Foreman Felt Tug of the Ring

When George Foreman heard the knock on his door, he reasoned it was about time.

After all, it had been 13 years since he had won the heavyweight title. A dozen years since he had lost it.

Nine years since he had retired. Three months since he had been quoted in a wire story saying he would like to get back in the ring.

Finally, there on his Texas doorstep, was Bill Caplan of Northridge, his longtime friend and publicist.

“I was really worried about you,” a grinning Foreman said. “Once that story came out, I thought I’d hear from you right away. I was worried something had happened to you.”

Caplan had one question for Foreman: Are you serious?

“I guess,” the former champion replied, “I am thinking about it.”

The two first met in Oakland in 1968 when Foreman, then a 19-year-old amateur, lost to Clay Hodges on a card Caplan was promoting. Caplan was in the locker room afterward that night to encourage young Foreman and he has been doing it ever since.

After Muhammad Ali unveiled the rope-a-dope in Zaire in 1974 and wrested the heavyweight championship away from Foreman with a shocking eighth-round knockout, a somber Foreman told the media: “I found true friendship tonight. I found a true friend in Bill Caplan.”

But not even Caplan could keep Foreman from losing not only his title, but temporarily, it seemed, his mind.

There was the 1975 fiasco in Toronto when Foreman decided to show the world he, not Ali, was the true champ by knocking out five men in the same night. Five journeymen were lined up, each to go three rounds. It was to be boxing’s version of That’s Incredible, but instead, it turned out to be Wrestlemania.

Foreman knocked out three of the five. But that was only part of the action. Handlers from both corners became involved. The referee became embroiled in a shoving match.

With bodies flying all over the place, Howard Cosell told a national viewing audience, “There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, the human condition at its lowest ebb.”

Caplan could only watch as Foreman sank deeper into fistic oblivion. He lost to Jimmy Young, no threat to Mighty Joe Young, then announced he’d had a religious experience in the locker room afterward and was giving up the punching bag for the pulpit.

Caplan tried for three years to get Foreman back into the gym, but the former champ stuck to his word and became a Houston preacher.

He originally went back into the gym to work with youngsters in his youth center. But having ballooned to in excess of 300 pounds (he stopped stepping on the scale when it hit 300), Foreman enjoyed the weight-reducing benefits of sparring. Then he looked around at the money average heavyweights were making and he got serious.

Half a year after Caplan’s Texas visit, he and promoter Don Chargin went to the California State Athletic Commission to arrange a fight for Foreman and were greeted with the anticipated chuckles.

A fight for George Foreman, then 38 and inactive for nearly 10 years? What else do you have planned, a spring-training shot for Joe DiMaggio, maybe a Laker tryout for George Mikan?

But after Foreman successfully underwent a battery of physical tests, the commission could find no good reason to stand in the way.

Foreman stepped into a Sacramento ring a year ago and emerged with a fourth-round knockout over Steve Zouski.

Foreman has continued to knock out everybody--or should we say nobody?--put in his path since, a total of seven going into Saturday night’s Caesars Palace match against his first “name” opponent, Dwight Muhammad Qawi.

If all goes well, there is talk of a couple of fights against Top Ten heavyweights leading to a bout with champion Mike Tyson.

Caplan, now handling publicity for a dental-insurance company, is back beating the drums for Foreman, just like old times.

“He’s been living clean,” Caplan said. “There has been no dissipating, no nightclubs. He is like a vintage car parked in a garage for 10 years. He’s got no wear and tear and plenty of miles left.”

Problem is, he also has a date down the road, if he doesn’t run into any detours, with a battering ram that keeps sending all oncoming traffic directly to the junkyard.