rewatched their 1991 fight back on sunday and it made me think. if big george had managed to knock out holyfield, how would it have effected the heavy weight division? if you remember, it was in the 3rd round that foreman stunned holyfield pretty good with a couple of punches. if he had completed it and had become the champion thee years earlier, how long would he have held on to the title and who would have he defended his title against? opinions?
All I am going to say about it is that it was my greatest boxing memory in 40 years of watching. I followed George's comeback from the Zouski days, and I thought he was going to beat that blown up cruiser with every brain cell. In that seventh round, when we were all yelling, there were people we didn't know coming in off the street to see who was winning, and we just let them in to watch with us. It took another few years, but it was worth it to be on that train. Even when he fought Moorer, I believed that he was going to do it. Later, I got to meet the man and get a book signed, and I can say Big George is a gent. RIP Uncle Ed. Those were great days over at your place, watching the big fights with our friends and family, and strangers coming off the street to watch George winning the seventh.
A win over Holyfield would have had to put him well inside the top 10 best heavyweights of all-time. It's a shame he retired as young as he did, as it's quite easy to make a case for him to have won the Heavyweight title again in that 10 year gap between when he 1st retired and when he came back at 38 but that also may have meant not epically seeing him win the title as an almost 46 year old.
Context my friend. There was nothing at the time to suggest what Holy would become. He had done his cruiser bit, won a very tough one against Dokes, and squashed the human blob that was Buster Douglas. Most people thought that Tyson would re-establish himself and the Douglas-Holyfield years would be an anomaly.
I would kill to see that fight live, it’s one of my personal favorites, i wasn’t alive at the time and I would like to ask how big was the build up to the fight???
it was billed as "battle for the ages". even stations that could not show it were giving round by round updates.
As I recall it was huge, although I was living in a bit of a George Foreman bubble. But after the Cooney and Rodriguez fights, people started to believe a bit.
The fight with Holyfield was the best version of Foreman during his comeback, imo that version of Foreman would have beaten Mike Tyson. Unfortunately for George he caught Holyfield in the midst of his Heavyweight prime. Foreman had an excellent gameplan but Holyfield was on point, fast, sharp, and strong.
Big George was 42 and Holyfield almost Prime 29 I hate to think what a Prime Foreman would have done.!!!