Of all the fights that could have happened that were close to happening, the one that serves to be absolutely the most tantalizing and causes the most regret that it did not happen is, for me, George Foreman Vs. Mike Tyson. This fight seemed destined to happen sometime in 1990. Foreman, who had come back “not for the Cadillac in the window, but to fight for the heavyweight championship of the world,” had a whole lot of us (Emanuel Steward included) convinced that he was all wrong for Tyson and that Tyson would be all right for him. Style-wise.
There were even more Foreman believers after “Big George” did a number on a left-hook giant, the returning Gerry Cooney. Foreman’s exquisite second-round KO over Cooney took place on this day back in 1990, and now the rallying cry was heard everywhere: Foreman wanted Tyson. But did Tyson want him (that’s a different story)?
Foreman might have been 41 years old, a good deal heftier than he had been in his fearsome 1970s prime. But George could bang like a drum. No, he could hit like a mule could kick. And styles make fights, it’s one of the truest adages in the sport. Foreman, slower but calmer, heavier but deadly accurate, against an advancing, perhaps intimidated Tyson: what would have happened? Might we have seen something similar to what the world saw when Foreman made mincemeat from another attacking, swarming fighter in Joe Frazier?
To this day, millions of us fight fans think about it. It really is a shame that this fight, a guaranteed money-spinner of the highest order, a fight that had captured the imagination of almost everyone, didn’t happen. Tyson was, as we know, sensationally KO’d by massive underdog James Douglas in February of 1990, and that put the brakes on Tyson fighting Foreman next, or next after a fight with Evander Holyfield, which was the plan for Tyson should he come through okay against “Buster,” as 99.9-percent of the world’s population were sure he would do.
But when Tyson returned in June of 1990 on a double-header featuring Foreman in action, we were sure the super-fight of super-fights, the Dream Fight of Dream Fights, would now happen. But again, though a December date was talked about, Foreman and Tyson never did tango.
But rewind to January of 1990, and Foreman’s “I want Tyson” rallying cry had gone into overdrive. A guest on The David Letterman Show, Foreman, sporting the black eye Cooney had given him during their short and sweet tussle, said the Tyson fight “is gonna happen.”
“I will assure you; I will do it similarly. One or two rounds,” Foreman said in predicting a KO job on Tyson that would not be all that different from his taking out of Cooney. “I guarantee you.”
The audience went nuts; the drum banged. The rallying cry was heard loud and clear.
“It’s gonna happen,” Foreman continued. “Don King came to visit my camp in Houston less than a month ago, and he had a big contract, offered me $5 million and the whole deal. He told me to sign on the dotted line, and I got more afraid of Don King and the dotted line than of Mike Tyson.”
There is a famous story out there from the late, great boxing publicist and promoter Bobby Goodman that goes like this:
“Bobby, what’s up with Foreman and Tyson, how come they’re not fighting each other?” George Benton asked Goodman sometime in the late 1980s.
“Georgie, you’ll never believe this, but f*****g Tyson is scared s**tless of Foreman and wants no part of him,” Goodman replied. “I was there when Don King was trying to make the fight. He was telling Tyson that Foreman represented huge money and that he was old, slow, and would be no problem. Tyson got up and screamed at King, saying, ‘I’m not fighting that f*****g animal! If you love the m****er so much, you fight him.’”
So, was Tyson, the feared “Baddest Man on the Planet,” reluctant to fight Foreman, perhaps due to some of the stuff his father figure Cus D’Amato may have told him about styles making fights, this while the two watched some old fight films (Cus never thinking at the time that there was any chance Foreman could ever fight his young lion)?
Who knows for sure?
But talk about tantalizing. Foreman Vs. Tyson, December of 1990: who wins?
