Always pissed me off how disrespectful those two were to George so I googled it to see of it annoyed anothers and maybe for some background and came across this :
"This tension can be traced back exactly to April 22 1994. On that night Evander Holyfield was defending his title against Michael Moorer. In the second round Holyfield leveled Michael Moorer with a brutal left hook. None of the 3 judges gave Evander a ten eight round despite the clean knockdown. Worst of all one of the judges Jerry Roth actually scored the round even! In the end Roth's horrible descision ultimately cost Evander his heavyweight championship! The argument was that Moorer was handily winning the round at the time of the knockdown. The argument was insane and everyone covering the fight was livid. Every single HBO commentator had something to say about how questionable this was. These people included Jim Lampley Larry Merchant Harold Ledderman James Brown and a furious George Foreman. In the post fight commentary Foreman stopped just short of saying that the Duva's fixed the fight. George said the following I HAVE SEEN ENOUGH! THE DUVA'S HAVE TOO MANY PIECES OF PAPER IN TOO MANY POCKETS! He went on to say that SOMEBODY IS GOING TO HAVE TO GET TOGETHER AND GET THIS JUNK OUT OF HERE! He then said half jokingly that he'd have to eat a lot of hamburgers to get over this one! HBO began promoting the rebroadcast as DID THE JUDGES GET IT WRONG? The Duva's went into attack mode and threatened to sue. They also moved to have Foreman fired for his allegations. Meanwhile Holyfield was being diagnosed with a heart condition. There would be no immediate rematch. Those two things combined caused HBO to completely do a 180. They feared a lawsuit and profusely apologized to Moorer and the Duva's. The postfight comments were edited in the rebroadcast. Lampley backed down completely and said he called the fight wrong. Merchant did a turnabout as well. NOT GEORGE THOUGH! He remained furious that the heavyweight championship had been reduced to a crooked game. He was also extremely hurt that his fellow commentators and friends left him hung out to dry! George himself dealt out the ultimate justice taking the titles back himself by knocking Moorer out 7 months later. The damage to the HBO team though was done. For the next nine years they remained a team but never without tension. Whenever George felt Jim or Larry were being YES MEN and calling a fight more favorably for an HBO contracted fighter he would boldly challenge them! Courageous"
Any thoughts?
Interesting.
I don't doubt Foreman is as mean as he ever was etc , and I don't expect them to bow and scrape because Foreman is just a man, but at the end of the day you are still talking to George f'ing Foreman. Two pipsqueaks like Lampley and Merchant should not be able to get away with being so disrespectful to him
He may say some bizarre things but they are talking boxing and George was a World Champion. Aside from maybe women in Lampleys case I doubt those two have ever had a fight in their lives
Foreman admits that his natural disposition is to be a surly prick. He battles himself everyday and plasters that smile on his face and powers forward. 