Farewell, Big George

Last week, the book was closed on what many consider the golden era of heavyweight boxing. The great George Foreman passed away and the boxing world is suffering the loss of his jovial, thoughtful presence as a commentator and pundit.

Sport can only become bigger than balls and strikes when there is a story, something to get excited about. George Foreman’s transformation was perhaps one of the greatest tales in boxing history. Ten years away from the limelight allowed him to change from the angry, entitled colossus, with every physical gift in abundance, into a calm, calculating veteran who was now the underdog in many of his biggest fights.

I have written about George Foreman’s influences before, but much of that article is lost to the winds of the internet. What makes Foreman a remarkable study is that in addition to having some of the greatest natural gifts in the history of heavyweight boxing, he was apprenticed to several slick old masters and trainers.

The Saddler / Sadler Influence

Early in his career, Foreman fell in with Dick Sadler. Sadler was a failed boxer himself, who tried his hand at coaching when he was enlisted for the Second World War.  Sadler was the cousin of the featherweight great, Sandy Saddler. The difference in their surnames might seem odd, but in the first half of the twentieth century genealogies were still being split by errors on birth certificates and immigration documents. Many famous black boxers from the generation before Foreman claim to not know their real age due to lack of documentation.

Dick Sadler had worked with Archie Moore and Sonny Liston before Foreman became his chief charge. And Sandy Saddler was also in Foreman’s corner in the early days of his professional career. The similarities between Sandy Saddler and George Foreman are obvious in the “handsy” way in which both fought. Where a ‘normal’ fighter will only reach out to parry his opponent’s jab offline, or take it in the palm of his hand near the target, Saddler and Foreman both reached out constantly to stifle and stuff the jab before it even got going.

It is not an attractive style of fighting. Muhammad Ali famously called George Foreman “The Mummy” for the Hammer Horror style march he made towards his opponent with both hands extended. Both Foreman and Saddler would often get hit by a jab and follow the opponent’s hand back, as if they could parry it in the aftermath—but in fact, they were stifling the next punch and closing in on their opponent.

An example of Foreman working this style to great effect can be seen in his bout against Ted Gulick. Foreman stifles most of Gulick’s straight hitting, ducks the looping blows Gulick is forced to try and throw around the outside of Foreman’s gloves, and sneaks in his own jab and uppercut whenever he gets the chance.

At the end of the bout, Dick Sadler got in the ring and gave an interview where he explained over the replay that the goal was to stop the punch before it even started. Sadler was a man who clearly had an enormous impact, but we lack a written record of his thoughts on boxing. This interview is about as good an insight into his fighting philosophies as I have found.

Sadler was apparently extremely protective of Foreman—obviously realizing the raw talent he had on his hands—but split from Foreman on bad terms after the Rumble in the Jungle, ending up in the corners of both Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in later years.

Sandy Saddler was one of the all-time great punchers. Not always in the same, one punch knockout sense that Foreman often was, but he clobbered many of the best featherweights of his era and maintained a 70% knockout rate in almost 150 recorded bouts. In fact Ring Magazine’s famous list of the 100 greatest punchers in boxing put Foreman as the ninth greatest, and Saddler at fifth. A towering, gangly featherweight, Saddler excelled in cutting the ring and forcing the inside fight.

A natural left hander, Saddler checked his opponent’s hands and then entered behind hard left hooks to the head and body. This seems like a perfect place to slot in old George’s knockout of Ken Lakusta. A lead left hook to the body, to set up a rare leaping left hook to the head.

Saddler also made great use of the wide right to the body. This is one of boxing’s most underrated punches, not having the magical effects of the left hand to the liver. But as a ring cutting tool it is second to none, and it is no coincidence that very few fighters were able to dance away from Saddler or Foreman for long.

Foreman was a rough customer in the ring, and even as a jovial old man he snuck in low blows and elbows where he could. But if Foreman was rough, Saddler was filthy. Of his four fights with Willie Pep he won one due to separating Pep’s shoulder in the clinch, and that was not even what boxing fans considered “the dirty one.” One of Saddler’s best weapons, as a left handed orthodox fighter, was to hold with his right hand and hammer in uppercuts with his lead hand.

This was one level of foul—holding and hitting being an acceptable form of cheating in bursts—but then Sandy would begin deliberately missing his uppercuts and letting his elbow drag along the opponent’s face.

Dick Sadler and Sandy Saddler clearly prioritized teaching Foreman a handsy style of fighting, and from early on he was recognized as a “shover”. In The Fight, Norman Mailer recalls that during the build up to the Rumble in the Jungle, Muhamamd Ali berated the press over Foreman’s reputation as a puncher.

“Foreman’s nothing but a hard-push puncher. He can’t hit! He’s never knocked a man out. He had Frazier down six times, couldn’t knock him out. He had José Roman, a nobody, down four times, couldn’t knock him out! Norton down four times! That’s not a puncher. Foreman just pushes people down.”

This is quite interesting given Foreman’s own remarks following his victory over Michael Moorer to reclaim the heavyweight title. Foreman stated that because there was no three knockdown rule he had a harder job trying to punish Moorer to the point that when he went down he could not beat the count. Perhaps Foreman felt if there had been a three knockdown rule he could have punch-pushed his way to a victory sooner.

The Old Mongoose

In that short interview in the ring after the Gilick fight, Foreman and Sadler made reference to using Gilick as training wheels for a possible fight with then world champion Joe Frazier. In Foreman’s fights with Frazier you can see him at his most handsy—whether he was pushing on Frazier’s shoulders, or pushing Frazier’s gloves into his chest, or pulling Frazier around by the head—he never let Frazier get set.

Many times he used the sort of snap down that Archie Moore used against Yvonne Durelle and others. Moore used to pass aggressive fighters under his armpit and dodge out the side like a matador.

The Old Mongoose was one of Foreman’s biggest influences throughout his career. While Dick Sadler was Foreman’s main mentor during his first run, he was an outcast after the Rumble in the Jungle. Gil Clancy coached Foreman from after Zaire to his unofficial first retirement. Angelo Dundee—having been devoted to Foreman’s nemesis, Ali—teamed up with Foreman once his comeback became a serious story in the heavyweight division. But Archie Moore was a feature in Foreman’s camp throughout his life. Moore was in Foreman’s corner in Zaire in 1974, and when Foreman challenged Evander Holyfield in 1991.  

Moore likely gelled with Foreman because he believed in the primacy of the punch. Moore scored the most knockouts in professional boxing history, and continued knocking fighters out well into his forties. The older he got, the more adamant Moore became that a good fighter needs to be able to blast his way out of trouble.

Old Foreman even adopted the cross-armed guard: a trademark of Archie Moore. With Moore it was a true platform for counter-offence, he bounced between a square-on cross arm guard—to set up the counter left hook—and a bladed shoulder rolling guard—to set up the counter right hand. Foreman’s cross armed guard was more a hinderance to be worked around than an effective fortification, as he lumbered forward after men who were quite often afraid to set their feet and trade with him.  

Sonny’s Shadow and Gil Clancy

Sonny Liston is a figure who looms large in Foreman’s story. Perhaps part of this is due to his position as Muhammad Ali’s previous foil. The idea that Foreman trained at Liston’s side to take revenge on his behalf is perfect for a boxing manga, but the truth seems to be that Liston acquired the services of Foreman as a sparring partner. Foreman was an Olympic gold medalist but a raw, inexperienced professional: the sort of fighter to give Liston good work, but unlikely to wind up fighting Liston in the professional ranks.

Foreman’s stories about Liston portray him as a father figure, a kind man, and a man with a surprising sense of humour. These do not undo the many negative tales attached to Liston’s name, but as we are talking about the flattening and division of Foreman into two different characters for the ease of television, Foreman’s own stories help to provide a more three-dimensional picture of Liston, who was clearly a complicated man.

Before Ali fought Foreman in Zaire, he went on a rant (captured in the brilliant When We Were Kings) insisting that Liston “…hit harder than George. His reach was longer than George. He was a better boxer than George. And I’m better now than I was back then.” The George Foreman that Ali drew out in that fight was considerably sloppier and wilder than Liston. That is a fight I must have watched fifty times and yet I am still surprised by how Foreman’s jab is snapping Ali’s head back out in the open through the early rounds, and how it disappears as Ali is able to coax Foreman to the ropes and convince him to open up and swing.

Liston and Foreman both owned tremendous jabs. Not the flicking, low energy weapon that Muhammad Ali had, but rather a damaging, jolting left straight. With the lower quality footage of the sixties and seventies, Young Foreman’s hand often seems to apparate where his opponent’s skull should be. He seems to pump his arm out and back as if it is meeting no resistance at all, while his opponent’s head is forced to yield to the fist that wants to occupy the same space. George Chuvalo is famed for having one of the all time great chins: having never been knocked down despite fighting Frazier, Foreman, Patterson and some other great hitters. Foreman still achieved the TKO, when the referee became uncomfortable watching Foreman’s jab pound Chuvalo’s head as if he were trying to hammer in a fencepost.  

The tricks of Sandy Saddler and Archie Moore are so uncommon in the wider world of boxing that their influence on George Foreman is obvious. Sonny Liston did not teach George Foreman—an Olympic gold medalist—to jab. There is footage of Foreman ahead of the Olympics, “teaching” some younger boxers the jab while moving in four directions. He demonstrates a lovely jab, combined with advancing, retreating, and side stepping footwork, and he stresses the jab’s importance. Young George knew the rules of boxing, he simply had the same problem as any great puncher: he cast off the jab as soon as he felt he had reached the part of the fight where he could punch with both hands.

Old George, with ten years of teaching the rudiments to others, placed new emphasis on the jab. His stance was higher—as if he were out for a stroll—but the jab led the charge. Old George had realized that the jab is the thing that happens when nothing else is going on in boxing. It takes no effort, it provides the least opportunity for a counter, and when Foreman threw it, it hurt. We can perhaps credit the memory of Sonny Liston for Old George prioritizing the jab, but we should also give thought to Gil Clancy. Clancy was the longtime coach of the brilliant Emille Griffith, one of the slickest boxers of the 1960s.

Clancy’s time with Foreman fell in a strange period. Post-Zaire, Foreman was loathed by the public, and his attempt to reignite interest in his career with an exhibition against five different men in one night fell flat. Muhammad Ali was ringside, providing commentary for the television broadcast, and also heckling Foreman and coaching Foreman’s opponents. He told each to go to the ropes and let Foreman punch himself out. Foreman flew into a rage when the journeymen he had picked tried to operate the rope-a-dope. Here he struggles to land anything meaningful and drags his man back out into the middle of the ring.

Charlie Polite, whose record was around 13-30, was the fourth man in the ring with Foreman. He adhered to Ali’s advice and became the first of the five to drag Foreman through the full three rounds. Foreman was so exhausted that his last opponent survived the distance as well. Muhammad Ali repeatedly noted “this kid is a good fighter!” to which Howard Cossel would retort “I disagree, champ, Charlie Polite is not a good fighter.” I add that only because this line was repeated in terrible Cossell impressions ad infinitum by the children in the Slack household. Along with Foreman’s indignant post-fight insistence that you “can’t fight on no ropes!”

The lesson of Foreman vs The Five was a reiteration of Zaire. He was punching too hard, to often, to too little effect, and it was wearing him out. His barnburner with Ron Lyle was not the best showing of his work with Gil Clancy to try and fight more methodically, but his rematch with Joe Frazier was a masterpiece. Never did Young Foreman look sharper and more disciplined than on that night in 1976. Frazier was coming off the gruelling Thrilla in Manilla. Frazier had been almost entirely blind in that fight, but he had acquired a contact lens for his working eye for the Foreman fight and appeared—for the first time in his life—able to see the punches coming.

Foreman jabbed beautifully to set up combinations. He read Frazier’s movements and threw his punches to where Frazier would be. It took him longer to get the knockout than in the first fight, against an older Frazier, but he did it by picking Frazier apart, rather than overwhelming him in a firefight.

Young Foreman only had a couple more fights after the Frazier rematch, culminating in the scrap with Jimmy Young. Young is one of the bit players in that golden age of heavyweight boxing. In spite of never holding a major title, he lost a controversial decision to Muhammad Ali that many feel Ali’s celebrity swayed, lost a close split decision to Ken Norton, and he became the only man other than Ali to beat Young George Foreman.

If you removed Jimmy Young altogether, the fight was Foreman against his instincts. Foreman did some lovely jabbing, he hooked well off the jab and used dextrous punching supported by his power.

But Young was a tricky counter puncher, and each time he bounced a right hand off Foreman’s head, it was a rag before a bull. Foreman went wild and swung himself out again. In the last two rounds, every Foreman swing missed by a mile, and every Young connection sent Foreman off balance, culminating in a late knockdown.

If Foreman’s story is true, it was in the locker room after this fight that he found God. I have no reason to doubt him because following this fight, Foreman disappeared for ten years with nary a word to the public. The man who returned was a complete juxtaposition to the George Foreman that the world loved to cheer against.

The early 1990s heavyweight division was not cut from the same cloth as the 1970s heavyweight division, but that does not undo the fact that Foreman was a forty year old, overweight, out of practice preacher. Once it became clear that he was not there as part of a circus, and he really could keep up with the young guns, the fans could not help but embrace George Foreman.

Watching Foreman reclaim the heavyweight title, wearing the same shorts in which he had fallen in Zaire, is enough to move many grown men to tears. The fact that Foreman is no longer with us only makes it more potent. But with age, Foreman had mellowed, and by learning to control his anger he was able to look for his spots and demonstrate the many tricks he had learned working with some of the finest fighters in history.

Old Foreman’s Tricks

We have already discussed Foreman’s extensive use of the wide right, but Foreman had a second trick punch that looked similar. This one was a little more sinister. Where most of Foreman’s wide rights were powerful, athletic looking movements, it sometimes looked as though his body lost all co-ordination and fired the muscles in the wrong order. The result was this high elbow, almost overhand punch to the body.

It looked absurd, and yet multiple opponents hit the deck off the blow. Look closer and you will notice that this shot is an awkward kidney punch. A wide right to a bladed opponent can hit the kidney, but if the fighter is squared up, that target is behind him.  

I cannot claim that this punch was entirely unique to Big George, but I have yet to see another fighter use it. It has all the appearances of a fighter simply spazzing out, but whether he was angry Young George, or methodical Old George, Foreman never abandoned this punch.

Then there was the uppercut. Perhaps two heavyweights have best embodied the idea of the uppercut: George Foreman and Mike Tyson. The Tyson / Demato philosophy is that the hand must drop to perform an uppercut, so the fighter keeps it in his guard and goes with it. He slips or changes level in order to keep his guard tight, and then comes up with the uppercut. George Foreman was more in the Looney Tunes style of uppercutting. His hand came down out of his guard, and traced a big circle in under the opponent’s chin.

It was Foreman’s excellence with the right uppercut that made him such a menace for the great Joe Frazier. I have recounted many times that the moment Joe Frazier won the heavyweight title, my grandfather became adamant that any inch over six foot was actually a disadvantage to a heavyweight. It was simply more to get inside and more for Frazier to hit. Frazier, like Patterson, Dempsey and later, Tyson, made opponent’s punch down to him and hammered them with hooks as their hands came down to hit him. Getting up in their chest, folding his arms in a cross-armed guard, and bobbing up and down, Frazier clattered off counter left hooks almost completely blind. But at some point, he caught everyone he fought. 

The right uppercut and the left hook are natural enemies. The right uppercut involves unguarding the right side of the head for a moment longer than a nice right straight because it has to travel below the line of the target, up to the target, and then get back. The left hook does not leave such a blatant opening for the counter right uppercut, but many left hookers come out of a crouch or a weave. Bent over fighters are the most susceptible to the uppercut. So Foreman vs Frazier became a gunfight, where Foreman landed right uppercuts as Frazier dipped in, then ate hard left hooks on his completely exposed right side.

Archie Moore could be heard screaming “underneath, underneath” from Foreman’s corner throughout the first Frazier fight. Foreman’s uppercut hurt Frazier when he ducked onto it, and lifted him onto Foreman’s own left hook when Frazier pulled back.

But there is a misconception that Foreman’s uppercut was only this looping, cartoon-like blow. In truth Foreman had a great variety of uppercuts off both hands. A constant through his career was the short left uppercut. Often he approached by palming the opponent’s lead and then jumped in with the left uppercut as Sandy Saddler used to. It was this punch that spelled the beginning of the end for Ken Norton.

Foreman also had a habit of keeping his thumb pointing back towards him. This vertical fist uppercut has a couple of advantages: it can slide between a double forearms cover-up more easily, and it forces the uppercutting fighter to keep his elbow tight. Try throwing a left uppercut immediately off the jab, and then try doing the same without rotating the fist on the uppercut and you might surprise yourself with how much quicker it feels.

Foreman did not fight many southpaws, but against Michael Moorer he found great success with a vertical fist right uppercut, that shot up between Moorer’s goalposts guard.

Throughout his career Foreman made use of a shifting left uppercut as something of a trick punch.

Most famously he knocked out Gerry Cooney with this. Having knocked Cooney down once, he waltzed across the ring, appeared from behind the referee, and slid down the side of Cooney, knocking him unconscious.

But he had done the same thing against Joe Frazier in their first fight, almost twenty years earlier. Once again, Foreman applied this bit of sneakiness as the referee restarted the action off a knockdown.

And this brings us to another of Foreman’s uppercuts. Sometimes Foreman would try to lean out to the same side he was throwing the uppercut from, and connect his left uppercut as a counter to the jab or right straight. This one was the property of Old Foreman, it seems as though Young Foreman never had the patience to counter-punch all that effectively.

In fact the more of Old Foreman you watch, the more you come to think that the slow, looping blows are a stylistic choice. Clearly Foreman was capable of shortening up punches and hurting opponents with eight inch blows that didn’t have anywhere near the same wind up. Evander Holyfield gave an interview saying that the trouble he had with Foreman was that he would slip Foreman’s punch, move back to position, and then get hit by the punch he had tried to avoid. He portrayed Foreman’s slower punches as being disruptive in the same way as slowball pitches.

Foreman was capable not only of tempo shifts, but his big wind ups allowed him to draw out and follow opponents. Against Dwight Muhammad Qawi—washed up by that point but still an elusive target—Foreman did brilliant combination work, varying his speed and power. Take a look at how Foreman loads up his left uppercut and uses the lag time to read and follow Qawi’s head movement.

The differences between Young Foreman and Old Foreman are pretty stark on a technical level. He adopted the cross guard, he focused on his jab, he gave away rounds to set up the big blows. But the most notable changes in Foreman were more subtle and came in his demeanour.

The public facing side of Old Foreman was a preacher, but also a showman and a businessman. He never turned down a chance to get his brand over. While seriously pursuing the world heavyweight title he also found time to film a full season of a failed sitcom called George, and to become the face of a grill that can now be found in college dorms the world over.

You could perhaps judge Foreman for vanity—or perhaps more accurately for loving to be loved. But when you consider the hatred he received for the sin of being born with the physical gifts to make beating the world’s best fighters a trivial task, it is hard not to vicariously enjoy the adoration he received for choosing to pursue that Impossible Dream in his second act.