A few days ago, veteran boxing champion George Foreman publicly admitted that he deeply regretted his fight with Muhammad Ali, and Foreman hoped that this fight never happened. Foreman believes that if Ali's career can be reorganized, he will not find his name on his record sheet. At the same time, Foreman also said that when he returned to the ring for the second time, he stayed away from the more dangerous fighters.
The 73-year-old Foreman was considered invincible when he was young, but when he met Ali in 1974, he exploded into one of the biggest upsets in heavyweight boxing.
At the time, Foreman was at the peak of his career, with a 40-win record and 37 knockouts, and Ali was seen as a huge loser in front of him. Before the fight with Ali, Fuhrman's biggest victory came from destroying Joe Fraser and Ken Norton, both of whom did not survive the second round in front of him, so this became the basis for the outside world to be optimistic about Fuhrman, knowing that Ali once lost to Fraser and was broken by Norton.
However, the final battle took a different stage, Ali used a very peculiar "rope tactic" to drag down his opponent, causing Foreman to be exhausted, this style of play has never been seen before, and when the match reached the eighth round, Ali seized the opportunity to knock out Foreman and regain the world championship title.
Fuhrman admits that he did not fully recover from the loss to Ali and was away from the ring for 10 years, after which Foreman completed one of the greatest comebacks in sports history and became the oldest heavyweight champion to date.
Fuhrman told fans that his biggest regret so far is to compete with the resourceful Ali. Foreman said: "Ali has my password, if you can do it all over again, you won't see Ali vs Foreman battle." ”
In the second phase of his career (1987-1997), he fought against Evander Holyfield, Tommy Morrison, Gerry Cooney and others, and eventually knocked out Michael Muller to make history, but at the same time, Foreman also missed several big fights that fans were looking forward to, such as not fighting Lennox Lewis and Riddick Bou in the 90s. For this, Foreman gave an honest answer, bluntly saying that he avoided Lewis and Riddijk Pou.
Foreman said: "I don't want to play Lewis, Ridick Pou, it's a match I don't want, only a fool would agree to a fight. ”
Foreman did not elaborate on why he avoided Lewis and Riddick Bow, in fact, fans are very clear about the reason, that is, Lewis and Riddick Bow are too strong, these two are far stronger in attack than Holyfield, and the physical condition can overwhelm Mike Tyson, and it is completely understandable that Foreman chose to dodge.
Fuhrman's strength is undoubted, especially the strength of heavy punches, but the author believes that in the second stage of Fuhrman's career, he was fortunate to defeat Mueller, otherwise he would not have the status of boxing he is today. At that time, Foreman was already in his prime, theoretically difficult for him to compete with young strong players, Foreman after knocking out Muller in 1994, did not even dare to face the WBA legal challenger Tony Tucker, but also refused to fight with Axel Schultz, you must know that Tucker's strength is not in the same grade as Lewis and Riddick Pou, and Schultz's level is more like a second-rate B, not to mention that Foreman dares to face Lewis and Riddick Bow at his peak.
Now some people take it for granted that Foreman in the 90s can defeat Tyson, can only say that this view is very superficial, although Foreman has a certain advantage in facing Tyson, but the age of the two is there after all, if they met in 1995-1996, the author believes that Tyson is still 60% sure of defeating Foreman, it is nothing more than a question of how the process is.