You?re growling on the living room floor. You don?t growl during football and basketball games. Why now? You?re not the only animal?
If you watch George Foreman fight, admit it. You?re not seeking ballet. You yearn to see men hit hard in the head and knocked senseless or out, and you?re probably not to blame. Your addiction to Foreman happens unexpectedly, during the ?68 Olympics. TV schedules aren?t as precise in those days, and you think you?ll be watching Tommie Smith and John Carlos and Jimmy Hines set world records in sprints. You want to see Bob Beamon soar in the long jump. You?re excited about Kip Keino and Jim Ryun dueling over fifteen hundred meters. You only find George Foreman by accident. You haven?t imagined a nineteen-year-old Hercules who batters opponents with jabs like a felled tree swinging horizontally from a chain, and insist you don?t entirely enjoy seeing Russian miner Ionas Chapulos catching those jabs, bleeding in the first round, and getting hammered by combinations in the second. You?re watching for patriotic reasons. While Smith and Carlos extend black gloves of protest on the medal stand, and thousands of fresh young Mexican corpses rot in graves of dissent, George Foreman displays the American flag and bows in four directions.
In honor of his patriotism you resolve to support George as a pro. Discharging thunder with each hand he knocks out his first seven opponents before winning by decision. After three more destructions you forgive him when another foe survives the distance, and you?re likewise understanding when he only stops three more before having to go ten rounds against Gregorio Peralta and even losing some of those en route to a unanimous decision. George Foreman agrees with you. Something ain?t right if the opponent?s still standing at the final bell. Eating and exercising more, and swinging wider and harder, the surly young man bombards most foes early and knocks out a stunning twenty-four straight. Even granite-head George Chuvalo is helpless by the third, and George yells at the referee to stop the fight or he?ll kill Chuvalo, the same man who before and after this goes the distance with Muhammad Ali.
Most astonishing is George?s fight against Joe Frazier for the world heavyweight title in January ?73. Smokin? Joe?s also undefeated and has pulverized most opponents. And he?s the favorite. Experts say he?s going to be too quick for Foreman. You fear they?re correct. Instead, in the first round big George manhandles the champion and lands a powerful overhand right to his head that causes a friend, sitting next to you in the pay-per-view theater, to jump up. A rough voice behind says sit down. What a foolish sentiment. Soon everyone?s standing and roaring as Foreman floors Frazier three times and thrice more in the second, sometimes launching the champ into the air and once knocking him down as, in a stupor, he turns and tries to dash away.
Two fights later you?re worried. Ken Norton, breaker of Ali?s jaw and twice his conqueror, though only once officially, is going after George?s crown. As fighters receive final instructions you?re relieved that sculpted Norton looks rather slender next to Big George who lands a right hand under the heart and pursues a retreating challenger in the first round. Muhammad Ali provides ringside commentary and optimistic belief that his nemesis Norton is fighting well and says he?s proud of him. A couple of minutes later George?s pounding Norton with right hands an elephant might throw and Norton falls into the ropes and receives an eight-count and soon catches a thudding left that knocks him against the ropes and then eats a right uppercut and goes down to end this fight.
You feel sorry for Muhammad Ali. The only two men who?ve beaten him up are inadequate against ill-tempered George Foreman. Why doesn?t Ali simply retire? He?ll never regain the title. Foreman will kill him in Africa in ?74. Even after being cut and unable to spar for a month while he trains for the postponed fight, Foreman?s favored by smart guys like you. He?ll nail Ali with some of those slow wide punches he?s launching. Ali shouldn?t be on the ropes. You and the fans in the big-screened auditorium think he?s making it easier for George. But Joe Frazier tells people near ringside he doesn?t think heavy-breathing George is going to make it. Joe?s jealous. You know George?ll soon settle this. When Ali erupts from the ropes and fires a right popping his chin, you?re sure he?ll get up and, at the count of ten, he does.
George Foreman doesn?t fight in ?75. He comes back angry early in ?76 against ex-con Ron Lyle who almost flattens him with a right cross in the first round. George staggers and holds and survives. In the second he hurts Lyle. In the fourth, however, Lyle knocks George down and moves in for destruction. But George then floors Lyle and prepares to finish him. Lyle responds by decking George. You?re growling on the living room floor. You don?t growl during football and basketball games. Why now? You?re not the only animal. This slugfest is voted fight of the year, and in the fifth round poor Lyle catches many undefended headshots and collapses.
A few months later George again overwhelms Joe Frazier and stops three other guys before facing slick Jimmy Young in ?77. Young?s a smaller, lighter-hitting version of Ali. He can?t win by knockout. But George can. There it is, a huge left in the seventh round, and Young?s ready to go. He?s hiding but George is after him. He?s going to get him. He almost does but Young survives and plays mister graceful and wears George out and even puts him down briefly late in the twelfth before exhausted George arises and chases a ghost. In the loser?s dressing room he?s sucked into hell before God rescues him and demands he quit fighting and start preaching. George Foreman complies, and you say farewell to the greatest slugger ever.
You?re distressed but know you?ll survive. Ken Norton and Larry Holmes pound each other for fifteen rounds in ?78. And Ali again reclines against the ropes, this time for fifteen rounds against smaller Leon Spinks, who should?ve been his sparring partner but now?s world champ. There are young slugger?s aplenty. Marvin Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard and Tommy Hearns and Roberto Duran are in their prime and hammering people. But these biggest stars are little guys. You want some heavyweight power and in the mid-?80s are thankful Iron Mike Tyson appears and destroys everyone in the ring and some outside.
And in ?87, ten years after his last fight, George Foreman says he?s coming back. He needs money for his ministry. That?s no doubt true but you know he misses hitting people in the head. Fans of demolition don?t think Foreman can hurt people anymore and are quite insulting about his antiquity, age thirty-eight, and his girth, two hundred sixty-seven flabby pounds. Though less stylish than earlier, George resumes battering foes and, while losing weight, ignores those who cry the competition isn?t much. Bull-feathers, you say: a knockout?s a knockout. And what?s insignificant about stopping former light heavyweight and cruiserweight champion Dwight Muhammad Qawi in seven?
Like you, many fans start getting that old excitement while George poleaxes his first eighteen comeback opponents. Now he?s back on page one and national TV and the advertisers want to ride the fists of a man who?s replaced his scowl and hard words with a smile and charming stories. Hard-hooking but long-inactive Gerry Cooney is bombed out in the second round, and his respected trainer Gil Clancy, interviewed afterward in the ring, says damn right George Foreman can win the heavyweight title, he throws bombs and they land. Delightful destruction continues with five more wins in ?90, and in April the following year George boasts twenty-four straight victories, all but one by knockout, when he battles champion Evander Holyfield. To see this one you?ve got to unload big pay-per-view bucks, and you eagerly do so and see young, quick Holyfield give ponderous George a frightful thrashing while winning a unanimous decision to defend his title.
Two years later, in ?93, Tommy Morrison outboxes immobile George Foreman, age forty-four, and you wish you could talk to the former champ and tell him to give it up. He?s proved his thesis. Vigorous life continues in the forties. Quit now and don?t end up permanently injured like Ali. George may have been ready to do so but almost a year later divine assistance arrives: without fighting again the aged slugger is awarded a shot at the heavyweight title of undefeated Michael Moorer. You?re again happy to pay to watch but often wince as Moorer lashes Foreman much like Holyfield had three years earlier. It?s sad seeing a special champion get whipped. And the predictability becomes boring. You resolve not to watch George fight any more, after tonight. You even consider turning off the damn TV. Are you reaching for the button when George lands a strong right cross and two seconds later follows with another pile-driving right that knocks Moorer onto the canvas and out? You wouldn?t have touched the dial. You?re jumping and rejoicing. A man of forty-five has just become heavyweight champion of the world.
George is hot now and engulfed by fans, talk show hosts, journalists, and advertisers. A shrewd group has developed a grill that supposedly drains much of the fat from meat while cooking it and signs the new champ to promote what becomes the George Foreman Grill. The big happy raconteur convinces folks this is for their health. For his, George fights only four times the next three years. He never stops anyone after Michael Moorer. It doesn?t matter. You and a hundred million others buy his grill and are delighted when the corporation pays him about two hundred millions dollars in commissions and buyout fees. That?s George Foreman?s greatest knockout.
