It’s Not Good as Gold, It’s Better : Boxing: Foreman hits the jackpot in Las Vegas with his shocking victory over Moorer.

At 45, George Foreman experienced the thrill of a lifetime Saturday night.

“Winning the title the first time didn’t touch winning the gold medal in the Olympic Games,” he said after leveling Michael Moorer in the 10th round with a right hand to the jaw.

“But this is the greatest thrill of my life.”

Foreman was behind by five points on each of two scorecards and, somehow, by only one on the other when he delivered the punch that dethroned a man 19 years younger and shocked 12,000 eyewitnesses.

Actually, it was a combination that sent Moorer to the canvas--a left to the forehead and then the right.

“I knew he wasn’t going to get up,” Foreman, attired in a suit and hiding his swollen eyes behind dark glasses, said at the news conference.

“I hit him a few other times with good right hands, but they were short punches. This time I got body English into it.”

Former World Boxing Assn. and International Boxing Federation champion Moorer, the first to be interviewed after the fight, said he never saw the punch coming.

“It was a sneaky right,” said Moorer, who also wore dark glasses. “It was something we had worked on a lot in the gym.

“Teddy (trainer Teddy Atlas) wanted me to keep circling to the right to stay away from it.”

Despite the big lead on the two cards, Moorer said he never thought about playing it cautiously the last three rounds.

“I wasn’t going to let up,” he said. “He caught me. What can I say? The best man won tonight.

“Boxing is a sport that has winners and losers. The only thing that hurts is that I called my son and he was crying.”

Most of the rest of the people who watched on TV must have been cheering.

“This was for the 45- to 55-year-old athletes,” Foreman said.

What will be the subject of Rev. Foreman’s sermon today in Houston?

“Don’t let anybody tell you what you can’t do . . . and don’t go to Vegas and bet against me.”

Foreman was asked if he realized he was losing the fight.

“The scores didn’t matter,” he said. “I thought I would knock him out in the 11th round.

“I wanted to knock him down in one of the late rounds because I knew he wouldn’t get up then.”

But did he feel a sense of urgency as his eyes swelled, Moorer kept firing quicker and sharper punches, and time was running out?

“No, I just felt half-blind,” he cracked.

Foreman looked like a 45-year-old fighter--slow and sluggish--until the last punch of the fight.

Only his strength, heart, and a rigorous conditioning program got him as far as the 10th round.

“I was in great condition,” Foreman said. “It was all that running on the beach at Malibu that did it.”

Oh yes, one other thing kept him going.

“I got tired of being introduced as the former heavyweight champion of the world,” said the new heavyweight champion of the world.