BOXING : Foreman Refuses to Be Weighed Down by Traditional Thinking

George Foreman has great news for fat people: Keep right on eating. He says you can eat all you want and still be in great shape.

Welcome to the ‘90s, the decade of the New Fitness.

Foreman, who wrestles Gerry Cooney Monday night in a pay-per-view exercise being falsely marketed as a significant heavyweight boxing event, says you want to watch out for people such as Tom Lasorda, who advise you to eat out of a can.

When Foreman, who turned 41 Wednesday, began his comeback two years ago and weighed in at 262 pounds for his first bout, the whale jokes began and still haven’t stopped. Foreman was a lean, hard 220-pounder when he was the heavyweight champion 16 years ago.

“One of the reasons why I lost my championship (to Muhammad Ali, in 1974), was because I didn’t listen to what my body was telling me--now I am,” he said the other day.

“There’s a lot of bad baggage, a lot of junk, in the training of boxers. When I fought Ali in Zaire, my trainer told me not to drink liquids, so I didn’t. That’s why I ran out of gas against him. I was dehydrated.

“Before I started my comeback, I talked to marathon runners. They told me to forget about getting on the scales, just drink lots of fluids, work hard, eat good meals, get my body in shape and forget about weight. I’ll weigh around 250 for Cooney and I’ll be in good condition, very strong. If I feel great, I don’t care what I weigh.

“Dietwise, I’m going in the opposite direction (from ‘74). If I lose 10 pounds in a workout, I’ll sit down and put it right back with a lot of cranberry and apple juice. And I eat anything I want for dinner.”

Foreman says he isn’t angry at those who have ripped Foreman-Cooney. The fight has been knocked because both fighters are making more than $1 million and both have carefully avoided fighting top-ranked heavyweights. Cooney hasn’t fought anyone since he crashed in a heap at Michael Spinks’ feet in 1987, and Foreman has fought a string of 19 stiffs. Cooney will make it 20.

“If I’d paid any attention to experts, I’d have drowned by now,” Foreman said. “Everywhere I go to fight, newspapers say terrible things about me. But the arenas are full, and the TV ratings are high. So the public loves what I’m trying to do.”

What he’s trying to do is get a rich fight with Mike Tyson by exposing himself to as little risk as possible. That’s where, he says, Don King came into the picture. King showed up at Foreman’s training camp a few weeks ago in Marshall, Tex., with a $5-million contract.

If Foreman had signed it, he’d have guaranteed himself a $5-million purse against Tyson, providing he beats Cooney.

At the time, negotiations for the super-rich Tyson-Evander Holyfield fight, since signed, were moving slowly. King was apparently tipped that Dan Duva, Holyfield’s promoter, was about to sign Holyfield to fight Foreman instead.

No thank you, Foreman told King.

“King was trying to take me off the market,” said Foreman, who figures if Holyfield can command a guaranteed $11 million to fight Tyson, he should be worth a sum closer to $11 million than $5 million.

“If it had been Bob Arum, I’d have signed for a dollar down,” Foreman said, “but not with this guy (King).”

King, told of the remark, said: “I love George Foreman. That’s vintage George Foreman.”

Pay-per-view exhibitors, by the way, report Foreman-Cooney will not break records.

“We never expected it would be a blockbuster,” said Rick Kulis, Southern California exhibitor for the $20 show. “It should do about one-fourth of what Leonard-Duran did.”

No one should be surprised that 72-year-old Billy Conn went after a stickup man in a Pittsburgh market the other day, without knowing if the guy had a gun.

After all, for any guy who’d go into the ring weighing 169 pounds to fight Joe Louis, what’s to fear? Conn, one-time light-heavyweight champion, walked in on a holdup scene. The robber had indicated to the store clerk he had a gun under his jacket, but Conn didn’t know that. Conn and the clerk wrestled the man to the floor, where a brisk wrestling match ensued. According to the clerk, Conn ripped the guy’s shoe off and tore his shirt, but the thief got away with $80.

Conn’s “official” weight when he fought Louis in 1941 was 174 pounds. Louis weighed 199 1/2. Later, both Conn and promoter Mike Jacobs admitted that Conn weighed 169, that the five pounds were added, in Jacobs’ words, “because it wouldn’t look right if it got out we were throwing a 169-pounder in with Louis.”

But after 12 rounds, Conn looked as if he was about to be the heavyweight champion. He beat Louis to the punch all night but grew cocky in the later rounds. Louis knocked him out with two seconds left in the 13th round.