he worked with Victor Ortiz for a while). Shavers sadly just became a punching bag for young contenders to have a recognizable name on their record, but he still managed to occasionally surprise people with his power.
I wrote a story at the time for The Denver Post about Lyle and his "comeback". He had been working as a security guard in Las Vegas and had no money. He'd long ago broken with his manager, Bill Daniels, the philanthropic cable TV magnate, in a move he later lamented as "the biggest mistake of my life". And he'd had to pay his lawyer to get him off in the killing of a former trainer. The comeback fights were held in Kentucky because there was no boxing commission to sign off on them.
Guys , Ron Lyle tried to come back at 53 years old .. not 38 like Foreman , not 30 like Burger the first time or even 45 the second ...
Ron Lyle started boxing professionally at the age of over 30... In 1995 Lyle was not a serious professional boxer.
Lyle crushed a bunch of cans and went back into retirement when he realized he wasn't going to get a Foreman rematch. Wasn't like he continued and got embarrassed by some nobody like Spinks or Shavers did.
It was Bill Daniels who used his political connections to spring Lyle from prison and who set him up with a team and guided him to a title fight. But Lyle had a suspicious nature and someone in his circle made him suspect Daniels of cheating him. Lyle's life made a beeline for the drain after that while Daniels went on to make millionaires of everyone who worked for him.
I was actually ringside for that fight as a 17 year old kid. I was in high school and did work experience at the local paper. Blagged my way into press row. Got to meet Eddie Mustapha Muhammad, so that was pretty cool.