The story of Tyson and Foreman

Foreman was not known for trash talking or accusing people of being scared of him. During his comeback he was actually well mannered and maintained a decent public image.

 

true but the difference between paydays for evander compared to mike was much bigger. you could sell a tyson fight easily evander even tho he sold well did need a bit of publicity.

tyson could make megabucks against anyone, evander fought for an easier money fight in his very tough title reign.

tyson had no need for foreman so why fight him? 2 big punchers? well yeah but the 90's were stacked with punchers, ruddock being the one mike would of been fighting around the time of a foreman fight. who is higher ranked and a better fighter in general.

 

True, but I wouldn't be surprised if Foreman would have been the biggest payday out there, and since he looked such easy meat on paper one would think that this would be very tempting to cash in on.

 

Agreed,

Foreman was going to be a hot ticket item no matter who he fought. Hell, his fight with Cooney attracted more revenue than Hagler - Hearns did, just 5 years earlier. The Foreman vs Holyfield fight, set some records of its own at the time. If Tyson had gotten in the ring with George Foreman, it no doubt would have been one of the most viewed sporting events ever.

 

I didn't mean "trash talk" that maliciously. I was talking about the things Foreman was saying such as in the videos posted in this thread--"Tyson is running from me" etc. Did not mean to imply he didn't maintain a good image.

 

Old foreman would loose to tyson..........foreman was way too slow........................the fight would look like tyson/bonecrusher......1973 version of foreman different story....

 

It probably would have but lets not forget that Tyson Ruddock had sold more PPVs than Holyfield Foreman.

 

You know, I've often wondered why George chose to come back when he did.

George is no dummy. He claims he came back to fund his youth centre, which is no doubt part of it, but I've often wondered if he came back because he honestly thought he could beat Tyson.

Why didn't he come back during the Holmes era? Surely he could have, around '83 or '84? Why wait until a short, squat guy who no doubt reminded him of Frazier to come along?

Remember, all through his comeback, he claimed "I want Tyson!" Almost from the start he was saying this. I remember reading a KO interview sometime in '87 when George was only something like 7-0, and he was very bullish about his chances with Tyson even then.

Of course, wanting Tyson and actually fighting him are two very different things, but George was seemingly very confident about his chances.
Or maybe he just wanted a great payday.

 

Both, I'd wager.

 

The Foreman of the Moorer fight, loses badly to Tyson, but the Foreman of the Holyfield fight is in with a real chance, even though I would favour Tyson to win.

 

It would have been easy to cash in on him if you're a fighter with little opportunity for large payday's elsewhere but Tyson could have made money fighting literally anyone. Holyfield, Morrison and Moorer had serious contenders out there but they cashed in because

A. Other contenders may not have pulled in the same kind of money that the Foreman fight helped pull in.

B. They were all HBO fighters making the task a far simpler.

Boxing is a business and its not as simple as I want to fight you and its done. The networks are involved, Promoters are involved, Lawyers are involved and it can be difficult process if you consider the circumstances.

This is probably a fight that Tyson would have taken had he beaten Holyfield and had become champion but it wouldn't have added depth to Tyson's resume if he beat Foreman.

 

That's because Tyson was a bigger attraction than Holyfield. Tyson vs Foreman would be a huge fight. Zero doubt.

Tyson wanted no part of Foreman, I think. And it's documented it's just a question of whether you believe or not. He didn't duck him as George wasn't legitimate. But boxing is a business, and in terms of a pay day he was made legitimate by the public. Therefore, it's easy to conclude that Mike saw it as a high risk fight. He was steamrolling everybody. Why not put the old man out of his misery and take a huge payday. It would have probably been one of the biggest if not biggest paydays Tyson got.

 

Again, Don King who invariably would want options from George in order for the fight to be made. Bob Arum simply wouldn't allow that.

HBO vs. Showtime. Tyson signed with Showtime. Foreman was with HBO. HBO was the major player they would never want to concede to Showtime.

The numbers would not have been high as you think primarily because there was no title on the line and and the public wouldn't have bought a Foreman victory as plausible. Don't get me wrong the number probably would have been big but Tyson had a $30 million dollar payday in the pipeline with Evander Holyfield not to mention he was being accused of ducking Ruddock during that time period. He simply had to take care of business first. Foreman was simply not a priority.

 

I always thought Tyson would lose to Foreman. Tyson was a great fighter than Foreman in the history of heavyweights in my mind, but stylewise it is true Tyson would have had big trouble. What could he do? He was smaller than George by 5 or 6 inches and 30 pounds. He is not going to overpower George and George would had a target for his huge punches. Stylewise is why George would have won, not because he was better. This was a terrible fight for Tyson.