George Foreman's comeback - fraud or for real?

Yeah, if George got acclimated to a lighter weight, some of those near misses would have probably landed on Evander and George might have stopped him.

 

There was a lot of sctick.

He fought very mediocre competiton to get his shot at Holyfield. The best guy he faced was a drugged out Bert Cooper. Adilson Rodriguez was top 10 but only because of the largessee of the WBA.

Still, he gave Holyfield a very good fight.

Most thought it would end there

But he came back and he did beat the dangerous Alex Stewart, although Foreman's face looked like a halloween mask at the end.

Then, he lost to Morrison.

So, no, he did not deserve the title shot against Moorer, coming off a comprehensive loss to Morrison.

But, he caught lightning in a bottle with the one punch KO of the mediocre chinned Moorer, who , for some reason, stood right in front of him, not throwing anything.

So, even though it was full of cherry picking, at the end of the day, he beat the legitimate champ, Moorer, for the Heavyweight title.

So, it was real.

Was he greedy? Probably.

But not moreso than an ancient Larry Holmes, who was hanging around still fighting - he badly wanted a fight with Foreman.

Foreman danced around that and never have Larry a fight - instead fighting more relevant guys for more money.

 

As stated is was possibly sports all time great accomplishments.

However it was an era of multiple champions and 30-40 top ten challengers. Watered down. Fighters that never would have made the top ten were top ten. That's what happens when you have so many champions and multiple sets of top ten challengers.

Would he have won the championship if there was only one champion and he had to fight through only the best of the best to get that title shot? Probably not.

 

Remember "talk" Foreman - Tyson..

 

What?

 

The rankings were a mess in the late 80s and early 90s but foreman beat adilson rodriguez,moorer ,stewart who were all ranked fighters as well as gerry ****ey,bert cooper,dwight qawi, coetzer,savarese,schultz and others

 

IT started as a side show .. raised a notch with a hyped fight against a pathetic ****ey, showed tremendous theater and heart against a Holyfield that had just dusted Douglas and moved on sporadically till the Moorer fight, a legitimate but freak win ... without question Foreman was a force to some degree predicated on the stylistic match up but he was never, ever going to fight a Lewis, a Bowe or even a Ruddock .. he would have fought Tyson and was incredibly lucky that he didn't as he would have been destroyed and his myth with it ..

 

On the question of power no way in hell was george the puncher he had been

 

It was less impressive than it would have been a generation before. Foreman accomplished the Moorer KO in an era where most of the sports medicine stuff (everything from resistance training to steroids to superior nutrition) allowed older athletes to stay competitive for longer.

Lewis, Vitali, and Wladimir all showed that Foreman's longevity was a harbinger of things to come, not a once-in-a-century accomplishment.

Still extremely impressive, but slightly less so in retrospect.

 

I'm pretty sure Moorer was the only guy in the top ten at the time Foreman beat him.