Another angle re , Big George F

You´re starting a new thread before even successfully finishing your last agenda (answering question @who´d copy GFs domination) ??
Tzztzzz...

 

Well.....there were THREE careers of GF in actuality not two. The reality is the third career in many ways was a continuation of the second.

 

You didn't buy the "church" crap? He founded his own church and youth center and ran it for a decade. Gave up everything.

There was an article about him in an old Boxing Illustrated I have where a writer visited him around 81 or 82 and he was in Texas preaching to desperately poor people. It was like 110 degrees. Flies everywhere. Foreman had nothing himself. It was an amazing article. The writer was saying to George you could come back and earn millions, and he didn't want anything to do with it.

Here's a clip of George around that time, and whether people believe he was drugged or just dehydrated in Puerto Rico or what, whatever happened to him he believed he saw Jesus and he dove right in. For 10 years!

So it doesn't really matter if YOU bought it. He clearly did. He certainly wasn't getting anything financially out of it.

And while he later became a pretty successful pitchman, Jim Lampley talked once in an interview about when George first started doing HBO broadcasts with them. And Lampley liked to drink after fight cards in the limos that took them back to their hotels and in bar in the hotels later. And Lampley said George didn't want Jim Lampley drinking around him or cursing. So Lampley didn't drink and watched his language if George was riding in a limo with him.

I remember a SportsCenter clip of Foreman preaching at a church the weekend before he fought Holyfield.

He was dead serious about his religion.

Here's George around the time the guy from Boxing Illustrated visited him. I found this online.

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Interesting to see big George at that time.

 

Foreman was better fighter in the 1970s but for some reasons, I prefer his older style. He would look amazing in the late 70s and early 80s with 90s style.

 

I like how George never fell in the comeback. He was like this inexorable, unstoppable figher in the 90s.

That said, he never fought Bowe, Tyson, or Lewis, all men who had the capability of flooring him (but, in the case of pre-Steward Lewis, wouldn't have beat him anyway).

 

I think you're right, the Young loss probably made Foreman think his cause against boxers in general was lost. It might have made him see an Ali rematch as probably moot (forgetting Ali might have actually ducked him, though that's righteously contentious).

It was less than a year before Holmes started kicking serious ass as a boxer, so imo it was a good time for Foreman to quit. He might have even come back to win the title back from Norton but Larry would have showed up sooner or later.

In other words, perhaps it only took another boxer with some of Ali's boxing skill to make George leave indefinitely. It was either Young or, eventually, Holmes. Just my opinion.

 

It was much more than that. Foreman became very dehydrated during his bout with Young and nearly collapsed afterwards. He began hallucinating which is when he had his religious experience. In retrospect and really at that time many in the know felt Young to be a terrible opponent for Foreman. A fast tricky boxer was George’s Kryptonite.

Foreman’s comeback initiated because of MONEY. George was interviewed on the great Art Rust radio program back during the very early stages of his comeback. He stated that he purchased many multiple fancy cars while champion and during his retirement when he needed money he would sell one. One day there were no more cars and no more money. He then thought of the good he could bring to his community if he returned to the ring and was successful (building a community center was one).