George Foreman vs. Ray Mercer in 1995

Much like Anthony, I was a teenager during Foreman's comeback ( 13 - 23 from 1987 to 1997. ) But I don't much agree with his view, and have opted to pretty much ignore sauhound's analysis ( if you even want to call it that.)

George Foreman ended his first career on a bad note, and retired for a period of 10 years, which is almost as long as the average person goes to school from the time they are kindergarten to the end of highschool. He returned to the ring in 1987 in horid condition, but worked to get himself in the best shape he could given the circumstances. Archie Moore worked with him to change his style from a wild swinger to more of a strait hitter, with a vastly improved defense, and the ability to pace himself throughout a fight without wasting shots.. From the time he came back in 1987 to his first title attempt in 1991, he stayed as busy as any man in the division, and after 10 years in retirement needed to start off like any other prospect. It is absurd to expect the man to pick up where he left off 10-15 years earlier fighting top contenders and all time greats.. The guys he was beating were not much different than many of the journeyman, trial horses, and tomato cans that prospecting fighters like Riddick Bowe, Tommy Morrison and a few others were fighting.. Only difference between George and those guys was that they had their youth and were coming off of successful amateur careers. Foreman was an old man coming off of 10 years of carrying a bible around... Nuff said.... His opponent selection consisted of journeyman with mostly winning records, the faded ex cruiser champ, the occasional fringe contender, the retired contender with a name, the crude punching club fighter, the heavyweight champion of Canada, whatever..... Hardly a stellar list, but not something which prompts me to pretend that he fought 20 something guys who were 0-10 like some others on here want you to believe. Furthermore it wasn't as though he struggled with these men... he utterly destroyed most of them... The heavyweight top 10 of the early 90's consisted of a lot of guys who's ratings left questions. Who did Michael Dokes beat to get a top five rating? how about Razor Ruddock? pierre Coetzer? Orlin Norris? Francesco Damiani? Gary Mason? Carl Williams? Tim Witherspoon? Most of those men had little more than maybe 1 or 2 halfway decent opponents on their recent record, and some had none at all... In 1991, he was just as qualified to fight Holyfield as anyone else at that time with the exception of Tyson and Ruddock who were at the moment tied up with each other.. And his feat to recapturing the title in 1994 made history.So at the end of the day, when someone asks you who did Foreman beat between 1987 to 1997.. A quick and easy answer would be " the heavyweight champion of the world..."

 

You give Foreman way too much credit. He was a big con man who was so broke that he did not want to risk blowing a big money title shot by fighting and probably losing to decent contenders along the way. He would rather make a lot of noise, do as much ballyhooing as possible, and continue to stomp all over fourth-rate opposition! Even Bob Arum criticized Foreman early on for turning down fights with guys who were only slightly better than the bums Foreman had been facing -- specifically guys like Anders Ecklund and even Orlin Norris. It wasn't until Foreman started doing record TV numbers (USA Tuesday Night Fights/ESPN) that Arum came around and jumped on the Foreman bandwagon.
And the guys you mentioned as being no more deserving of title shots than Foreman -- guys like Carl Williams, Tim Witherspoon, Gary Mason -- were the kinds of guys Foreman should have been fighting but wasn't. Foreman actually turned down a fight with Carl Williams.

And after a 10-year absence from the ring, it was only right that Foreman started off slow and steady -- I never said otherwise. But the problem is that Foreman never really upgraded his competition (not really). And don't forget: Foreman was calling out Mike Tyson in late '87/early'88, so Foreman was already making his case for a shot at Tyson while still knocking over Manny, Moe, and Jack. And anytime Foreman was offered a fight against a ranked contender, he declined.
And the supposed better guys that Foreman fought -- Bert Cooper, Dwight Qawi, Gerry Cooney -- were a hapless bunch. One guy was a career druggie (Cooper), who spent the night before his fight with Foreman shacking up with prostitutes and shooting drugs; the other guy (Qawi), was way out of shape, fighting out of his division, and pretty much a spent force; and he still made things tough for Foreman; this short 5'6" fat cruiserweight was nailing George with good shots until Foreman's pressure and size just overwhelmed him.
And Gerry Cooney???? Oh, come on! There were plenty of big, strong, active heavyweight around for Foreman to make some sort of statement against, but Foreman and his team dug up the remnants of Gerry Cooney??? Come on now!!!

 

What does that suppose to mean, you think if they went an additional 12 rounds it would be Evander and not Foreman that would drop?

You are just talking nosense with that "Foreman could go another hour" claim. Holyfield was free to pace himself, if he continued to beat on the exhausted Foreman for an additional 60 minutes, he would have likely killed him.

 

In 2005, Briggs was better but that's about it. Mercer had a solid run of impressive wins in Cooper, Morrison, and Damiani. He can also claim to have given Holyfield and Lewis two close very tough fights, some would argue he deserved the nod against Lewis.

Briggs has the KO over Sergie which could compare with Mercer's best wins but that is about it. The rest he has is the disputed win over Foreman, a disputed draw over Botha, and stunning Lewis in the first round to hang his hat on.

Ray had his humilations in Ferguson and Old Holmes, he at least somewhat avenged Ferguson. But Briggs has far more in the Wilson KO, the big Foreman "win", the Botha "draw", upset by Fields, and than McCline completely dominating him.

"Losing to Sedreck Fields. Even though I thought I won. I thought it was embarrassing, that he had such a bad record. It was a close fight. Embarrasing in the sense whereas I came to the fight just to knock out an opponent, to make a payday. It didn't go my way."

 

If you prefer to recognize his second career as being nothing but a farce in which all he did was fight garbage opposition while cheating the public, then that's your perogative. He wasn't doing anything different than the vast majority of the contenders who were around at the time, and in truth, his comeback record did contain several respectable opponents, ie. Moorer, Rodriguez, Stewart, Coetzer, Saverese, Cooper, Qawi, etc. And how does campaigning for a title shot and looking to make a fortune make him different from any other contender? Looking at the punishment he took against Holyfield, Stewart and Moorer, I am inclined to thinking that his career was anything BUT fraudulent.. But we all have our opinions. In any case, you can't take away that he won the title, and labeling Moorer as "chinny" or Foreman as being "lucky" doesn't change the reality.

 

Foreman's second career was certainly legit until he won the IBF/Lineal title from Moorer. Stewart, Big Foot, Cooper, Coetzer, and Rodrigues were the same fringe guys and gate keepers all the contenders was fighting at the time. Very solid wins. Bowe got his title match with Evander by beating several of the same guys. Qwai and Cooney were publicity farces though interesting curiousities at the time, but no worse than Ruddock murdering the ghost of Dokes to breakout. Though he lost, Morrison was also a good guy to face. And of course beating Moorer for the title is an outstanding win all things considered.

My beef with Foreman is that after Moorer, he basically held the lineal title hostage for several years. He refused his mandatories until he was stripped and not only failed to make any big matches but also failed to meet any notable contenders. Briggs being the best of a very bad lot, and coming off a loss to Wilson with Foreman on commentary no less citing how soft Briggs was.

 

Fair enough.. I have always felt that George should have just retired after fighting Moorer. But there are some who sum up his ENTIRE comeback based on what he did post-Moorer, where as I consider it nothing more than mere extra credit. He was nearly 50 years of age when he fought Briggs and savarese, and arguably beat them both.. Is this something that people are really using to penalize him for?

 

He probably should have. It would have saved us some trouble.

Nobody is penalizing him for it, they are just recognizing it for what it is. Foreman doing just enough to try hold on to his lineal Champion claim.

 

The belts themselves were gone, so I don't know if the claim to being the champ was really what he was clinging too. I think he was just reaping whatever paydays were left, hence it was all about money. He made some good coin in the Savarese and Briggs fights. Perhaps he was hoping for a meeting with Tyson or somebody that would have been a big draw. Frankly, I think he would have lined his pockets pretty well if he had fought Holmes in a novelty match.

 

It's supposed to mean that Foreman wasn't close to going down and he took everything Holyfield could throw. Holyfield was getting tired himself with big George trying to get to him for 12 rounds.

 

It's obvious there is an anti-Foreman crowd and a pro-Foreman crowd.

 

Foreman looked to be on his way out in the 9th I think it was. By the end of the fight, he was certainly spent.

Holyfield was clearly tired but he was in full control and pacing himself in the last few rounds.

Foreman going another hour and the "fly" business just reads like meaingless hyperbole to me. Foreman wasn't impervious to Evander, he was getting hurt and fading at a far greater rate down the stretch.

 

Foreman was hurt at the end of the 9th by Evander. But I think some of the damage and the actual trouble that George was in is a bit exaggerated here. It wasn't like he was saved by the bell from a knockdown or had been hammered for most of the round. Evander landed 3 or 4 big shots which wobbled him in the final 10 seconds. Foreman shook it off with about two seconds to go and thew a shot back, before the sound of the bell. It can be viewed at 7:50 on the clip below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJjkXCTEErA

 

right.

 

This sh## can go both ways. You write "on his way out" and I say no way by saying another hour to make a point that George was not near being put away.
The "fly" business was meant as an example of George shaking off hard and clean punches by Evander with not much reaction. Why must this be explained?