AIR DATE:
EPISODE: Episode 52
George Edward Foreman is an American former professional boxer, entrepreneur, minister and author. As a professional boxer, he was nicknamed “Big George” and competed between 1969 and 1997. He is a two-time world heavyweight champion and an Olympic gold medalist.
Watch The Scoop from Monday to Friday featuring Canadian heavyweight champ Bola Ray, who lends his vast experience in the sport and provides his comments and analysis on boxing, on YouTube and TalkinFight.com/live. #boxinghistory @joefrazier @smokinjoefrazier
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Transcribed:
Hello there talking white fans welcome once again to another episode of the scoop featuring champ bola ray, who is continuing his ongoing exploration of all those fighters who surrounded muhammad ali and who made muhammad ali the greatest fighter.
That ever was, i might be just stretching a bit there, but uh who do you got lined up tonight? First, champ um.
You are not alone in that assumption of the men like at the end of the day, he’s called the greatest to me, um and many alike still to this day, but uh well, today, um i’m talking about a little well-known fighter by the name of, or at Least, whose biological father’s name was leroy moorhead grew up in, in his own words as a troubled child and dropped out of school at the age of 15, only to take up mugging people as a profession.
His life did a complete 180 all because he saw a commercial for the job corp um.
It was a volunteer program which aimed at teenage kids to give them uh vocational training, and somehow boxing was the result for this guy.
My name is bola raymond oluwali, and this is the scoop born january 10th, 1969 in marshall, texas, but eventually moved to houston.
Texas um was none other than big george edward foreman.
To say that this guy had a troubled youth was to understand um.
There are a number of stories about what transpired with this guy, but none tickled me as much as apparently um george used to charge people a premium to walk on the same side of the street as him yeah yeah a mob of one right.
If, with a history like this, i assume that he had some runnings with the police but um i couldn’t find anything, but after he had dropped out of school at the age of 15 um, like i said he, he saw a commercial for the job corps and Asked his mother if she would allow him to join of what she did while there george got to know a counselor that really resonated with him uh by the name of charles doc, brought brodus a former air force air force sergeant, who mentored him and actually got Him into boxing for the rest of his history um he really gravitated to the sport with his monstrous wild swinging punches.
He had an amateur career for under two years and amassed a pretty good record of 22 wins and two losses now.
His first fight was january.
26Th, 1967 only to go on to win the san francisco examiner golden gloves, junior division and the las vegas golden globes c envision, both in the month of february the following year, he won the san francisco examiner golden globes senior division, the u.
s nationals and yeah for Good measure he threw in the mexico city olympic gold medal just for giggles, he finished his sorry.
He finished his actual his amateur career with a record of 22 and four, and then he turned pro later on that year.
Now his career at least at the beginning.
Actually, right through was nothing shy of legendary, especially by today’s standards.
Um you’re going to be hard-pressed to find another fighter who has had a better record than him, with the exception of deontay welding [ Music ] mike tyson had the exact same record as him um.
When he [ Music ] after he lost to evander holyfield or before he lost to the evangelical story, um george was it wasn’t so much that his record was 40 fights with 40 wins and 37 knockouts, but who these wins were against that made him legendary? Nothing! Shy of legendary, you have to see um, he didn’t just beat, but he stopped ken norton, a juggernaut of the time um, who not just beat muhammad ali but broke his jaw.
The second round and george took him out two rounds like just annihilate him.
Chavello george chavello, the canadian yeah most people don’t realize that yeah george got stopped.
Chevelle got stopped a few times once by george foreman via a third round merciless pounding in the corner, and finally, the ref had seen enough and stopped the fight.
This is the same guy that went 12 sorry 15 rounds twice with ali and, most notably the sunshine showdown against joe frazier um, the man who broke all his jaw in the 15th round the world champion, undefeated and completely destroyed by this.
By this juggernaut he dropped joe frazier six times in two rounds when joe accidentally had touched canvas once prior to this point in his career it just it didn’t.
It was beyond believable that that was the magnitude of this guy, and yet he goes up against the greatest and well.
The rest was history.
Now to quote mike orr, the man was a beast.
He goes up against griez and some believe the fight would have cemented him as the grace himself or.
More importantly, this is the fight that cemented ali as the greatest, because most people saw ali dying in this run in this fight wow um october 30th.
1974.
The rumble in the jungle the most anticipated contest in sporting history.
Today george was a three to one favorite um being six years younger and having win crushing, wins over two people that not just beat ollie but broke.
His jaw.
George said an interview that when he went up against both frasier and norton, he was actually nervous, but when he got up against ali they had beaten ali actually and by this point in time, ali hadn’t avenged these losses.
Yet so what did he have to worry about? The fight starts out with ali moving, but, more importantly, doing something that just was not done in that he was throwing.
What are known as cross leads cross lead when you’re standing in an orthodox dance, as all he did, which meant his right hand, was further back.
His left hand was in front um.
His right hand is seen as his cross and he was able to throw this first now.
This wasn’t done simply because it was seen as what your point would have more time to see it coming and be able to administer their own offense like counter punch.
Often it’s almost deemed suicidal ali threw a cross lead 12 times in the first round and landed unheard of the second round begins and something happens.
Ali sees something part way through the fight and decides that he’s going to lay up on the ropes and [ Music ].
Let foreman swing for the fence on his body.
If anybody was not convinced that ali was on a suicide path after throwing cross leads in the first round now it’s cemented in him going off and laying on the ropes against arguably the hardest punching man ever to lace.
Up gloves, george went to work swinging for the fence on every punch, but what wasn’t expected is that all these punches were were ineffective because they were bouncing off his arms, a couple shots caught him in the head, but they didn’t rock him at all.
Um yeah.
You just took these punches and he’d, give a little pot shots in between pot shots and talking to him pot shots and talking to him little quick shots here and there and it just looked like suicide round three starts.
He goes right back to the ropes calls him over lets the fight go on.
This continues on and on and uh it was pretty much around for the next five rounds.
That’S all you saw this was totally muhammad ali’s idea.
This is another sign of his greatness.
For me, for it’s one thing for an athlete to prep for a fight and dive for the pl, i was it plan the dive dive for the plan.
It’S another thing to be in the thick of the fight recognize that, whatever strategy that you’ve been working on, which you’ve been training for, isn’t working change, directions part way through the fight and come back, i can only count like three people.
Who’S ever done.
Anything remotely close to that successfully, linux, lewis, roy jones, jr and muhammad ali excuse me wow.
Okay, it was so bad.
It was so um.
It was so one-sided in thinking that all these trainer, the legendary angelo dundee, had no idea what ali was doing.
He was outside the ring ali is laying up against ropes smacking only on the ass telling him move.
This was suicide and nothing ollie continued to trash talk, george enraging, the man calling him a is that all you got.
George george, let off a furious flurry, tagged him with a huge shot in the head and goes and yeah.
That’S all.
You got and george said in a post-fight interview that that’s when he knew that he was in.
He underestimated this guy and he was up for some serious trouble.
All these punches.
That george was throwing, and actually george was known for this in the amateurs, but for the most part he just zapped his energy.
That’S all ali had nothing to worry about.
He was completely safe.
He was able to take the punches that was coming.
George expended all his energy by the seventh round.
Aldi picked up the pace pick him apart, but and george barely had anything left to well.
He didn’t really have much of a defense, but his punches as so much as his jab wasn’t any more effective than anything by this point in time goes into the eighth round.
George lumbering forward tries to pin ollie up against the ropes and ollie caught him with five swinging rights.
Swung him around come with an uppercut which set up a beautiful cross and down goes georgia.
Um george hits the ground for the first time in his career and can’t make the count.
This fight shows that ali was capable of taking the punch and highlights his tactical genius changing his fight style by adopting the rope-a-dope, which is what all that was actually end up, calling being called instead of his former style of emphasizing movement and countering his opponents.
This fight cemented him as the greatest, if him beating um, if him beating sonny, listen, wasn’t bad enough.
This fight cemented him as the greatest former continuing on with his career, but pestered out late for a rematch that just never came, even though ali said that that was a fight that he wanted before he retired um, foreman retired.
After a fight with jimmy young in 1977 and legend, has it that it was a bad beating um, he lost the fight and then he went into the locker room and apparently christ appeared to him and he became not just saved.
He became a preacher, man um.
He not only became a preacher but became really good friends with muhammad ali post 1981, when ali retired um, and not just really good friends but best of friends while on his life journey as a preacher story.
Has that george wanted to raise money now for other repairs to this church or to build a community center or something of that nature? So the result was that he returned back to the ring after 10 years of not being in his office.
Now again, george put together an impressive string of fights in that 28 wins two losses only to go up against big, michael moore, um november 5th 1994 uh for michael moore’s, not just wba ibf world titles, but also the lineal champion.
George made history that night um, not just by his 10th round knockout of mankind war, but also being the oldest world champion in history at age 45.
.
He actually amassed three records that night, the oldest champion the largest amount of time between two world championship, fights which was 20 years and the greatest amount age difference in a title, fight that you’re successful with in 19 years 19 years senior to that of michael moore.
That means that you could probably get in there and start beating up some people.
It’S not it’s not over! For you, it’s not over [ Music, ] yep.
Oh george went on to have one real title: defense um after winning that title the second time and um upon upon having um that title, offense or actually before the title offense, because he went and chose the fight that he did choose the wbc or the wba.
Stripped him off the title, so he had the ibf and then he went on to fight alex schultz, of which it was a controversial win for george, and then they wanted.
They made alex schultz, a mandatory rematch, at which point in time george didn’t like the way.
The ibf was treating the american greats.
He was already a mandatory rematch against michael schultz.
Meanwhile, michael moore, sorry alex schultz, michael moore was not even in the rankings.
Michael moore did him the favor by giving him a title shot, especially after he had just lost a fight to tommy morrison.
Prior to that to that fight he got the title.
He got the title shot, sorry to evan holyfield.
He got a title shot and he couldn’t repay the favor by giving him a uh, a rematch strength shot not only him but riddick bo.
Both guys were decent american fighters, and yet they were nowhere close to being on the radar for the ivf.
So that left a bad taste in the mouth and he said no, which i ended up the ivf, stripped him off of his title.
So be it.
He went on george continued on with his career and until an incredibly sorry, controversial loss to shannon briggs uh november 22nd.
1997.
um george left boxing, but he actually made far more money as an entrepreneur.
The foreman grill made he made more his hundreds of millions of dollars with the foreman grill more money than all the money made in boxing in three decades of boxing combined good for you, my man um.
I good for you now this father of 12 yeah 12.
.
In today’s day – and you know what you’re gon na need – you’re gon na spend all that money.
Um five boys, five boys named george, edward foreman, five daughters and then two adopted daughters has given history a great deal to be thankful for and as kids, even more to be proud of.
Thanks for the memory, sir, that’s my episode on big george foreman.
If you like this episode, please hit the like button and subscribe, don’t forget to hit the notification bell, it’s your boy bola and that’s the scoop thanks very much champ.
That’S an awesome! Uh story.
I mean george wow, what a great fighter with great memory uh and that the comeback too amazing and uh, more importantly, uh the money he made off the foreman grill.
There’S one in my cupboard.
It’S it’s a great machine.
I mean it’s a household item selling those millions around the world.
That’S amazing, stuff really is thanks very much again and uh thanks very much good viewership for tuning in this evening and we’ll see you tomorrow, night cheers.
Thank you.
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