THERE are fights, especially in the heavyweight division, where a full-distance affair seems highly unlikely. Such was the case when Tommy Morrison fought George Foreman for the vacant WBO heavyweight title. Morrison had scored 32 KOs in a 36-1 record, while 67 of Foreman’s 72 wins had come inside the distance, against three losses.
Fight details:
TOMMY MORRISON W12 GEORGE FOREMAN
Thomas & Mack Center, USA
June 7, 1993
HBO’s “unofficial official” Harold Lederman was adamant that the fight would not hear the final bell when we chatted before the fight. “This will not go the distance,” he assured me.
Ten boxing writers polled by USA Today all picked Foreman by KO. Two big hitters going at it. How could it possibly go the full route? Well, it could and it did, with Morrison using an unexpected hit-and-move style to win a unanimous decision over the heavy-handed but slow Foreman.
Everyone, it seemed, expected a slugfest. But the Morrison camp wasn’t looking for a toe-to-toe fight. The strategy all along was to score points and win one round at a time.
“We don’t want Tommy standing right in front of George,” Morrison’s trainer, Tommy Virgets, told me before the fight. “We went to keep George turning. That way, he can’t get set to throw his punches. Tommy has the speed and the legs to fight this way for 12 rounds.”
Many didn’t think this was going to be possible. Morrison was known for throwing bombs, hit or be hit. Carl “The Truth” Williams dropped him twice in their wild fight that Morrison won in the eighth round, and Morrison’s only loss, against Ray Mercer, was on a fifth-round stoppage after he had punched himself out trying for a KO.
Foreman himself, always excellent at promotion, be it boxing matches, TV sitcoms or grilling machines, played up the “all-out war” angle and even brought Michael Jackson into the conversation during the big-fight build-up.
Both he and Morrison should befriend the pop-music icon, Foreman told a press conference two months before the fight: “We might need him to tell us who his plastic surgeon is.”
Naturally, Top Rank, the show’s promoter, was keen to emphasise the bout’s big-hitting possibilities. “It’s a real tough fight and it’ll be an exciting event,” matchmaker Bruce Trampler told the Las Vegas Sun. “Puncher versus puncher.”
The Las Vegas sportsbooks set the over/under at 5.5 rounds. Foreman was favoured at 5/7, and he was the crowd’s favourite, too.
It seemed that everyone loved Big George, who was seeking to become the oldest heavyweight champ in history at 44. Morrison, the 24-year-old from Kansas City, was marketable, supposedly the great nephew of John “Duke” Wayne and even adopting the Hollywood legend’s nickname, but Foreman was the sentimental favourite of the 12,743 crowd.
The fight wasn’t exciting, but it was tense and absorbing. Morrison’s lifestyle away from boxing had its excesses, but in the ring, against Foreman, he boxed a disciplined fight, following his trainer’s instructions with unwavering focus.
A tanned and muscled 6ft 2ins and 226lbs, Morrison punched, moved away, punched again, moved again. Foreman, a massive figure at 6ft 4ins and 256lbs, struggled to find the target.
The judges had it wide in Morrison’s favour: 117-110, 117-110 again and 118-109. My score was closer, 115-112. Referee Mills Lane told the judges to deduct a point from Foreman’s score for a low left hook in the 10th round. The crowd howled in disapproval, but Lane had issued cautions in earlier rounds, including a severe warning in the eighth round.
Foreman’s main success was with his long left jab, which at times sent Morrison’s head jerking back. But Morrison landed heavy left hooks and right hands throughout the fight, sending water and sweat spraying from Foreman’s bald dome.
And Morrison employed his left jab better than I’d ever seen him use it before. He was staying a step ahead. But although Morrison was surprisingly elusive, he couldn’t dodge everything. He said afterwards that at one point in the fight, he took a shot that made him have flashbacks to his 1991 loss to Ray Mercer. “I decided to be smart, regroup and make good things happen,” he said.
“Getting hit by George is like getting hit by a Cadillac going 60 miles per hour.”
And it was Foreman’s power that kept one on tenterhooks, wondering if Morrison could maintain his successful, if undramatic, points-scoring strategy for round after round.
“If it had come to a slugging match, the result might have been different,” I wrote at the time. Morrison seemed to sense that himself.
At times, Morrison seemed almost to be running away and even turned his back. But he wasn’t staying in one place long enough for Foreman to tee off.
The crowd booed Morrison for failing to engage, but everything was going to plan for the younger man. “I knew the crowd didn’t like my tactics,” Morrison said afterwards. “They wanted to see two guys beating the heck out of each other. But what I was working on in the gym was translated to the ring, and I’m very proud of myself.”
Trainer Tommy Virgets said he had spent 200 hours reviewing video of Foreman’s fights. Part of that strategy was for Morrison to relax only when he was safely out of range.
The Morrison camp’s strategy surely surprised Foreman, who looked befuddled throughout, as if he couldn’t quite believe what was happening.
Morrison got off to a dream start, sweeping the first three rounds on the judges’ scorecards. It wasn’t until the fourth that Foreman was able to win a round on the official scorecards. And in every round, at least one of the judges had Morrison winning the round.
Foreman never seemed especially hurt and never looked like going down, but his eyes were swollen by the later rounds and he donned dark glasses before leaving the ring.
A right hand seemed to knock Foreman off balance in the seventh round, but he landed a right hand of his own, which served as a reminder to Morrison not to get overly ambitious.
There were moments when it seemed that Morrison might be tiring, or that Foreman might be gathering some momentum. But, as I reported at the time: “ Morrison was almost always coming back with jabs, hooks and rights, sometimes single punches but enough of them to make even his rocky rounds close enough for argument.”
It did look as if Morrison’s gas tank was running low in the last round and Foreman had one of his better rounds — but he needed a knockout. The crowd booed when referee Lane called a timeout so that a piece of tape flapping loose from Foreman’s right glove could be removed. The interruption didn’t do Foreman any favours but it looked unlikely that he would have pulled out a final-round finish: Morrison knew he had only to stay on his feet to win and Big George wasn’t exactly full of energy himself.
“I was a little fatigued,” Morrison admitted afterwards. “It was the first time I’d been 12 rounds.”
And so it ended.
“At the final bell, Morrison threw both arms aloft while Foreman plodded back to his corner like a weary factory hand returning home from working on the night shift,” I reported at the time.
The crowd booed the decision, but Morrison had won clearly.
Foreman didn’t attend the post-fight press conference, which was held in the ring at the Thomas & Mack about half an hour after the fight ended, the press shouting questions from the ringside seats. Foreman, however, told broadcaster HBO that he thought he won and even suggested he had let Morrison off the hook in the last round. “God bless him,” Morrison retorted when informed of Foreman’s words.
The assembled media seemed in shock that the fight had gone all 12 rounds. But then, as Morrison told the post-fight conference: “I don’t think anyone in the house thought the fight would go the distance — including Foreman.”
But one of the very few who did see this as a full-distance fight was Mickey Duff, the great matchmaker and manager. He showed me his betting slip before leaving the arena: $2,000 on Morrison to win by decision.
POSTSCRIPT
Things went badly for Tommy Morrison. With a massive unification fight against Lennox Lewis lined up, Tommy forgot to duck in the first round against Michael Bentt, mere months after the win over George Foreman.
However, Morrison got off the floor to stop Razor Ruddock in a thrilling fight in June 1995, which earned him a meeting with Lewis, who stopped him in six rounds. That was Morrison’s last big fight. Tommy was diagnosed with HIV and died in 2013, aged only 44.
Foreman, of course, went on to become the oldest heavyweight champion ever when he knocked out Michael Moorer in the 10th round in 1994.
