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January 1999
Each month we bring you a selection of articles from the current and past issues of BOXING MONTHLY. To buy the magazine, see our subscription or back issues pages, or use our world distribution map to find a news-stand copy. Why not use our Interactive Forum to express your own boxing comments and opinions!
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TWILIGHT ZONE
Even with a combined age of 99 years, the chances are that Larry Holmes vs George Foreman will be competitive - who knows, it may even be fun. GRAHAM HOUSTON previews the Battle of the Aged |
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PAST IT? who cares, Holmes and Foreman both have pride and have forgotten
more than most will ever know
- Get Big Pic What, one wonders, are we to make of the
heavyweight fight between George Foreman and Larry Holmes? When the two grandads get into
the ring at Houston, Texas on 23 January they will surely set a record for the greatest
combined age of any two boxers meeting each other in the ring - a staggering 99 years.
Foreman will be boxing 13 days after his 50th birthday while Holmes is 49. The widespread feeling in boxing circles is that they should have
retired years ago. But they haven't and here they are, meeting in the 55,000-capacity
Houston Astrodome on American pay-per-view television in a match that would have meant
something in the 1970s. Now, of course, it means nothing in strictly boxing terms. Where
does it take the winner? To a fight with Mike Tyson, or the Lennox Lewis-Evander Holyfield
winner? Hardly. With two relics in the ring, each of whom has joked around at
press conferences, it stretches the imagination to call it a serious fight in the accepted
sense. Even the promoter, New York-based former London financier Roger Levitt, calls it
"a celebration". It is a novelty attraction, definitely a curiosity. We have two
legends meeting long past their respective primes, both sporting ample girth: "a
pot-bellied fight for the ages" a USA Today headline writer called it. The two men seem to be taking boxing closer than it has ever been
to the theatre of wrestling with their banter (example: "I don't believe in hitting
seniors," from Foreman). It is, in essence, a money-making walk down boxing's memory
lane (Foreman is guaranteed $10 million, Holmes $4 million). You think of history's great heavyweight fights and then you think
of these two old-timers getting it on and you wonder what the sport is coming to. But the thought occurs that, even though purists might deplore the
fact that two old men of the ring are going to be knocking each other about, a lot of
people are going to be a lot more interested in this meeting than they would be in (dare I
say "real") fights between smaller, younger and lesser-known boxers. The sport's appeal has been limited by pay-per-view and
subscription-only TV networks in America (and now in Britain) to the extent that members
of the public - those with a casual interest in boxing - simply do not know who many of
the game's best fighters are. I have seen Roy Jones walk across a casino floor in Las
Vegas with members of his camp and not one head has turned. Not so if Foreman or Holmes
enter a room: everyone knows who they are. This is what the boxing trade calls a "fun" fight. This
does not mean that punches will not hurt, or that the bruises will not be real. But these
two slowed-down veterans have to fight in spurts to conserve energy so are unlikely to do
a great deal of damage to each other - which is all well and good. The great ages of the fighters is matched by their great weights
(Foreman weighed 260lbs, or 18st 8lbs, when he lost a debatable decision to Shannon Briggs
in his last fight in November 1997; Holmes scaled a career-heaviest 248lbs - 17st 10lbs -
in his last appearance, when he won an unpopular decision over a much smaller boxer named
Maurice Harris in July 1997). But as Wallace Matthews wrote in the New York Post, the fact that
these former champions have arrived at what he calls "a comparable state of
decreptitude" practically ensures a competitive fight. Matthews's view: "It is one to sit back, watch and enjoy for
what it is worth - a night's entertainment." This seems the fairest way to look at the event, and, coming from
a writer with a reputation for hard hitting, amounts almost to an endorsement. Even though Foreman and Holmes are not what they were, each has
the pride to compel them to get into the best condition they can be in and wage the best
fight they can muster. Especially as in Foreman's case he is boxing in his hometown, so to
speak, having been raised in a particularly tough area of Houston. And for all his joking,
Holmes, the man of property from Easton, Pennsylvania, might harbour resentment for
Foreman, who has enjoyed the attention and adulation that in large measure seems to have
eluded Holmes. So, when it comes time to answer the bell, we can expect both men
to be all business. At time of writing Foreman was 5-2 on favourite at Las Vegas, but
these odds reflect his popularity with the public. In reality it is closer to even money. Foreman (76 wins, five losses, with 68 opponents battered inside
the distance) is seen as the puncher in this fight. But although he knocked out Michael
Moorer to reclaim the title in 1994 he has not knocked anyone down in his four fights
since. Holmes (66 wins, six losses - 42 KOs) has announced his retirement
and come back several times and now promises never to say never again. But he has been
more or less continually active since 1991, and in his 21 fights in the last seven years
has lost only to Evander Holyfield, Oliver McCall and the Dane Brian Nielsen. He gave Holyfield a difficult evening in a fight where Holmes, he
says, entered the ring wearing a contact lens after having suffered a detached retina; he
almost beat McCall, while the loss to Nielsen in Copenhagen could be considered
questionable. In fact, the only time Holmes has been overwhelmed in his long
career came when he took on Mike Tyson 10 years ago, after a near-two-year layoff, when
Tyson was Tyson. The last-fight form of each man favours Foreman. He fought well
against Briggs and when the majority decision went against him it had the crowd chanting
"bull-shit" while members of the Home Box Office commentary team admitted to
being "stunned" and "a little befuddled" by the verdict. Holmes,
meanwhile, barely scraped home on a split decision against Maurice Harris, a 22-year-old
from New Jersey who entered the ring with a record of nine wins, eight defeats and two
draws although he had just stopped James Thunder in an upset. And Holmes was seriously
jolted by a left hook from the 205-pound (14st 9lbs) Harris in the fifth round. Still, Holmes got by, thanks to the left jab that is still an
effective weapon. And it is the left hand - backed up by the occasional straight right -
that can give Foreman problems. Foreman has a useful jab too, however, and his steady pressure,
thumping Holmes to the body whenever he has the opportunity, can wear down his opponent. Big George probably takes a better punch than does Holmes, and the
later rounds of the scheduled 12-rounder are likely to favour Foreman, who chooses not to
sit down between rounds but just keeps going at the same steady, measured pace. Holmes will probably win some rounds solely on the use of his left
jab, but when he seeks to rest on the ropes - and he will - he is likely to be belaboured. Foreman will, I think, be too strong for him, although Holmes is
savvy enough to be there at the end. This fight will not, of course, rank with the Rumble in the Jungle
or the Thrilla in Manila in terms of drama or excitement, but, in a twilight of the gods
type of way, it has its own strange appeal. There are no doubt going to be those who feel that Foreman v
Holmes should not be dignified by a preview. At best, they will say, you could call it a
fight of sorts, or a sort of a fight. But in one of his serious moments Holmes said:
"We might not fight like young guys today, but we are going to fight." And
fight, I believe, they will. |
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