91 Foreman Tyson bout

What about Lewis Foreman, shame that fight and the Bowe fight never happened for Lennox imagine the all time rating he would have got for those fights, he would have won I am sure but after the Ruddock fight no one wanted him of course.

 

It would've bested the '70s for supreme quality match-ups. :deal

I really wish Lewis had been allowed to continue against McCall (who was a crap finisher), then we would've seen Lewis-Bowe in late '94, as was signed.

 

Foreman chose to sign with Arum. The biggest fights for him were Holyfield and Tyson. Foreman only came back for money not title shots. He didnt care about the title, thats why he let the belt go as soon as he was forced to fight someone he knew he couldnt beat. Foreman hired Arum to help guide him in a division which at that time was still controlled for the most part by Don King, of course Foreman would have to share his purses and give options if he wanted a shot at the cash cows. You dont think he gave Main Events an option if he defeated Holyfield? King had him fight on the Tyson Tillman undercard as a way to build up a potential meeting down the line but only requested options if he defeated Tyson and Foreman used that as a way to say no. This according to Aaron Snowell who was involved with Tyson at that point.

Moorer was a nothing champion and Foremans name brought more to the table and allowed him to negotiate the fight without an immediate rematch clause. Thats why Moorer took the fight with Foreman for what he thought would be an easy payday.

 

I don't want to debate every single point because frankly it seems obvious to me that the fight would have been made eventually if Tyson had stayed undisputed champion, it would have been made for mega-millions. Whether you say it's not the money or the title or both, Foreman and Tyson would have had nowhere else to go for comparable money.
It's a stretch to suggest Foreman would have avoided Tyson at every cost.

And, yes, perhaps Foreman had special issues with Don King in particular.
He's not the only fighter to have had that problem. And he knew King as long as anyone. He claimed he was willing to work with King only if he could put his own promoters in on the action. Somewhere along the line he or King would have to compromise.

But the fight was never that close to happening, was never clearly the best career option for either man, so the discussion is a bit pointless.
It was a possible match that was never made. A shame, but nevermind eh.

 

King had no problem working with Arum and Arum had no problem signing a long term deal with King but it chopped into Georges purses big time. Foreman should have gone to King and not Arum because he well knew how King worked especially after Tyson lost the titles to Douglas and King lost control of everything.

King wanted to avoid the Holyfield fight for that very same reason because Main Events wanted options on Tyson for a rematch. If it wasnt for Tyson forcing King to make the Holyfield fight King would have never had made a deal to fight him in 91.

 

Thanks Fellas:good

I think the key thing is that if they both kept winning it would have been for massive amounts of money.

It could have been better than the 70s in terms of fights made. Incidentally both Holyfield and Bowe wanted nothing to do with Ruddock so they fought each other instead. But those would have been some great fights! Even Foreman Lewis would have great.

Actually King didn't want to avoid Holyfield; he tried to make Tyson Holyfield immediately after Evander won the title and when Dan Duva didn't bite he tried to get strip the WBC title away from Holyfield for not facing Mike Tyson. When that didn't work he tried to play keep away by using public perception and leveraging his contacts to make Holyfield feel like an irrelevant champion. This is why he upped the $5 million dollar offer that he gave Foreman in 1990 to $20 million a year later on account that Foreman's stock has risen and that a Foreman Tyson fight would be the biggest fight available. He even had Foreman on the undercard to hype up a potential match up. He was trying to do whatever he could to make Holyfield's camp come hat in hand to make a Tyson fight.

Tyson of course was willing to take the low ball offer that Duva made ($15 million) for an immediate fight as opposed to the step aside money and higher guarantee of $25 million for a fight later on.