Only the Mice Saw Foreman Winning

Mike Tyson wearing a ball and chain could have beaten the George Foreman who fought here Saturday night, the hammy heavyweight champ who lucked out against Axel Schulz thanks to the three blind mice who judged the fight.

Wearing a knot over his left eye as though pecked for 60 minutes by a woodpecker, Foreman’s limp arm was raised in triumph. Almost immediately, the switchboard operators of the MGM Grand were swamped with calls of protest, while a disillusioned Schulz remained in the ring shaking his head and telling an American who stuck a microphone in his face, “I will say nothing!”

The energetic German was still slugging in the final seconds, blood trickling down his brow. He and Foreman stood toe to toe, whaling away, with Gorging George in so much distress that no longer could he afford to be as ponderous as before, moving slower than a mudslide. No more could he keep measuring the challenger for one good shot, the way he had Michael Moorer in this same ring last November.

By all rights, the 12th should have been the last round of George’s career.

“How you got it scored?” a man in press row called over to Bernard Fernandez, a reporter from the Philadelphia Daily News.

“Nine rounds to two,” he replied.

“For who?”

Fernandez pointed to the German’s corner.

Yet even though two of the three judges were observant enough to give that 12th and final round to Schulz, neither one had him winning the fight. One of these judges, Chuck Giampa, even had Schulz sweeping rounds nine through 12, dominating the champion thoroughly. And still Foreman was seen as the winner in this judge’s eyes, which must have been as swollen and bloodshot as George’s.

Clamping sunglasses on his face the instant the fight ended, Foreman said something polite about how tough Germans can be. His choice of opponents had drawn laughter from some and contempt from those who stripped him of his WBA heavyweight title, but George, as usual, was happy to be butt of the jokes, saying, “I did look in Florida for an opponent . . . but they said Pee-wee Herman was busy.”

He was no happy champ when this one was over. The last time Foreman fought, he left the arena singing hopeful songs about finally being somewhere over the rainbow, way up high. This time he entered the ring to the tune of “Hakuna Matata” (“no worries”) from the cartoon movie “The Lion King,” but an hour and several hundred punches to the kisser later, George was not nearly so animated.

Axel Schulz had stepped into the ring in a yellow robe with “Uncle Sam Sportswear Co.” embroidered on the back. He was 20 years the champion’s junior and a nobody whose greatest accomplishment had been in beating one Bonecrusher Smith, who, apparently in keeping with an if-you-can’t-beat-’em policy, agreed Saturday to be in the German’s corner.

Before long, it was Foreman’s bones he was crushing.

The bump above George’s left eye puffed up like a bullfrog. He had attempted to end this contest early, throwing everything but the kitchen stove at Schulz in the fourth round. But he couldn’t get through the gloves in front of the German’s face, and the body shots were not doing sufficient damage.

Slow as a snowman, Foreman tried other tactics, short right chops like the one that felled Moorer. But near the end of Round 7, he ran into a buzz saw of combinations from Schulz and could see out of his swollen eye that the challenger was not going to go away.

At the outset of the 11th, Foreman tagged Schulz on the point of the chin. It should have done some harm. Instead, the German retaliated with strong right uppercuts in a clinch that repaid George in kind. The bell sounded ending the 11th, Schulz raised both fists and four-fifths of the people at ringside sat thinking that all Schulz had to do was stay on his feet to win the fight.

He stayed on his feet. He did not win.

And so, Foreman can go on daring Tyson to fight him, calling him a chicken and afraid to tangle with an old man. Such a fight probably will never happen because Foreman refuses to be associated with Tyson’s main man, Don King, saying of the hairy promoter, “I decided I don’t need this guy in my life no more. Let Tyson have it, all that cackling and lip-smacking.”

George is still the lion king. He should quit while he’s ahead.