I was watching Bowe vs Gonzalez and in the post fight Jim Lampley asked George Foreman (Who was covering the fight) if he would consider fighting Bowe and he responded with a quick no George Foreman gets a pass for ducking Riddick Bowe and Lennox Lewis in his 2nd career. I guess cause he was "old"
Yes, his second reign was pathetic. But he didn't ruin anything. Take a look at the first heavyweight champions and how they behave as "lineal".
The man himself, John L Sullivan, was running around saying he's the champion, while not fighting for 3 years, lol. Dempsey didn't defent for similar stretch as well. So I think fighting bums like Foreman did, is a tad better than not fighting at all. Still disgraceful tho. And Foreman reigned in the time where there was no clear top dog as well, so it was hard to have bigger championship claim than the man who beat the man.
Pretty obvious I’d say. No one individual “ruined” lineal. We wouldn’t even be having the silly discussion were it not for a bunch of corrupt, self-serving twits who decided they could make a buck hawking another trinket belt back in the day. Blame them.
This is false. Sullivan was running around saying hes the champion while not fighting for 5 years. Lol. Yeah people forget the situation in 1994-1997. The reality was Foremans mandatory was Tony Tucker and the biggest fight that could have been made in 1995/1996 was the Moorer rematch. Once Lennox and Holyfield had seperated themselves from the pack Foreman agreed to fight Lennox if he beat Briggs. Foreman was looking for the big fight but there was none to be made so he fought Grimsley. He fought Grimsley because some sanctioning body in their infinite wisdowm ranked Grimsley 9th and gave him a regional belt.
Ducked Tony Tucker as well. In an alt history: Foreman beats Tyson, Tyson beats Tucker, Tucker beats Foreman.