He’s a Lean, Mean Oral Agreement Machine

George Foreman plans to fight again at age 55, and has entered into a $20-million oral agreement with Don King.

Asks Jay Leno: “How many shots to the head do you have to take before a verbal agreement with Don King sounds like a good idea?”

And this from Steve Rosenbloom of the Chicago Tribune, envisioning how Foreman might be introduced: “In this corner, wearing the blue Depends ... “

Trivia time: How did Foreman fare in his last fight?

A different arena: Besides fighting again, Foreman, who will work his last fight as an HBO commentator this weekend, also is planning to enter the reality television ring. His HBO colleague, Jim Lampley, who has a production company named Crystal Spring, has recruited Foreman to serve as a host of a show that will bring together a group of heavyweights trying to make it in boxing.

Let’s get real: The reality TV craze has gone crazy. NBC has announced that Sylvester Stallone will serve as the host of a show called “The Contender,” where one of a number of aspiring boxers gets a chance to become a professional.

And ABC announced Tuesday that Mark Cuban will give away $1 million to a complete stranger on “The Benefactor.”

Another idea: How about a reality show in which a sportswriter steps into the ring against a championship boxer? Surely, some Times readers would like to see that.

However, it has been done before. Possibly the first to do it was Cal Whorton, who covered boxing for The Times in the 1940s and ‘50s and will be inducted posthumously into the California Boxing Hall of Fame March 6 at Stevens Steak House in Commerce.

Whorton, who had never donned gloves, sparred with welterweight champion Henry Armstrong at the original Main Street Gym on Feb. 15, 1940. After Whorton connected with a solid punch to the chin, Armstrong ended the sparring session with a left hook to Whorton’s midsection.

Looking back: On this day in 1964, Muhammad Ali, then Cassius Clay, became the heavyweight champion of the world when Sonny Liston failed to answer the bell for the seventh round at Miami Beach, Fla.

What a bargain: Sports memorabilia collector Mark Friedland, who once sold Lou Gehrig’s 1936 Yankee uniform for $295,000, is currently selling the gloves Ali used in his first professional fight, against Tunney Hunsaker on Oct. 29, 1960, at Louisville. The asking price is $65,000.

Trivia answer: Foreman lost a controversial decision to Shannon Briggs on Nov. 22, 1997, at Atlantic City, N.J.

And finally: Bret Lewis of KFWB, commenting on last week’s confrontation between the Lakers’ Gary Payton and the Golden State Warriors’ Speedy Claxton, in which some people thought Payton was trying to bite Claxton’s ear: “If Payton had indeed bitten the ear of Speedy Claxton, would it have been fast food?”

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Larry Stewart can be reached at larry.stewart@latimes.com.