Foreman Lucks Out in Las Vegas : Boxing: He retains his title with a controversial majority decision over Schulz.

They said George Foreman could beat Axel Schulz with his eyes closed, and Saturday, with his left eye swollen like an egg by the end of the bout, he almost couldn’t.

Staggering, pushed into serious trouble by the German’s quickness and granite chin, and obviously wounded, the heavily favored 46-year-old International Boxing Federation heavyweight champion escaped with a bloody, bruising and controversial majority decision before about 11,000 at the MGM Grand Garden arena.

The announcement of Foreman’s victory was greeted by rousing boos from a heavy contingent of Germans, who punctuated Schulz’s flurries with raucous applause and chants, and stayed around after the fight to cheer his departure from the ring.

“I thought Axel won by one or two points,” said Wilfried Sauerland, Schulz’s manager and promoter. “But in a foreign country, I would have thought maybe a draw.

“Even George himself thought he lost.”

The 26-year-old Schulz (21-2-1), who never came close to going down despite absorbing enormous punishment, had no comment immediately after the fight.

But when the bell rang to end the fight after the 12th round, Schulz raised his arms in triumph, facing the German section with a bright smile.

Foreman (74-4), looking like a beaten fighter, merely turned and slumped toward his corner.

Judges Jerry Roth and Keith MacDonald each scored it for Foreman, 115-113, and Chuck Giampa scored it a draw, 114-114, enabling Foreman to keep the title he won by knocking out Michael Moorer last November.

This time, Foreman battered Schulz with far more consistency than he had shown against Moorer, but Schulz answered with stinging bursts of action in the last minute of almost every round--forcing the judges to choose between Foreman’s steady pile-driving attack and Schulz’s closing brilliance.

“During the fight, I was thinking this kid is taking everything I’m throwing at him,” Foreman said. “A couple times, I hit him and was waiting for him to fall, and he’d throw a few right back at me.”

Foreman said Schulz, 35 pounds lighter, was properly penalized for allowing the champion to dictate the pace of the bout. “He ran, and you don’t give a fighter a championship for running,” Foreman said.

Foreman won the fight by winning the final two rounds on MacDonald’s card.

Going into the 10th, Schulz, who wasn’t expected to last beyond the fourth, looked weary, but was pulling the trigger far more quickly than the champion, whose left eye began to swell dangerously in the seventh round.

By then, Foreman’s driving left jab and heavy right had built a three-point lead on all of the judges’ cards. Schulz, though, dominated the fight from the eighth round on and won the ninth and 10th on all of the cards.

Foreman, lunging with looping swings, was apparently near desperation in the final rounds. But he landed a devastating left-right combination 1:05 into the 11th that probably would have floored 90% of the heavyweights in the world, but barely nudged Schulz a half-step backward.

Schulz closed the fight the same way he closed most of the rounds--with a savage three-punch combination that wobbled the 256-pound Foreman, and a couple of right hands in the last 30 seconds that had the German fans in ecstasy.

At the postfight news conference, Schulz said he thinks he earned a rematch in Germany.

“He always says he’s the people’s champion,” Schulz said through an interpreter. “So he can fight me again to prove it--because tonight he wasn’t the people’s champion.”

Foreman laughed off the possibility of a Schulz rematch. “I will not fight that kid again,” he said. “Forget it.”

Foreman entered the ring skipping to the decidedly unferocious strains of “Hakuna Matata,” from the movie, “The Lion King.”

Schulz showed some ability to exchange in the first round, landing a few straight rights, and by the end of the round was trying to circle away from Foreman’s reach with limited effectiveness.

But Schulz did not come into the ring to run. By the second, Foreman had begun to slip his patented short rights and lefts past Schulz’s defenses, and when Schulz drifted backward, Foreman planted sharp jabs into the German’s face.

Although Schulz was confident--or desperate--enough to exchange with Foreman in the fourth and fifth rounds and landed several lashing rights, Foreman opened a gash on the top of Schulz’s forehead late in the fourth and pounded the challenger savagely in the fifth.

But Schulz, unlike Moorer before him, would not fall. By the seventh, Schulz was getting the better of some exchanges, and his sharp right hand had created a large welt above Foreman’s left eye.

The eighth was worse for Foreman, and Schulz kept targeting the ever-expanding welt with peppering rights.

“I said before, when you fight Germans, they have a lot of pride,” Foreman said. “I knew this guy would be tough.”

In an earlier fight, Albuquerque’s Danny Romero became the first recognized American flyweight champion in 64 years by unleashing a barrage of power punches with both hands against IBF champion Francisco Tejedor to score a unanimous decision victory.

Romero (24-0), who had gone the distance only twice before in his career, wore down the long-armed Tejedor (42-3) in the middle rounds, knocking him down and through the ring ropes in the final moments of the bout.

Tejedor got up with seconds remaining, but lost easily on all three cards.