I don't know that I necessarily agree with all of what you're saying here, but I do believe this fight was much closer than many seem to believe, and I also do not believe it was a robbery.
Absolutely, it was a close fight. No robbery. However, I believe when you're the 46 year old champ, your 26 year old challenger needs to be a bit more convincing. I don't believe Schulz did that.
George never acknowledged he lost the fight. I don't know where you came up with that. Another myth perhaps. In fact, George said: "He ran," Foreman told the Associated Press. "He ran. You don't give fighters the championship for running."
I do recall George admitting this basically right after the fight if I'm remembering correctly. In fairness though, risk-reward is always a factor in carving a career path, and at George's age (especially back then when professional athletes generally tended to retire earlier), those factors are inherently amplified. Even still, he did go on to face Shannon Briggs (where I personally though George deserved to win), and I believe he was looking to face Lennox in the event he defeated Briggs (although whether or not that would have actually happened is anyone's guess).
Because actions speak louder than words. Why drop your belt to go after a lesser fight if you really think you beat the guy? I like George, but the entire Schulz affair was a fiasco. He needed a gift to beat a guy for whom his promoter had to bribe the IBF in order to be allowed to fight in the first place, then dropped the title rather than rematch him. Perform all the slow mo, no volume mental gymnastics you like, but that's the situation in a nutshell.
Ray Mercer once said after suffering his first loss to the much older Larry Holmes: "When you're 42 and it's close, maybe you should get it."
I just watched and scored the Schulz - Foreman fight. The only two rounds that GF might have won were the 2nd and 11th. I scored the 2nd EVEN, and gave GF the 11th, but AS had his moments in that one too. AS won on my card 10-1-1. Lederman was close to my scoring and Clancy too. Happily for me, Merchant was completely different which I take as a compliment. Schulz was too quick, and too strong. When the fight ended, it was obvious that GF knew he lost. He knew it wasn't close.
When you're from a country that doesn't produce many world heavyweight boxing champions and it's close, maybe you should get it. When you're brought in to lose and end up fighting the fight of your life and outpoint your opponent ten rounds to two, maybe you should get it.
George was 46 for God sake...should not have been fighting...Schultz 27 if he was any good he should have closed George out....He didn't end of story.!!!
For those not in the know, Bob Arum promoted Foreman's 2nd coming and he knew Foreman was a cash cow, and so to keep that circus going he made certain Foreman didn't lose to unknowns by bribing them. This is fact, it all came out in a court case against Bob Arum and top rank. In hindsight Bob Arum didn't need to do that but he just didn't know if during Foreman's early comeback when he was fighting lower level fighters whether Foreman at that point was really legit in his comeback. A lot of the newer boxing fans today don't know that about Arum, he was really a scum of the earth dishonest man and still is. Arum is rotten at his core, you cant rehabilitate that.
I don’t understand the fuss. The punch stat showed quite clearly that Foreman landed substantially more punches than Schulz. 207 punches to Schulz's 180 and landed 53 percent to Schulz's 44 percent. Foreman blocked most of Schulz’s harder punches on his arms and gloves. Foreman was the aggressor. Even if this were not a championship bout, I would have given the nod to Foreman. But it should be remembered that a champion must be definitively beaten by a better man. "When you're from a country that doesn't produce many world heavyweight boxing champions and it's close, maybe you should get it." And how many times did a fighter from the US go overseas only to get robbed where he was expected to pad the champ's record? Brian Nielson comes to mind as he was awarded a number of suspected victories in the form of blatant dives and decisions. And if you want to talk of a real "robbery" look no further than Nielsen vs Holmes. I scored it 9 round to 3 for Holmes, and that was being generous to the Danish Pastry.
