I was just thinking about what George Foreman was able to accomplish in his comeback. Pretty impressive to say the least....Anyway...That got me wondering...Will we ever see another HWT pull off a similar style comeback with Championship results...Anyone any of you can picture coming back after YEARS away from the game and being able to mix it up with whoever the current crew of HWT's will be at the time? It seems like most of our recent HWT's are pretty much totally shot when they leave the game so I don't see anyone from the last 10 years or so doing it but who knows? Anyone you folks could see doing it? I always hoped Mike Tyson might make a run at it but it doesn't look like that'll be happening...
Foreman is a special and rare human specimen. Not just in the ring. Notice being part of such an extremely well-regarded era and having fought the best and when you look at how Frazier and Ali are by comparison, you realize Foreman was probably genetically hard-wired for long term resiliency. The guy is a marvel. Look at him, listen to him. Two careers as a heavyweight boxer and he's perfectly fine after rumbling with Frazier, Ali, Lyle, Norton, Chuvalo, Peralta, Moorer, Holyfield, Briggs, Morrison...unbefreakinglievable. Now look and listen to Holyfield. Foreman is amazing to me.
It's true...Totally unreal to imagine a guy making it to the top in two highly regarded eras, especially after having been away from the game for so long.
Right after Holyfield's last fight, which was for this "WBF" heavyweight title, some idiot went to George's wiki page and put in that he was the oldest heavyweight champion until Evander Holyfield came back in 2010. Nuh uh, Jack. I'm glad they took that out. Pretty silly.
Apart from being special, Foreman was also more than lucky in his comeback. First of all, because Moorer was the champion (and with Moorer MD over sick Holyfield, it was reallly a lot of luck). IMO Moorer was the only champion that Foreman could beat at this point - he lost already convincingly with Holyfield, and if you consider other top boxers that were or could be champions around this time (like Bowe, Tyson or Lewis) I see Foreman losing to all of them. And even with Moorer he needed 10 rounds to land a punch, as otherwise he was just a couple of minutes from losing wide decision like he did just one fight before to (similarly weak-chinned) Morrison. And that was the part about luck, so now a little about being special. Foreman main asset was his power, which is the last thing to go with age. He had also great chin (also doesn't go away with age alone), while he was never too good at things that are the first to go (speed, footwork). Anyway, I think we won't see a comeback like that in our lifetime.
So, Foreman landed only the knockout punch on Moorer, then? So, McCall and Rahman went 1-1 with Lewis but older Foreman was a no-hoper there? Bowe wasn't inclined to take the fight to his opponents and get tagged plenty in the process? Familiar with some of the behind-the-scenes talk about Tyson not wanting to fight Foreman in the belief that he'd lose? I think his chances were pretty fair. Not great, I think you're right there was some luck involved, but I don't think it was as Larry Holmes had put it "just finding a chestnut" or something like that.
