Her was as good as a heavyweight fighter can be without being great. That’s one of the things I will always remember about ex-convict Ron Lyle, who died in Denver on Sautrday at age 70. Of course, we should all recall how he gave the iconic Muhammad Ali fits before “The Greatest” stopped him in the 11th round in Las Vegas in 1975. And we should also play back the awesome four knockdown, Pier Six Jan. 24, 1976, Pier Six brawl against Big George Foreman at Caesars Palace. The hulking Foreman was floored twice by the equally muscular Denver brawler before he could deck Lyle twice and gain a fifth round victory.
I was a kid new to handling the fight beat for The Las Vegas Sun at the time and my chore was to get reaction from key ringsiders as to the war of attrition which ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” telecast live across America. Virtually everyone in the smallish Sports Pavilion, really a Quonset hut used for tennis, was open mouthed, just amazed at how Lyle and Foreman had hammered each other. This wasn’t Sweet Science, it was a back alley fight befitting two ex-gangbangers. I noticed the odd but later highly successful, gravelly-voiced singer Tom Waits standing near the ring and shouting something uncomplimentary at Foreman. Then I saw heavyweight contender Ken Norton. “What did you think, Kenny?” I asked, not so brightly. “Those n—–s were really fighting!” Norton said in admiration. This being 1976, my editor (Don Chase) changed one word and the entire meaning of the descriptive quote about the Fight of the Year that mayt have been the Slugfest of the Century.
