A Step Behind--Again : Holmes Seeks Title at 45, but Foreman Has Already Been There, Done That

OK, name that comeback boxer.

He’s a 1970s heavyweight champion who retired with his senses, rarely skipped a meal and was secure enough financially to save himself from a second career as a casino greeter.

This former champ, who once fought Muhammad Ali, decided to make a comeback in his 40s.

This former champ, a shell of his former self, heard snickers on the comeback trail in such boxing hubs as Biloxi, Miss.; Ledyard, Conn., and Shakopee, Minn.

This former champ, no friend of the media in his salad days, was Henny Youngman the second time around--jocular and avuncular.

This former champ, at 45, got a chance to reclaim the heavyweight title.

Great story. Too bad it’s been done already.

Larry Holmes, this is not your life. It’s George Foreman’s.

So once again, Holmes surfaces in the wake of a legend, a step out of time.

In the ‘70s, he became a champion after the great Ali. Holmes sparred with Ali, emulated his style, wanted to be like Ali.

But he wasn’t Ali. And people noticed.

Holmes won the World Boxing Council’s version of the title in 1978 and even stopped an over-the-hill Ali in 1980 before starting his nearly five-year reign as the unification world champion, during which time he fought as much for public respect as the money involved. He tried sporadic retirement, then dived head-first into a mid-life crisis, with designs, perhaps, on becoming the oldest heavyweight champion.

Last November, however, at the MGM Grand, Foreman beat Holmes to the punch with his 10th-round knockout of Michael Moorer.

Foreman went on to couch-potato cult stardom, the talk-show circuit and untold millions.

Holmes? A jabber, not a puncher. Not a crowd pleaser. Not a preacher.

Not Foreman.

So Holmes now tries to become the second 45-year-old man to win a heavyweight title since November when he fights World Boxing Council champion Oliver McCall at Caesars Palace on Saturday.

Holmes says he cares not a wit that should he defeat McCall, he would rank in 20th Century lore alongside the second man to climb Mt. Everest.

“(Foreman) ain’t stole any of the thunder because I don’t really care about that,” Holmes said. “You know, people want to say that George Foreman is great. Anything anyone is doing to shine a light on boxing is great. Mike Tyson getting out of jail, all the media coverage, that’s great, because it shines a light on the young guys trying to do something.

“I’m out, I’m yesterday. These guys are today. What George is doing isn’t going to benefit me unless I fight George.”

Don King, who promoted the 1978 fight at Caesars Palace in which Holmes won the WBC title from Ken Norton on a 15-round decision, is back for Holmes’ second go-around.

“I think it will be history if Larry Holmes won, even though Foreman beat him to the punch,” King said Thursday. “It doesn’t matter if you’re the first, second, third. It speaks for itself.”

Holmes, in fact, has vowed in his comeback to be the anti-Foreman. Holmes doesn’t want the attention, the love, the cheeseburger commercials or standing ovations when he walks into a restaurant.

Or so he says.

Holmes wants to take the money and run . . . home. Back to wife Diane, son Larry Jr. and daughters Kandy, Belinda, Misty and Lisa.

Holmes doesn’t like George Foreman. Never has. Hard to believe that as contemporaries they never settled their differences in the ring.

Two hooks that passed in the night.

Holmes is still suspicious of Foreman, of his personality make-over and his motives.

None of this, he claims, is to be confused with jealousy.

Holmes says he got back into the fight game for the money, not to get on magazine covers. The heavyweight division being what it is--lowly--Holmes figured he could cash in.

And he can. He will earn $350,000 to McCall’s $1.5 million for Saturday’s fight.

Holmes is looking to win and then score one last payday as a defending champion.

“If I lose, I’m out,” Holmes said. “This is do or die.”

Holmes (61-4) thought he was out until King lured him back for the chance to be McCall’s first defense.

Foreman?

“George got lucky,” Holmes said of Foreman striking middle-age gold. “Because George was a (jerk) before he retired, and he’s a (jerk) now. He puts on a face for the media, but he’s still a (jerk). Still a guy who does the same things he did years ago.

“The media is so much in love with him because they don’t know him. I have nothing to be jealous about anyone. Because I’m doing my thing. When I finish this fight, I go back home . . . and I relax a few days. Then, I’m going fishing.”

Holmes, one of 11 children, rose from Cuthbert, Ga., and then Easton, Pa., to great heights. As champion, he successfully defended his titles 22 consecutive times, second only to Joe Louis’ record of 25.

But Holmes always returned to his other life.

To fish. Or manage his money. Or tend to the 52,000-square-foot federal courthouse that he owns.

“Most fighters, after they get out of this game, you have to buy them a hot dog, because they don’t have nothing,” he said. “You don’t have to do that for me.”

So why come back?

“Two reasons,” he said. “Money and I think I can win.”

Unlike Foreman, who walked away from boxing for 10 years before his return, Holmes keeps tap-dancing with the end.

After his losing effort to recapture his International Boxing Federation title from Michael Spinks in 1986, Holmes came out of retirement two years later and fought champion Mike Tyson.

Tyson sent Holmes back to the farm with a fourth-round TKO in Atlantic City, N.J.

Holmes began his third comeback in 1991 with lowered expectations.

“I don’t want to fight Mike Tyson,” Holmes said. “Mike Tyson will beat me up. I’m not going to give him the chance.”

Holmes did work his way to a title shot against Evander Holyfield in June 1992--and lost a 12-round decision.

Holmes might have called it quits then, but he wouldn’t go away.

“I survived managers, promoters, fighters,” he said. “I’m not punch-drunk, I’m not crazy, and that’s how you survive. This is what I do well.”

Well enough, he thinks, to upend this upstart McCall, one of Tyson’s former sparring partners who snatched the WBC title from Lennox Lewis last fall with a second-round knockout.

“People know I can fight,” Holmes said. “They know I’m not going to be bullied by this kid. What can he do to me? Knock me out? So what? I’ve been knocked out before.

“One thing I’d never say to him, and he said to me, that he wants to kill me in the ring. I’d never try and kill anybody. I’m not a mercenary. He’s got a family, I’ve got a family.”

Holmes, should he survive, wants to hang around to settle one score. Against Foreman.

Although they are separated by only a year in age, Foreman had retired before Holmes won his title in 1978.

Why haven’t they met in their second careers? There have always been bitter feelings. Their promoters, Bob Arum and King, are enemies. And it was Holmes who served as Ali’s sparring partner in Zaire, 1974, before Ali’s great upset victory over Foreman.

Foreman finally exorcised that defeat with his stunning victory against Moorer last November.

Holmes says it’s not too late to unite the two old-timers.

“I will fight George Foreman, because he’s the right age,” Holmes said. “An older guy against an older guy. We should be fighting each other. Then we could retire and live happily ever after.”

*

Boxing Notes

Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson is in Las Vegas for Saturday night’s five title fights, but questions about him were not allowed at Thursday’s news conference. Don King said earlier reports that he would not promote Tyson after his March 25 prison release were “all lies, unmitigated lies.” King would not comment about Tyson’s immediate future. “I don’t know,” he said. “I really don’t know. Tyson’s not in boxing condition. We have to see how it goes.”

King also said his wresting control of two of the three major heavyweight organizations before Tyson got out had nothing to do with the fighter’s coming back to him. “Nothing to do with it at all,” King said. “This is a mission I was on myself. Without Tyson, I got two champions of the world (Oliver McCall and the winner of Saturday’s fight between Bruce Seldon and Tony Tucker) . “

King also vowed he would gain control of the International Boxing Federation title once current champion George Foreman loses or retires. “No question of a doubt,” King said. “Big George can’t go on forever.”

King also denied that Tyson’s six-fight deal with the MGM precludes the fighter from possible big fights against Foreman or Riddick Bowe. “Nothing is etched in stone,” he said.