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Triller, Holyfield, and Trump: Did Evander Get Hustled? (Part 1)

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Triller, Holyfield, and Trump: Did Evander Get Hustled? (Part One of a Two-Part Story)

On September 11, Evander Holyfield was knocked out by Vitor Belfort in the first round of a boxing event at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida. There was widespread criticism of the event before it took place and more criticism when it was over. Holyfield is 58 years old and shouldn’t be getting punched in the head by men trained in the art of hurting.

Worse, interviews with multiple people involved with the promotion suggest that Holyfield was hustled. That he went into the ring thinking he was about to participate in an exhibition in which neither man would use best efforts to hurt the other only to find himself double-crossed in a scenario akin to an old-time boxing movie.

How did boxing get into this mess? Read on.

In 2015, two musicians in search of an inexpensive way to edit their work launched a video app called Triller that enabled them and other users to avoid the cost of renting studio space. A year later, Triller was transitioning to becoming a social video app but had still not entered the mainstream consciousness. Enter Ryan Kavanaugh.

Kavanaugh is a 46-year-old businessman, a big concept guy who’s adept at raising money. Over the years, he has been meshed in a wave of litigation touching upon his professional and personal life.

In 2004, Kavanaugh founded an entertainment company called Relativity Media that purported to use sophisticated algorithms to eliminate the risk from film financing. Variety named him “Showman of the Year” and he made his way onto the Forbes list of billionaires. Then Relativity Media filed for bankruptcy. Twice. Kavanaugh told the Wall Street Journal that he took Relativity into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2015 “to fend off vulture investors who were trying to steal the company” and that he wasn’t involved in the second bankruptcy. In 2018, as reported by the Los Angeles Times, Relativity Media sold substantially all of its remaining assets to a holding company called UltraV.

Meanwhile, in 2017, Kavanaugh founded a company called Proxima Media. In 2019, Proxima Media acquired a majority stake in Triller. Kavanaugh sought to position Triller as an American version of TikTok (the Chinese-owned, social networking service that was under attack by then-president Donald Trump). To date, Triller has fallen far short of TikTok’s success.

In describing Triller, a company press release states, “The Triller Network is a consolidation of companies, apps and technologies. Triller Network pairs the culture of music with sports, fashion, entertainment and influencers through a 360-degree tech and content-based vertical.”

Triller became a significant player in boxing when it put together a November 28, 2020, exhibition between Mike Tyson and Roy Jones that engendered an estimated 1.6 million pay-per-view buys. DAZN and Matchroom had jumpstarted the move of “trash boxing” into the mainstream of the sport when they partnered to stream Logan Paul vs. KSI on November 9, 2019. Tyson-Jones brought this phenomenon to a new level.

Triller got what it wanted most out of Tyson-Jones – massive publicity and clicks. And the event fit perfectly into what Kavanaugh (pictured below with Oscar De La Hoya) calls Triller Fight Club’s “four-quadrant model” consisting of “influencers, legends, music artists, and contemporary fighters.”

Then Triller shook up the boxing world. At a February 25, 2021, purse bid, it offered $6,018,000 for rights to the four-belt title-unification bout between Teofimo Lopez and George Kambosos. That was $2.5 million more than the next highest bid (submitted by Matchroom) and $3.7 million more than the number submitted by Top Rank (Lopez’s promoter). Lopez-Kambosos is currently scheduled to be contested at Madison Square Garden on October 4. Triller’s bid was a statement that – temporarily at least – it’s a significant player in legitimate boxing.

More Triller events followed. Most notably, on April 17, 2021, Jake Paul knocked out former MMA fighter Ben Askren in one round. One month later, it was announced that Paul was leaving Triller pursuant to a multi-bout deal with Showtime. The April 17 card also saw a more traditional boxing match between Regis Prograis and Ivan Redkach. The event and others that followed seemed to be mired in red ink. But they were aimed at building Triller’s base and were showpieces for potential investors.

Meanwhile, on April 14, 2021, Triller announced that it had acquired FITE – a small but successful technology company that has become a leader in the distribution of pay-per-view combat sports events. After numerous snags in ironing out the contracts, the acquisition was finalized in late-July.

As all of this was unfolding, Triller was looking for its next big legendary fighter. Mike Tyson was unhappy with the money he’d received in the aftermath of his encounter with Roy Jones and, on March 21, had issued a statement that read, “Just to be clear, there is no Tyson with Triller fight. I don’t know any Triller executives personally. I don’t have a deal with Triller or any head executive representing them for the next event. I will never do another event or any business with Triller, so anyone misrepresenting that they own the rights to my name or my next event isn’t true. I am not with or ever will be with Triller’s Fight Club.”

With Tyson unavailable, Triller turned to Oscar De La Hoya.

oscar

For more than a decade, De La Hoya was one of boxing’s brightest stars. But he’s now 48 years old and last fought in 2008 when he was brutalized by Manny Pacquiao.

There’s kindness in Oscar. But he has been wounded many times, physically and psychologically. The psychological wounds seemed to have caused more suffering than the physical. He has acknowledged having problems with alcohol and cocaine and has been in rehab multiple times. The ravages of his lifestyle and years as a fighter have taken a toll.

Three days before Tyson-Jones, De La Hoya said that he was considering a comeback fight against Gennady Golovkin. “You know how easy GGG would be for me?” Oscar asked rhetorically. “I always took a good shot and I always took apart fighters like him.”

Of course, in 2019, Oscar was talking about running for president of the United States.

Appearing at a March 26, 2021, press conference in Las Vegas to promote the Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren Triller card, De La Hoya took the microphone, announced “July 3, I’m making my comeback,” dropped the microphone, and walked off the stage.

Paul-Askren, when it came to pass, featured performances by Justin Bieber, The Black Keys, Doja Cat, Saweetie, Diplo, Major Lazer, and what was advertised as “the exclusive world premiere of the hip hop supergroup Mt. Westmore (Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Too $hort and E-40).” There were pole dancers with big butts and lots of cleavage. Taylor Hill, Charli D’Amelio, and other social media personalities made appearances.

There was also a lot of weed (much of which was openly smoked on camera) and alcohol. The commentating team of Ray Flores, Mario Lopez, and Al Bernstein was joined from time to time by Snoop Dogg, Pete Davidson, and De La Hoya.

Oscar looked bloated, sounded as though he’d participated liberally in hospitality room offerings, and said that he wanted to fight Mike Tyson. Ray Flores observed on air, “Oscar is definitely high.”

One might ask why the people around De La Hoya who care about him allowed that scenario to unfold. Four days later, Oscar appeared on “The DAZN Boxing Show” and was asked about his commentating that night.

“I’ve been in beast mode for about six weeks,” De La Hoya answered. “And I got a little into it; you know. I started having a couple drinks. And then they told me, ‘Why don’t you go and commentate?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, man! Okay. Okay.’ I got a little over carried away. And I apologize. But it’s all good. I’m back in beast mode.”

Thereafter, Ryan Kavanaugh told The Sun, “It was a fun event. You had two people up on stage smoking joints, so Oscar had a couple of drinks. He wasn’t falling over. He wasn’t so awful that he did something terrible. People love to talk sh**. I don’t think Oscar was that bad. He was just having fun with it. We told him to have fun with it. We said go and enjoy it. Anybody that has enough time to go onto the internet and start commenting negatively in big ways and making a point of it, they obviously have other issues.”

Then, on June 17, 2021, it was announced that De La Hoya would box against former MMA fighter Vitor Belfort in a Triller Fight Club pay-per-view event to be held in Las Vegas on September 11. Belfort, age 44, had retired in 2018 after compiling a 26-14 career record and losing four of his last six fights. He’d boxed only once as a pro and that was fifteen years earlier.

“This isn’t that WWE theatrics we’ve been seeing in boxing lately,” De La Hoya declared. “This is the real deal, a real fight with real knockouts for a real win. I’m in better shape than I was fifteen years ago. I want to make the biggest comeback in boxing history.”

On July 21, Triller announced that De La Hoya vs. Belfort was moving to the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The contract weight was 180 pounds and the bout would be contested over eight two-minute rounds. That brought the California State Athletic Commission into the act.

“We were told that Tyson and Jones would be an exhibition and we regulated it as such,” CSAS executive director Andy Foster said. “An exhibition in the State of California is when you don’t use your best efforts to win. Here, the fighters want to use their best efforts, so by definition it can’t be an exhibition. They want a fight and we’ll regulate it as such. They’re gonna box and we’re gonna score it.”

Asked about drug testing, Foster told this writer, “Both fighters will have to pass their medicals. We’re still working out the details on drug testing. Most likely, it will be conducted by California, not VADA. I think we’ll be focusing on PEDs, not recreational drugs.”

As for possible drug use by the TV commentators, Foster pledged, “The commission will control the environment in the technical zone at ringside.”

The formal kick-off press conference for De La Hoya vs. Belfort took place on July 27.

“I’m doing it for myself,” Oscar told a group of reporters before the formalities began. “I’ve had a f***ing crazy life, you know. I’ve had a crazy life. And sorry if I get all emotional and s***. I’ve done this for thirty-five years. I’ve always done it for my family and fans all over the world. I’ve gone into the ring and just let it all out because I love what I do. I love what I represent for people. But I’m finally fighting for myself. I can’t f***ing wait. It’s going to be hell, but I’ve been through hell and back. There’s nothing that can faze me. There is nothing that can break me down, all the s***, all the bulls***, whatever. I’m strong as a rock. I’m at peace. I finally got here. I’m getting f***ing crazy emotional. It’s been a f***ing struggle. People can talk all the s*** they want to but I will never give up. I feel that age is just a number, and I have to literally thank yoga. It’s not a f***ing joke. Yoga, like really, literally almost saved my life.”

That was followed by pronouncements like, “This is not a game. I said, ‘Look, if we’re gonna do this, let’s do it for real. Let’s not do this song and dance. Let’s not do these exhibitions, you know, that we’re tired of.’ This is the real thing. And the fact that we both agree that it’s gonna be a real fight, it’s gonna be a lot of fun. We’re gonna kick the s*** out of each other. That’s one thing for sure. Call me crazy, but I’m looking forward to it. It’s gonna be a lot of fun.”

Asked about the possibility of fighting Canelo Alvarez, De La Hoya responded, “Why not? It’s only power. That’s all it is. Power, I can withstand. Speed, like Pacquiao, is a whole different story. I have a good chin, you know.”

At times, promoting the Belfort fight seemed like a therapy session for Oscar.

“I was raped at thirteen, from a woman, an older woman,” he told Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times. “Thirteen, lost my virginity over being, you know, being raped, basically. I was in Hawaii, I think, at some tournament. She was over thirty-five. You suppress everything. You’re living this life, the Golden Boy. But, oh s***, wait, that’s still there. Like I never, like, thought about it. I never processed it. I never really thought how my feelings are until one day it just comes out and you don’t know how to deal with it.”

More troubling, perhaps, was the ugly reality that De La Hoya was on track to be hit in the head multiple times by a man who could punch.

Over the years, Oscar traded blows with fighters like Manny Pacquiao, Felix Trinidad, Bernard Hopkins, Shane Mosley, Ike Quartey, Julio Cesar Chavez, Pernell Whitaker, and Floyd Mayweather Jr. Later, he offered a stark assessment of the risks inherent in the trade he’d chosen. “I hate getting hit,” De La Hoya said. “Getting hit hurts. It damages you. When a fighter trains his body and mind to fight, there’s no room for fear. But I’m realistic enough to understand that there’s no way to know what the effect of getting hit will be ten or fifteen years from now.”

However, at an August 25, 2021, media workout, Oscar declared, “Call me crazy but I just miss it. I missed getting hit and doing the hitting. I wasn’t ready to retire after I lost to Manny Pacquiao. I never felt like I was in wars. In boxing you’re just as old as how you feel. I went through hell and back treating my body wrong, but these last six months I feel amazing. I refocused myself and rededicated myself and I’m actually doing this for me. I can’t wait. I’m going to give the fans a war. I’ve been studying Marvin Hagler versus Thomas Hearns for a reason. I want a fight, a war. I have a good chin and I can take the punch. My inspiration for this fight is Arturo Gatti. I want one of those types of fights.”

No one asked about a September 27, 2010, interview with Broadcasting & Cable. In that interview, De La Hoya had acknowledged, “I did have tests done after every single fight. My last fight, they found something that they couldn’t really understand in my head. It didn’t help me to make my decision to retire, but it was obviously a concern. I had second and third opinions. It was something in my head that they thought could maybe have an effect thirty years down the road, but they just weren’t sure. Maybe they were being extra-careful.”

Then, on September 3, De La Hoya vs. Belfort ground to a halt. Oscar announced that he had tested positive for COVID and that the fight was off. One day later, 58-year-old Evander Holyfield was substituted as Belfort’s opponent.

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His next book – Broken Dreams: Another Year Inside Boxing – will be published this autumn by the University of Arkansas Press. In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, he was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

Holyfield-Belfort photo credit: Amanda Westcott / Triller Fight Club

Check out more boxing news on video at the Boxing Channel

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Thomas Hauser is the author of 52 books. In 2005, he was honored by the Boxing Writers Association of America, which bestowed the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism upon him. He was the first Internet writer ever to receive that award. In 2019, Hauser was chosen for boxing's highest honor: induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Lennox Lewis has observed, “A hundred years from now, if people want to learn about boxing in this era, they’ll read Thomas Hauser.”

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 319: Rematches in Las Vegas, Cancun and More

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Rematches are the bedrock for prizefighting.

Return battles between rival boxers always means their first encounter was riveting and successful at the box office.

Six months after their first brutal battle Mikaela Mayer (20-2, 5 KOs) and Sandy Ryan (7-2-1, 3 KOs) will slug it out again for the WBO welterweight world title this time on Saturday, March 29, at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas.

ESPN will show the Top Rank card live.

“It’s important for women’s boxing to have these rivalries and this is definitely up there as one of the top ones,” Mayer told the BBC.

If you follow Mayer’s career you know that somehow drama follows. Whether its back-and-forth beefs with fellow American fighters or controversial judging due to nationalism in countries abroad. The Southern California native who now trains in Las Vegas knows how to create the drama.

For female fighters self-promotion is a necessity.

Most boxing promoters refuse to step out of the usual process set for male boxers, not for female boxers. Things remain the same and have been for the last 70 years. Social media has brought changes but that has made promoters do even less.

No longer are there press conferences, instead announcements are made on social media to be drowned among the billions of other posts. It is not killing but diluting interest in the sport.

Women innately present a different advantage that few if any promoters are recognizing. So far in the past 25 years I have only seen two or three promoters actually ignite interest in female fighters. They saw the advantages and properly boosted interest in the women.

The fight breakdown

Mayer has won world titles in the super featherweight and now the welterweight division. Those are two vastly different weight classes and prove her fighting abilities are based on skill not power or size.

Coaching Mayer since amateurs remains Al Mitchell and now Kofi Jantuah who replaced Kay Koroma the current trainer for Sandy Ryan.

That was the reason drama ignited during their first battle. Then came someone tossing paint at Ryan the day of their first fight.

More drama.

During their first fight both battled to control the initiative with Mayer out-punching the British fighter by a slender margin. It was a back-and-forth struggle with each absorbing blows and retaliating immediately.

New York City got its money’s worth.

Ryan had risen to the elite level rapidly since losing to Erica Farias three years ago. Though she was physically bigger and younger, she was out-maneuvered and defeated by the wily veteran from Argentina. In the rematch, however, Ryan made adjustments and won convincingly.

Can she make adjustments from her defeat to Mayer?

“I wanted the rematch straight away,” said Ryan on social media. “I’ve come to America again.”

Both fighters have size and reach. In their first clash it was evident that conditioning was not a concern as blows were fired nonstop in bunches. Mayer had the number of punches landed advantage and it unfolded with the judges giving her a majority decision win.

That was six months ago. Can she repeat the outcome?

Mayer has always had boiler-oven intensity. It’s not fake. Since her amateur days the slender Southern California blonde changes disposition all the way to red when lacing up the gloves. It’s something that can’t be taught.

Can she draw enough of that fire out again?

“I didn’t have to give her this rematch. I could have just sat it out, waited for Lauren Price to unify and fought for undisputed or faced someone else,” said Mayer to BBC. “That’s not the fighter I am though.”

Co-Main in Las Vegas

The co-main event pits Brian Norman Jr. (26-0, 20 KOs) facing Puerto Rico’s Derrieck Cuevas (27-1-1, 19 KOs) in a contest for the WBO welterweight title.

Norman, 24, was last seen a year ago dissecting a very good welterweight in Giovani Santillan for a knockout win in San Diego. He showed speed, skill and power in defeating Santillan in his hometown.

Cuevas has beaten some solid veteran talent but this will be his big test against Norman and his first attempt at winning a world title.

Also on the Top Rank card will be Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington and Emiliano Vargas, the son of Fernando Vargas, in separate bouts.

Golden Boy in Cancun

A rematch between undefeated William “Camaron” Zepeda (32-0, 27 KOs) and ex-champ Tevin Farmer (33-7-1, 8 KOs) headlines the lightweight match on Saturday March 29, at Cancun, Mexico.

In their first encounter Zepeda was knocked down in the fourth round but rallied to win a split-decision over Farmer. It showed the flaws in Zepeda’s tornado style.

DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card that also includes a clash between Yokasta Valle the WBC minimumweight world titlist who is moving up to flyweight to face former flyweight champion Marlen Esparza.

Both Valle and Esparza have fast hands.

Valle is excellent darting in and out while Esparza has learned how to fight inside. It’s a toss-up fight.

Fights to Watch

Fri. DAZN 12 p.m. Cameron Vuong (7-0) vs Jordan Flynn (11-0-1); Pat Brown (0-0) vs Federico Grandone (7-4-2).

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. William Zepeda (32-0) vs Tevin Farmer (33-7-1); Yokasta Valle (32-3) vs Marlen Esparza (15-2).

Sat. ESPN 7 p.m. Mikaela Mayer (20-2) vs Sandy Ryan (7-2-1); Brian Norman Jr. (26-0) vs Derrieck Cuevas (27-1-1).

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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Boxing Odds and Ends: The Wacky and Sad World of Livingstone Bramble and More

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One couldn’t write a book about prizefighting’s most eccentric characters without including former lightweight champion Livingstone Bramble who passed away last Saturday (March 22) at age 64 in Las Vegas. The Bramble chapter might well be the longest chapter in the book.

Born on the island of St. Kitt’s and raised in St. Croix, Virgin Islands, Bramble had his first 22 pro fights in New Jersey, nine at Ice World where he made his pro debut. A 3,000-seat hockey rink in Totowa, a community in Northern New Jersey roughly equidistant between Newark and the state capitol of Paterson, Ice World was the stomping ground of Main Events, a family-run enterprise founded by former labor lawyer Dan Duva, the oldest son of colorful boxing trainer Lou Duva who was effectively the face of the operation.

Bramble burst into prominence on June 1, 1984, when, in his twenty-third pro fight, he upset Ray “Boom” Mancini at Buffalo’s War Memorial Auditorium, taking away Mancini’s WBA world lightweight title.

Referee Marty Denkin stopped the fight in the 14th stanza with Boom Boom on his feet but in very bad shape. Bramble dominated the second half of the fight but was yet trailing on two of the scorecards, a potential scandal that was averted when he took the fight out of the judges’ hands. They fought again 11 months later in Reno and Bramble won a narrow but fair 15-round decision, out-pointing Mancini by 1 point on all three cards.

Bramble’s eccentricities overshadowed his feats in the ring. He owned a boa constrictor named Dog and a pit bull terrier named Snake. A Rastafarian, he trained with reggae music in the background, braided his hair before it was fashionable, and began his public workouts by having his trainer blow soap bubbles which he popped with his fists. Prior to both Mancini fights, he had a voodoo witch doctor place a hex on Boom Boom (the man was exposed as Bramble’s former middle school basketball coach).

After the second Mancini fight, Bramble successfully defended his title with a 13th-round stoppage of Tyrone “Butterfly” Crawley, but he was then shocked by Edwin Rosario who became a lightweight champion for the second time when he knocked out Bramble in the second round at an outdoor stadium in Miami Beach. Rosario’s upset spoiled a lucrative unification fight between Bramble and Hector Camacho.

Attempting to fight his way back into title contention, Bramble never did get over the hump. His best win as a former champion was a second-round knockout of junior welterweight Harold Brazier, a boxer who would be stopped only one other time, that coming late in a 124-fight career. Bramble took that fight on nine days’ notice, subbing for Micky Ward who pulled out with a hand injury.

Bramble eventually devolved into a gatekeeper, a diplomatic term for a professional loser. He won only three of his last 16 fights to finish 40-26-3.

Late in his career, Bramble settled in Las Vegas. He was 41 years old when he made his first and only ring appearance in his adopted hometown. It came at the Orleans, an off-Strip property where he was paired against Guadalajara journeyman Juan Carlos Rodriguez who had lost seven of his previous nine heading in. At the time, Bramble was preparing for his life after boxing by taking a class for aspiring slot machine technicians.

Bramble lost a wide 10-round decision. “[He] couldn’t get his jab working or put his punches together in a disappointing performance,” wrote Review-Journal ringside reporter Royce Feour. The bout’s matchmaker Brad Goodman was more scathing in his assessment. “Bramble should retire,” said Goodman. “He can’t pull the trigger. His mind was telling him to do something, but his body was not reacting.”

Bramble had four more fights, the last two 6-rounders on small cards in Idaho and Utah. All told, he answered the bell as a pro for 498 rounds.

Jacob “Stitch” Duran, boxing’s most prominent cutman, was new in town and scrounging for work when he first met Livingstone Bramble. They met at the long-shuttered Golden Gloves gym.

“I approached him and asked ‘when is your next fight?’” recalled Duran. “He looked me in the eye and said, ‘right now if you don’t shut up.’”

Duran was taken aback, but then Bramble smiled his radiant smile and Duran knew he was being spoofed. He would eventually work the pads for Bramble and the two became fast friends.

Livingstone Bramble spent his final years in an assisted living facility in Las Vegas, the cost of which, notes Duran, was born by the World Boxing Council which has a fund set aside to assist former professional boxers who have fallen on hard times.

Duran had a habit of visiting Bramble every week but stopped when the boxer could no longer recognize him. “I told his son that I just couldn’t do it anymore, it was too heartbreaking, and that I wanted to remember his dad the way that he was,” Duran told this reporter. “His son was very understanding.”

Stitch Duran remembers the exact time when he was informed that his friend had died. The call from Bramble’s son came at 3:44 in the morning.

News travels fast in the digital age and after Las Vegas fight writer Kevin Iole shared the news of Bramble’s departure on his website, other news outlets quickly latched hold of the info. What’s missing is a formal obituary and funeral arrangements. As yet, there are none.

Bobby Czyz

Livingstone Bramble and Bobby Czyz were stablemates whose careers ran on parallel paths and sometimes intersected. Both earned their spurs on Main Events promotions at Ice World.

The headline attraction on the card where Livingstone Bramble made his pro debut was a match between Bobby Czyz and Tommy Merola, young middleweight prospects. He and Bramble were on the same bill again the following year. The May 21, 1981 event was reportedly the first advance sellout of a boxing card in Totowa.

The brainy Czyz, who finished sixth of 365 in his high school graduation class according to a story in the New York Times, went on to win world titles as a light heavyweight and a cruiserweight. He had a promising career as a Showtime boxing commentator when he hung up his gloves.

Czyz lost that gig (we won’t elaborate) and things went downhill from there. In the summer of 2018, he was discovered working as a cashier in a New Jersey grocery store by a reporter for the Newark Star Ledger.

In December of last year, Bobby Czyz, now 63 years old, was diagnosed with brain cancer. And that brings us to this Sunday (March 30) when a benefit will be held for Czyz at the Elks Lodge located at 242 Chestnut Street in Nutley, New Jersey. A number of boxing luminaries of yesteryear will be in attendance at the event which commences at 1 pm. Tickets to the fundraiser, which are tax-deductible, start at $100.

At last look, the event was a near-sellout. Those interested in attending or just supporting Bobby in this battle should go to this website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/battle-for-bobby-czyz-tickets-1243505882569

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A Paean to George Foreman (1949-2025), Architect of an Amazing Second Act

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George Foreman had two careers as a prizefighter. He finished his first career with a record of 45-2 and his second career with a record of 31-3.

The two careers were interrupted by a 10-year intermission. During the lacuna, George morphed seamlessly into a different person. The first George Foreman was menacing and the second George Foreman was cuddly. But in both incarnations, Foreman was larger than life. It seemed as if he would be with us forever.

George Foreman, born in 1949 in Marshall, Texas, a suburb of Houston, learned to box in the Job Corps, a federally-funded vocational training program central to President Lyndon Johnson’s anti-poverty initiative. He was already well-known when he made his pro debut in 1969 on a card at Madison Square Garden topped by an alluring contest between Joe Frazier and Jerry Quarry.

The previous year, at the Olympic Summer Games in Mexico City, George endeared himself to the vast majority of white Americans (and many African-Americans too) by parading around the ring clutching a tiny American flag in his right hand after winning his gold medal match with a second-round stoppage of his Russian opponent. The scene was viewed by millions on television and the picture of it graced the front page of many large-circulation American papers.

The image would not have resonated as strongly if not for the actions of medal-winning American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos. Ten days earlier, at the same Summer Games, Smith and Carlos stood on the podium with their black-gloved fists clenched high in a black power salute during the playing of the National Anthem. Big George, although only 19 years old, was hailed as a patriot, an antidote to those that would tear apart (or further rent) the fabric of American society.

Foreman squandered the admiration that flowed his way with his disposition. He didn’t handle the demands of celebrityhood very well. Reporters found him stand-offish if not downright surly. But he kept winning.

Foreman was never better than on the night of Jan. 22, 1973, when he conquered defending heavyweight champion Joe Frazier in less than two rounds at Kingston, Jamaica. Frazier, like Foreman, unbeaten and a former Olympic gold medalist, was as high as a 5/1 favorite in U.S. precincts, but George demolished him. Frazier was up and down like a yo-yo, six times in all, during the brief encounter.

In his next two fights, Foreman knocked out veteran Puerto Rican campaigner Joe Roman in the opening round and took out Ken Norton in the second frame, the same Ken Norton who had fought 24 rounds with Muhammad Ali, winning and losing split decisions.

Then came the iconic Rumble in the Jungle and we know what happened there. Riding a skein of 24 wins inside the distance, Foreman entered that contest with a record of 40-0 and the prevailing sentiment among the cognoscenti was that he would horizontalize Muhammad Ali in the same fashion as he had starched most of his other victims.

Following this setback, Foreman sat out all of 1976. He would have six more fights before his goodbye starting with a bout at Caesars Palace with Ron Lyle.

Foreman bombed out Lyle in the fifth frame of a back-and-forth slugfest that would be named The Ring magazine Fight of the Year. Four more knockouts would follow beginning with a fifth-round stoppage of Joe Frazier in their second and final meeting and then came a date in San Juan with Jimmy Young, a cutie from Philadelphia.

Foreman and Young met on a sultry afternoon in March of 1977 at the Roberto Clemente Coliseum, a building with no air-conditioning. Foreman nearly took Young out in the seventh round of the 12-round contest but ran out of gas and lost a unanimous decision.

In his dressing room after the fight, Foreman experienced an epiphany and became a born-again Christian. His trainer Gil Glancy rationalized the voices that Foreman heard in his head as a hallucination born of heat prostration, but George was having none of it. He returned to Houston where he could be found evangelizing on street corners or preaching as a guest pastor in storefront churches. His Rolls Royce was gone, replaced by a Volkswagen, and he found coveralls more to his liking than the fancy silk suits he had once purchased in bulk. He eventually established his own church, the Church of Lord Jesus Christ, and became an ordained minister.

ACT TWO

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “There are no second acts in American lives,” but Fitzgerald never met Reverend George Foreman.

Foreman’s second act began on March 9, 1987, before an announced crowd of 5,555 at Arco Arena in Sacramento with a fourth-round stoppage of journeyman Steve Zouski. He told reporters in attendance that he would use his purse, reportedly $24,000, to build a youth center but the cynics were of the opinion that every penny would go into his coffers as expensive divorces and other burdens had exhausted his savings. When George passed the collection plate at his church, wisecracked the wiseguys, all that came back was lint.

Although Foreman had been out of action for a decade, it seemed much longer. By then, Muhammad Ali had fallen into decrepitude, dating an entire generation of heavyweights as relics. In appearance and in fighting style, Foreman scarcely resembled his former self which had the sensory effect of elongating the gap in his timeline. The new George Foreman shaved his head bald and his torso was more massive. When he sallied out of his dressing room, Hall of Fame boxing writer Graham Houston likened the impression to that of an ancient battleship coming out of the mist.

This reporter was ringside for Foreman’s second comeback fight at the Oakland Coliseum where he was paired against Charles Hostetter, a smallish heavyweight packaged as the heavyweight champion of Texas. Hostetter folded his tent in the third round, taking a knee like a quarterback running out the clock at the end of a football game. Foreman carried 247 pounds, 20 pounds less than what he had carried for Zouski but nearly 30 pounds more than what he had carried in his first meeting with Joe Frazier.

The Hostetter fight was a set-up, as were many of Foreman’s fights in the first two years of his comeback, but Big George never cheated himself. Away from the probing eye of reporters, he always went the extra mile in his workouts.

Foreman stayed busy, but his comeback proceeded in fits and starts. In his eighth comeback fight, he stopped Dwight Muhammad Qawi in the seventh round (more exactly, Qawi quit, turning his back on the referee to signal that he was finished) at Caesars Palace, but it was a lackluster performance by George whose punches were slow and often missed the mark. This was the same Dwight Muhammad Qawi who had given Evander Holyfield a tough tussle in a 15-round barnburner when both were cruiserweights, but against Foreman the “Camden Buzzsaw” was a bloated butterball, carrying 222 pounds on his five-foot-seven frame.

The bout’s promoter, Bob Arum, exhorted Foreman go back to the bushes to freshen-up and when George returned to the ring nine weeks later it was in Alaska in an off-TV fight against an opponent with a losing record.

But Foreman’s confidence never wavered and when he finally lured a big-name opponent into the ring, Gerry Cooney, he was more than ready. They met on Jan. 16, 1990, at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City.

At age 33, Cooney was also on the comeback trail. He hadn’t fought in two-and-half years, not since being stopped in the fifth round by Michael Spinks in this same ring. Since his mega-fight with Larry Holmes in mid-1982, he had answered the bell for only 12 rounds. But, rusty or not, Cooney still possessed a sledgehammer of a left hook.

Cooney landed the harder punches in the first round and won the round on all three cards, but Big George was just warming up. In the second stanza, he decked Cooney twice. The second knockdown was so harsh that referee Joe Cortez waived the fight off without starting a count.

“He smote him,” wrote Phil Berger for his story in the New York Times. “The Punching Preacher gained a flock of converts,” said Bernard Fernandez in the Philadelphia Daily News.

Foreman called out Mike Tyson after the fight. The wheels were set in motion when they shared top billing on a card at Caesars Palace in June of 1990 (Tyson knocked out former amateur rival Henry Tillman in the opening round; Foreman dismissed the Brazilian, Adilson Rodrigues, in round two), but the match never did come to fruition and Foreman, tired of waiting, set his sights on Evander Holyfield who owned two of the three meaningful pieces of the world heavyweight title.

An Adonis-physiqued gladiator renowned for his vitality, Holyfield, 28, figured to be too good and too fast for Foreman. If Evander set a fast pace, Foreman, it seemed, would eventually crumble from exhaustion. “Hopefully Holyfield will take it easy on him,” wrote the sports editor of the Tennessean. “There’s no glory to be gained in mugging a senior citizen.”

Holyfield won the fight, but Foreman – the oldest man to challenge for a world title in any weight division to that point in time — won the hearts of America with his buoyant performance. On several occasions Holyfield rattled him, but Big George kept coming back for more and at the finish it was he, improbably, who seemed to have more fuel in his tank. After trouncing Gerry Cooney, casual fans, at least most of them, finally took him seriously and with his gallant performance against Holyfield, he graduated into a full-fledged American folk hero. One would be hard-pressed to find an example of a boxer elevating his stature to such an extent in a match that he lost.

There was more to George Foreman’s growing popularity. He proved to be a great salesman, leavening his fistic fearsomeness with self-effacing humor. He developed an amusing shtick that played off his fondness for cheeseburgers and he became a popular guest on the talk show circuit. “Is this Adilson Rodrigues a good fighter?” inquired Johnny Carson. “I sure hope not,” deadpanned Foreman.

History would show that Big George wasn’t done making miracles, but there were potholes in his path. He had ended the Holyfield fight with a puffy face and with swelling around both of his eyes, but he looked a lot worse following his 10-round match with Alex Stewart in April of 1992. At the final bell, his face was a bloody mess and both of his eyes were swollen nearly shut. Fortunately, he scored two knockdowns in the second stanza, without which he would have been on the wrong side of a split decision.

Two fights later, he was out-pointed by Tommy Morrison in a bout sanctioned as a world title fight by the fledgling and lightly-regarded World Boxing Organization (WBO). Purportedly a distant relative of John Wayne, “Tommy the Duke” had the equalizer, a Cooney-ish left hook, but there were holes in his defense. A slugfest on paper, this bout played out like a chess match. Go figure.

Eighteen months after his lackluster showing against Morrison, Foreman got another shot at the world heavyweight title, thrust against Michael Moorer who had upset Holyfield to win the WBA and IBF (and lineal) titles. (The WBC version was held by Lennox Lewis; Mike Tyson was in prison.) A former light heavyweight champion who had successfully defended that diadem nine times, Moorer, not quite 27 years old, was undefeated in 35 fights with 30 knockouts.

The match-up was widely disparaged because of the alphabet soup nonsense and because Foreman was coming off a loss. “Big George has been good for the game, but has outstayed his welcome,” wrote Harry Mullen. The noted British scribe, who had been ringside for Larry Holmes’ beatdown of Muhammad Ali, told his readers that he wouldn’t be going to Las Vegas to see the fight because he just couldn’t stomach yet another dispiriting spectacle. “The most likely outcome,” he said, “is a prolonged and painful beating.”

At this juncture of his life, Foreman didn’t need the money. Although his TV sitcom “George” had been cancelled after only eight episodes (George played a retired boxer who starts an after-school program for inner-city kids), he had money rolling in from a slew of endorsements. McDonald’s, KFC, Frito-Lay, Oscar Meyer – you name it – and Big George was a “brand ambassador.” With his purse of no great importance in the big picture, George’s only incentive for defeating Moorer was his pride.

Through nine rounds, Moorer vs. Foreman was a tedious affair. Moorer was ahead by a commanding 5 points on two of the scorecards while the third judge had Moorer ahead by only 1. Foreman, who scored 68 knockouts over the course of his pro career, always had a puncher’s chance, no matter the opponent, but there was no inkling of the thunderclap that would come. This was shaping up as the sort of fight that would have the patrons streaming to the exits before the final bell.

The thunderclap arrived in the final minute of the 10th frame. It was a classic British punch in execution, a stiff right hand delivered straight from the shoulder. The punch didn’t travel far, but landed smack on Moorer’s jaw. His face went blank and he fell to the canvas where he lay prone as the referee counted him out. Before the stupefied crowd had a chance to soak it all in, Foreman dropped to his knees in prayer. Many were misty-eyed as ring announcer Michael Buffer made it formal, orating the particulars.

Six days after the 20th anniversary of the Rumble in the Jungle, Big George Foreman had rolled back the clock, recapturing the world heavyweight title, or at least pieces of it, capping the most astonishing comeback in the history of human endurance sports.

Foreman would have four more fights before leaving the sport for good two months shy of his 49th birthday. We won’t delve into those bouts other than noting that he was fortunate to get the nod over Axel Schulz and unfortunate to lose to Shannon Briggs in his farewell fight, a narrow decision widely assailed as a heist.

And the money kept rolling in. In 1994, the year that Foreman conquered Michael Moorer, a portable indoor grill that came to be called the George Foreman Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine was introduced to the public. The contraption proved so popular that Foreman, the TV pitchman and the face of it, reaped a reported $200 million in royalties, more money than he had earned in all of his prizefights combined.

They say you can never go home again, to which Big George replied , “bah, humbug.”

Foreman’s heroics during his Second Act put a spring my step and had the same effect on many others. In the words of the inimitable Jim Murray, he was a hero to every middle-aged man and older who looked in the mirror and saw some stranger looking back at him.

Thank you, George, thanks for the memories. Rest in peace

***

Note: TSS editor-in-chief Arne K. Lang is the author of five books including “Prizefighting: An American History,” released by McFarland in 2016 and re-released in a paperback edition in 2020. Several of the passages in this story were extracted from that book.

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