Yeah and i'm sure George was faking the religion thing for 10 years and it was his plan hold out for 10 years so he could play this "prank" and get Teddy, Moorer and everyone else mad lol...it had nothing to do with religion. And Michael Moorer is gonna get mad about religion when he was getting into fights at Scores strip clubs? He doesn't even give a shit.
I'm not saying Moorer cared whether Foreman was really religious or not, but even non-religious people get annoyed by someone who claims to be religious but is a hypocrite.......And, miraculously enough, there tend to be a lot of hypocrites in religious circles.
Also, it could've just been a ploy, as I said, by Moorer & Atlas. Playing against Foreman's supposed religious sensibilities.
And just a little tidbit, but my girlfriend briefly knew an illegitimate daughter of Foreman. She looked just like him (unfortunately for her).......She said she had only seen him once, when she was very young, and he never gave child support or anything.
Sounds like a good, religious man if you ask me.
In the fight Ted Atlas even warned Moorer going into the round with Foreman not to be a fool or get KO'd. If Ted wasn't scared they why would he warn him.
Everyone was aware George was no joke except the mass media and the promotors which he played his little "old man" act for to get relevant fights
It's because Atlas was sensible and knew there was a chance Moorer was falling into Foreman's hands and could get caught by a KO.
Also, if Foreman was so feared in boxing circles, why did Moorer fight Foreman in his first title defense? That doesn't make sense......Foreman was supposed to be a gimme title defense for Moorer. Foreman wasn't the #1 contender, he wasn't going to draw any more money than a number of other top rated heavyweights.
Trying to drag this away from becoming another Tyson thread by expanding what was said earlier.
Moorer was a very talented fighter at both cruiserweight and heavyweight.
From what I remember, he never fought at cruiserweight. He was a light heavy (WBO champ) who eventually jumped directly to heavyweight.
Fluid, technical, decent footwork, able to punch with either hand, pretty good power. However like many fighters throughout life having the physical attributes isn't enough... you need the mentality to match it and that had long been Moorer's flaw. He'd gone through an array of trainers before coming across Atlas and they'd all struggled to get through to him with Atlas being perhaps the only one to really do it.
This was never more apparent than Moorer vs Holyfield for the title. The Legendary Nights show covers this but to recap... Moorer was lethargic for basically the first half of the fight and looked to be throwing away his chance at the title. You know those little monologues Atlas does on Friday Night Fights during a bout where he says stuff along on the lines of "there's a time in a fighter's life when he has to dig down deep inside and decide whether he's going to simply survive or reach for greatness..."? He basically did one of those between each round in Moorer's corner and it has to be said almost single handedly brought the talent out. It was a remarkable example of corner work and I'd say the second best inspirational pep speech in the corner (only beaten by Joe Goossen's words of encouragement to Corrales after the 2nd knockdown in the 10th of his first bout with Castillo) as opposed to technical advice.
I thought Teddy's speech was well done, but I really don't know if it lit a fire in Moorer like some people think. He didn't suddenly go out there and become super-aggressive or anything. He was still being lethargic, and it was questionable whether he would go on to win the decision since he wasn't cementing it. I thought Holyfield's sub-par performance had far more to do with Moorer winning than Teddy's speech.
I remember Teddy giving some big speeches during the Moorer-Botha fight as well. Moorer even said that the "phone call from your son" bit didn't motivate Moorer, because Moorer knew his ex-wife doesn't have his cell #. Moorer eventually knocked Botha out, not because of Teddy's motivational blurbs, but moreso due to Botha's lack of ability/talent compared to Moorer.
