Nor would most people think it odd for a professional prizefighter to be fighting mad. Ex-champ Mike Tyson, still the quintessential boxer in the minds of many, has worked hard to promulgate the notion that he is, for all practical purposes, anger in black satin shorts. Bulls like the 270-pound Foreman are supposed to rage. But big George says that being 42 years old changes everything; he has finally put boxing in perspective. This day, in fact, it was a matter of historical accuracy that had him riled. “He’s reading Robert Caro’s book about LBJ,” an aide said. “And he doesn’t like the negative way Johnson is portrayed.” Egad, wait till Foreman hears that an assistant trainer hasn’t yet found him a copy of “War and Peace.” “George really wants that book,” the aide said. First, though, he needed a new sparring partner. His original one was limping off - and posing one of boxing’s eternal questions, a query that has cropped up often since Foreman set out in middle age to reclaim the title he lost to Muhammad Ali in Zaire back in 1974: “Ow, man, does anybody have any ice?”
Evander Holyfield, the current champ, is as well coached as his opponent is well read. By the time he enters the ring on April 19 to fight Foreman, his staff will no doubt have him as finely tuned as Yo-Yo Ma’s favorite cello. He employs a nutritionist, a weight-lifting consultant and a female ballet teacher (for flexibility), in addition to the usual fistic advisers. Very much the modern athlete, he takes aerobics classes, hikes for miles on the Stairmaster and shadowboxes underwater. As a result, Holyfield, with his broad shoulders and 31-inch waist, is a pleasure to behold and, at 28, a force to reckon with: his pro record is 25-0 with 21 knockouts. Yet, alas, he also serves as a rippling reminder that perfection is always a bit boring.
The Great American Memory, unless jogged, contains exactly no Holyfield highlights. The semifinal of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics remains his most notable bout. Holyfield, then a light-heavyweight, knocked down his New Zealander opponent in round two. The Yugoslav referee, eager to keep alive the Olympic tradition of bizarre boxing decisions, ruled that Holyfield had thrown the punch after an order to break, and disqualified him on the spot. From Seattle to Miami, Americans were bouncing out of their BarcaLoungers and demanding a hearing before an international tribunal. Holyfield’s reaction was to stoically accept his bronze medal and go home to Atlanta.
Then there was his match against Buster Douglas last October. Holyfield came prepared, kept his hands up the way he’d been taught to at the Atlanta Boys Club - and, as usual, left without making a lasting impression. It was Buster who stole the show by being fat and - once Holyfield had knocked him down in the third round - cowering on the canvas.
Who would have guessed that would be a canny PR move? Or that Holyfield, who calls himself “The Real Deal,” would lose his nickname rights to Louisiana State basketball star Shaquille O’Neal, who has more charisma plus a better sense of rhyme? So far the match with Foreman is shaping up as one might expect, with Holyfield playing the Bland Bomber. Asked how he’ll handle Foreman - who has developed an unorthodox way of crossing his arms to shield his body and head, a stance that allows him to rain blows down from a spectacularly high angle - Holyfield says, “Just be there at the fight.”
Quick, call in a quote coach. Although Holyfield is expected to clear a reported $20 million for the match to the challenger’s $12.5 million, a few hard-hitting sound bites wouldn’t discourage the pay-per-view customers, whom Time Warner’s cable division, TVKO, is charging close to $40 a pop. How about a simple-yet-provocative “I’ll match my body-fat ratio against any man’s in the room” - or a ’90s variation on the old Joe Louis line: “He can run, but he can’t Jazzercise”?
Foreman - who is using his boxing income to support the youth center he operates on the outskirts of Houston, the small church where he serves as a pastor and his nine children - wouldn’t object if Holyfield helped with the hype. “He reminds me of myself 15 years ago,” Foreman says, with a sigh. “He takes instructions like a robot, then gives you all that fight talk like, ‘I’m gonna whup this guy so bad.’ But that’s out of style. I learned a while ago that when a water truck goes down the street no one pays attention. But when a fire truck comes along, wow, women come out in their curlers, and men in their underwear, just to see what’s going on. That’s what I want to be in life, that fire truck.”
A couple more cheeseburgers from the local Dairy Dream, a red sweater, and he’s there. Foreman says he doesn’t care about his weight or the jokes it inevitably inspires. “I run 10 to 17 miles a day, so I know I’m in shape,” he says. “Besides, dieting interferes with my sense of contentment, which is worse than being heavy.” As for the writers who have referred to him as a whale and a buffoon, “If I get upset with them, then what can I say to my own kids? My daughter, the other day, said, ‘Daddy, I thought I was watching sumo wrestling on TV and it turned out to be you’.” Many more people, he says, “think I look cute like their Uncle Ralph or their grandpa.”
So he has come full circle. A lifetime ago, it seems, George arrived on the scene looking lovable, at least to a majority of white Americans. Every sports fan of a certain age carries a Foreman photo album in his head. It starts with the famous shot of George displaying the American flag (and, significantly, no black-power fist) after winning the gold at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. The next image is probably that of Foreman spreading the supposedly unbeatable Joe Frazier around the ring like Philadelphia cream cheese. That was George as he liked to see himself then - a legitimized version of the young thug who had terrorized Houston’s Fifth Ward. The final photo, for most people, is of George stumbling in the jungle on the night rope-a-dope was born. Ali, in a stunning upset, knocked him out in the eighth round.
Holyfield was 10 at the time, the youngest of eight children, a nice kid on his way to being a levelheaded teen who sold Cokes at Braves games and graduated from Fulton County High. He didn’t like boxing at first, but he has a dim memory of a younger Foreman and “a style that was just brute strength.” He doesn’t see how George has changed much since then, except to be a bigger target. “He’s going to come straight ahead,” Holyfield says, “and he is not going to get out of the way. I’m not going to miss a shot. It’s as simple as that. I’m going to work his body, move around, make his weight work against him.” Foreman, in reply, points out that Holyfield has never been known for his defensive skills. “This man has shown a willingness to be hit, and that’s not good,” he says. “Boxing is all about hitting - and not being hit.”
Foreman has traveled a long way to get back to these basics. His first move, after losing to Ali, was to blame his performance on a water bottle spiked with “whoopee powder.” Then he had himself photographed lifting a live steer and stroking his pet lions. Next he starred in a freakish TV special in which he fought five opponents on the same night. Finally, on a steamy evening in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1977, Foreman lost a decision to the weak-punching Jimmy Young, came back to the dressing room and collapsed. His handlers insist he was suffering from heat prostration. Foreman says he experienced a vision of “nothingness, darkness, along with the horrible smell of sorrow.” Upon waking, he turned his life over to God and became a preacher, settling eventually at his Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. For the next 10 years, he says, “I did not ball my fist.”
Since his comeback, he has faced 24 men, and 24 have been defeated, 23 by knockouts. It can be said, with some justification, that only Andy Warhol has made more money with tomato cans. Yet Holyfield has not pitted himself against any living legends, either.
Until now. Foreman came back, he says, because he got tired of passing the plate around to scrounge up a few dollars. He wasn’t broke personally; he simply had the means to make serious money, and he thought he should use it. In the interim, his moral objections to boxing vanished. There is now something Zen-like about his approach. “When I’m running, when I’m sparring, I’m thinking only about those things and I’m enjoying it,” he says. “I don’t think anymore about working myself up into a fit of hatred toward another human being.” In boxing terms he is otherworldly: his head is shaved and his punches often inscribe outlandishly long arcs. Like planets on a summer night, they are surprisingly easy to see out there, orbiting ever closer. But because they were launched without fear or malice, they are not tempered by guilt or shame. And this makes them deliciously dangerous.
Foreman in five.
