No but Don King may have been. He wasn't going to risk his cash cow to George. He knew what Foreman could do to a smallish heavyweight that has to bring the fight to him.
I have heard no credible debunking of Tyson afraid to fight Foreman. Because D'Amato put in his head it ws suicide for fighters like Tyson in style & size. Apparantly King DID want the match (unsurprising, since it would have had a HUGE gate), & Tyson ranted "if you love him so muhc, you gight him". Old George was gracious, when asked why there was no fight, he said "one scared, the other glad of it". Though he kept talking about Tyson, & would have loved that shot I think.
Yes, both him and his promoter Don King were scared of Foreman's fight. Foreman is a horrible stylistic match up for Tyson.
At least the one that is confirmed to be scared of Foreman is Tyson. Cus De Amato just put the knowledge about how great all school fighters are into his brain. He is actually a boxing history fan like us, he watched lots of fight films and studied boxing history. He definitely has watched Foreman smashed Frazier whose style bares certain similarity to Tyson, and also videos of Floyd's loses to punchers.
whats with this recent trend of anti-tyson threads being started by guys with a handful of posts? To me it seems to be the same guy, with the same agenda. Tyson never ducked Foreman, nor was he scared of him. There was a video posted of Tyson in 90, after the Douglas loss, before the Ruddock fights where he says he wanted his titles back and he didnt care if it was Douglas, Ruddock or Holyfield he had to go through, or he didnt mind beating up Foreman before he dies of old age. I have covered this in previous threads, Both Bill Caytons fight plan and Don Kings fightplan had Foreman down as a Tyson opponent in the future provided Tyson gets past the Holyfield superfight. The Holyfield fight was more of a priority as it was the next big thing. Obviously in '90 Douglas happenend and Holyfield ends up with the belts and calls the shots. Holyfield didnt face Ruddock and fought Foreman instead, so Tyson was left to face Ruddock twice. In 97 Tyson bit Holyfield and was banned form boxing until 99 meanwhile Foreman had retired in about 98 i think. A better question to ask is why did Foreman seem to miss out all the big guys? Bruno, Ruddock, Lewis, Bowe, Mcall, Holmes (Who literally begged Foreman for a fight), Tucker who Foreman blatantly avoided. Foreman was active during these years but he fought none of them? Foreman was calling out Tyson (a midget) He fought former CW Holyfield, who up until that point hadnt really been tested and i wouldnt be surprised if Foreman thought this would be a walk in the park He fought Michael Moorer (a guy with a notoriously dodgy chin) Tommy Morrison (See Michael Moorer) Qawi a former LH. Briggs, a guy who normally gasses after a few rounds, but this time he didnt because he was fighting a guy slower than himself. Foremans comeback was all smoke and mirrors, the only reason we sit here talking about the old Foreman is because he got lucky against Moorer. Yes yes i know Foreman performed better than Tyson did against Holyfield. Foreman had a great chin, Foreman had a stylistic advantange over Tyson and nobody ever stopped the old Foreman etc etc Well the same logic also applies to Larry Holmes, and we know what happened there.
Foreman was a fraud during Tyson's era. This idea that Tyson was somehow afraid to fight Foreman is ridiculous. Foreman is the one who was admitting left and right to ducking the top guys. Tyson would have killed Foreman. This isnt glass jawed, no stamina Tommy Morrison (who beat Foreman easily) we are talking about, or glass jawed, no confidince having Alex Stewart (who rearranged Foremans face in epic manner).
Frazier and Tyson have a lot in common. They are both short heavyweights with short arms and a bob-and-weave style to get on the inside because they obviously cannot win fights by jabbing from the outside because of their short arms. They both have good head movement, elusiveness and big power. As for the thread - I read that in a lot of places that Tyson avoided "old Foreman" and I think Tyson would have beaten Foreman. But - it has to do with Cus D'Amato and what he told Tyson about certain fighters. So I believe Tyson respected Foreman so much because of D'Amato. Cus for example told Tyson that Ali is the only heavyweight that cannot be beat (even though Ali obviously lost fights also). I read Foreman's autobiography a few years ago and he admitted that he carefully selected his opponents in his 2nd career. He said no matter how tough they looked and how their bodies looked, he always made sure his opponents have a little bit of a glass jaw. But he basically talked about the time he built his winning streak before he took on the elite guys like Moorer etc.
Its not an agenda, its a simple question, Foreman seems to have a lot of names missing on his resume, names which more than likely would have posed a big threat to him Didnt a young Foreman admit to ducking Shavers and Quarry? Tyson fought anyone that mattered, he fought Holyfield, Holmes and Lewis. Foremans got much more names missing than Tyson has, so the question has to be reversed.
Tysons style was alot more 'patient' than Fraziers, Frazier rushed forward and tried to bulldoze anything that stood in his way, Tyson (at his best) had a much more patient style which was to duck under punches and look for openings. He wouldnt just run upto Foreman like Frazier did. Tysons head movement was greater than Fraziers. The whole 'you fight if you love him so much' quote has been used by so many people,but nobody can actually confirm if its true or not. Its basically somebody heard, someone who knew, someone was related to Don KIng who heard Tyson say it. Im not going to put much belief in that. Moorer was not elite imo, the elite were Tyson, Holyfield, Bowe and Lewis. Moorer was second tier. Foreman fought the lightest hitting out of them and he lost. The other 3 would have caved his face in. Tyson probably respected Foreman and vice versa. But i dont think he feared him, after all he did face Ruddock twice, who was much more dangerous at the time. If Holyfield had decided to face Ruddock and Tyson squared off with Foreman, people would be here saying Tyson ducked Ruddock and took the easier option. And anyway, if Cus did warn Tyson about Foreman, remember he was talking about the Foreman of 1973, not the Foreman of 1991. Cus died before Foreman made his return. There is a video on youtube of Tyson from '90 where he said hell fight Foreman and kill him before death does, or hell fight anyone for his titles back.
I don't know if Tyson ducked Foreman but this is a fight that should've happened. I would've loved to see it, I think Old Foreman could've been trouble for Tyson. Its hard to picture anyone coming straight ahead to the inside with Foreman and being able to beat him. I would've also loved to see Old Foreman and Tyson take on Tua and Tyson vs Bowe and Moorer the fact that these match ups never taken place is a real shame.