Just thought I'd put that out there. For those who think Mike Tyson was scared of Foreman, the consensual was that Razor Ruddock was a more dangerous fighter than Foreman and Tyson fought him twice.
Ruddock was on a roll. For Mike being scared, I think it was a smart play. If you beat George, you simply just beat an old man. You lose? You lost to an old man.
But Tyson was forced to fight ruddock to solidify his position as the number one contender for the undisputed heavyweight title held by holyfield at the time. Besides the famous "Tyson did not want to fight foreman because styles make fights" thing, it should be noted that Mike had absolutely 0 obligation to get in the ring with Big George. George was never his mandatory challenger, nor was he ranked over him.
Tyson definitely wasn't keen on getting in the ring with George after his initial come back, but he would do it for the right money (e.g the 25 million China offered to host the fight.) Ruddock was more dangerous, yes, but Foreman was high risk–low reward fighter who was a nightmare for small fighters and could still bang as Tyson knew very well thanks to Cus. Mike being afraid of Foreman doesn't mean he wouldn't fight him in the end though.
Foreman wasn't taken seriously until the Cooney fight. From what I read, he seemed to be written off as a side show act: another broke exchamp who made an I'll advised comeback. The Holyfield bout was the real tipping point. He earned a lot of respect holding his own with a strong young champion. Before this happened, Tyson wasn't really under any pressure to fight Foreman, nor did Foreman have some sort of mandatory ranking. Don King tried to arrange it but the story for who was at fault has changed dozens of times. Either way, Ruddock was definitely more deserving of a crack at Tyson with his #2 ranking. Foreman only beat 1 top 10 guy and had a very thin resume. On top of that, as others pointed out, he was a high risk low reward opponent.
Both Tyson and Foreman had one goal in mind. Regaining the heavyweight title. And since neither of them had it, fighting each other wasn’t a priority
For those saying that Foreman was high risk low reward….would he not have been high risk high reward? I thought getting a fight with comeback Big George was like winning the boxing lottery in terms of money due to his name recognition and popularity. Isn’t that why he had so many cracks at the title, even if they were not considered “well earned” at the time?
