It remains one of the most fascinating, talked about, debated, and flat-out head-spinning of all mythical matchups. And back in 1990, it looked as though it would happen. George Foreman vs. Mike Tyson: the youngest heavyweight champion in history against the oldest heavyweight champion in history, both men carrying lethal punching power.
To this day, fight fans ponder what would have happened had these two greats collided as they perhaps almost did (Tyson and Foreman shared a card in June of 1990, the plan being in place for the two legends to co-headline a second card in September of that year, with them then fighting each other in December.
For whatever reason or reasons, it didn’t work out). For sure, we would have seen a KO, but which great would have been on the receiving end of it?
A while back, Teddy Atlas, who trained a young Tyson before the two had a falling out, spoke about this Dream Fight on his podcast ‘The Fight.’ And Teddy, never a person without a strong opinion on all things fight-related, had the following to say:
“Wow. You ain’t gonna like this, Tyson fans…Foreman’s style was wrong for Tyson. He would’ve come in trying to slip and bob, and I think it would’ve been a replay of the fight with Foreman and [Joe] Frazier, twice, and we all know what happened in that – Foreman knocked him out,” Atlas said. “Bad style match up, the right punches to catch him, the size advantage. They are from the same era, so we don’t have to play the game to conform and adjust. Foreman was naturally the bigger guy. He would’ve been able to catch Tyson coming in and time him. Foreman had a great chin. Tyson would’ve landed maybe a left hook, and Foreman could’ve handled it.”
If Foreman had taken Tyson’s best shots, almost certainly early in the fight, when Tyson was always at his most dangerous, we would have seen “Iron Mike” suffer some mental meltdown. In 1990, we didn’t know the stunning lengths Tyson might go to if he felt he was beaten.
Yes, Tyson had been beaten by Buster Douglas in a monster upset, but Tyson took his lumps in that fight, with him not quitting. But today, we all know what crazy lengths a mentally beaten Tyson could go to to get out of a fight – biting, trying his best to break a guy’s arm, flat-out quitting on his stool. Is this what may have happened had Tyson not got Foreman out of there early?
It all comes down to opinion and nothing more, but Teddy Atlas’s opinion is always worth hearing. In Teddy’s opinion, Foreman by KO is better than Tyson. Do you agree with Atlas, or do you disagree?
