By Paul Lam: When legendary former heavyweight boxing world champion George Foreman was interviewed recently by The Ring Magazine in their ‘Best I Faced’ feature and asked to name the best overall fighter that he ever faced, the answer would have come as a surprise to many boxing fans.
During his remarkable Hall of Fame career, Foreman faced fellow legends of the sport like Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Ken Norton and Evander Holyfield. None of them however received the ultimate accolade from Foreman. It went to the late Ron Lyle, who Foreman also recognizes as the hardest puncher and strongest man he ever faced.
This Sunday just gone marked the thirtieth anniversary of their memorable contest, selected by The Ring Magazine as the Fight of the Year for 1976.
Unlike all of the aforementioned, Ron Lyle never achieved his dream of winning a boxing world title. He had the misfortune to be a heavyweight contender during the division’s true golden age. But what he accomplished in his boxing career was none the less remarkable considering where he came from. A street thug and gang member in his youth, Lyle was convicted of second degree murder at the age of nineteen, for which he served seven and a half years in Colorado State Penitentiary. His life of violence followed him inside the prison initially and he nearly paid the ultimate price when he was stabbed in the abdomen by a fellow inmate during a fight. He was injured so badly that the prison doctor felt compelled to sign his death certificate. He survived life-saving surgery, receiving 36 blood transfusions in the process. After making a full recovery, providence intervened for a second time as he was introduced to the sweet science via the prison boxing program, discovered he had a talent for it and used it to turn his life around. By the time he was released, he had risen to become the prison boxing champion and, more importantly, instilled with discipline and a sense of purpose in life.
After a short but successful amateur career, Lyle turned professional at the age of thirty in 1971 and utilized a boxer-puncher style to ascend rapidly up the heavyweight ranks, gaining contender status with wins over the likes of Buster Mathis, Gregorio Peralta, Oscar Bonavena and former world champion Jimmy Ellis. This impressive run culminated in a 1975 title shot against none other than the great Ali, two fights removed from having dethroned Foreman in the now legendary ‘Rumble in the Jungle’. Lyle put on a terrific performance by out-boxing the greatest heavyweight in history and was ahead on all three judges’ scorecards until getting stopped on his feet in the eleventh round, prematurely he and his supporters would argue.
Before facing Lyle, Foreman had not fought since the 1974 reversal at the hands of Ali, not counting a farcical exhibition in Toronto, Canada where he had fought five journeymen in the same night. With the myth of his invincibility shattered by one night in Zaire, Foreman faced the challenge of rebuilding his career. Lyle meanwhile had rebounded from his defeat to Ali with a win against Earnie Shavers, arguably the hardest-hitting heavyweight of all time. Lyle was dropped hard early, but showed incredible grit and determination to fight back and eventually knock out Shavers in the sixth stanza. For all his underrated craft in the ring, Lyle was a fighter at heart. He was utterly fearless and there was zero quit in him; you had to knock him out cold or he’d be in your face all night. In many ways, he was the last person you would want to face in your comeback fight.
The Foreman-Lyle fight took place on January 24, 1976 at Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas. The vacant NABF heavyweight belt was at stake but, more significantly, the winner would also take a big step forward towards world title contention. As soon as the bell for the opening round rang, Lyle sprang from his corner, lunging wildly at Foreman. It appeared that this was not going to be the most subtle of contests. A boxing match shortly resumed though as both fighters settled down and started to work their jabs. Then, with around twenty seconds left in the round, a big Lyle overhand right connected with Foreman’s cranium, rattling his brain and turning his legs into jelly. Lyle was all over him in an instant, trying to put him away, while Foreman clinched and staggered around the ring like a drunk in a bar. The bell rang to save Foreman and he wobbled back to his corner.
The second round commenced with Lyle going straight back onto the offensive but the minute break had enabled Foreman to recover and he started to fight back. While trying to land his own power punches, Lyle left himself open and was caught by a Foreman left hook, hurting him and sending tottering backwards towards the ropes where Foreman flurried upon him. Foreman could not however find the big shot to put his man away and at the round’s end, Lyle stared down Foreman in defiance. Still, it was a Foreman round and he was back in the fight.
The third round saw Lyle spending a lot of time on the ropes, perhaps trying to emulate the rope-a-dope that Ali had famously utilized against Foreman in Zaire. He did land some effective counters from this position although Foreman generally enjoyed the better of the action. A more sedate episode, but it proved only to be the quiet before the storm.
In the fourth round, Lyle was right back in Foreman’s face and the battle returned to the center of the ring. Then BOOM. A big right-left combination put Foreman on rubbery legs again and down he went. He took the mandatory eight count and bravely jumped right back into the line of fire. The two traded some absolute bombs then BANG. A Foreman right to the side of the head discombobulated Lyle and sent him down for the count. Lyle struggled to his feet but he was on Queer Street. Foreman moved in for the kill while Lyle covered up on the ropes, trying to survive, but taking shot after cuffing shot to the head from Foreman. Then, incredibly, courageously, Lyle started swinging back. He was fighting on instinct only, but it worked as he caught Foreman with some wild blows and got himself off the ropes. Then, with ten seconds left in the round, Lyle caught Foreman with a huge uppercut-hook combination, staggering him again, and then drilled him with a right which send Foreman crashing face-first to the canvas. With blood streaming from his face, Foreman somehow rose to his feet and, as the bell rang to end the round, thus commenced the longest minute in his life. While his trainer Gil Clancy tried to work his magic in the corner, the question on the lips of everyone watching was whether Foreman would have recovered sufficiently this time.
The answer at the start of the fifth round seemed to be a resounding ‘no’. A big left from Lyle and Foreman nearly went. Another huge left and somehow Foreman stayed on his feet. Suddenly Lyle was looking punched out. He had hit Foreman with everything but the kitchen sink and he was still there standing in front of him. Then, just as you might have been forgiven for thinking that Lyle was starting to get disheartened, a big right uppercut staggered Foreman for the nth time, but once more he stayed upright. Then Foreman turned it round yet again. A booming left hurt Lyle and sent him falling into the ropes. Foreman hammered home shot after shot with no response and down went Lyle like a falling oak tree. He was finished. Brave as ever, Lyle still tried to get to his feet but collapsed on his back to be counted out by the referee, bringing an end to an extraordinary contest. An exhausted Foreman stood in the corner, his team holding up his arms in a gesture of victory.
The fight seemed to trigger the terminal decline of Ron Lyle’s boxing career. That he was never the same again thereafter should come as no surprise; everything he had, he left in the ring that night in Caesar’s Palace. Yet he demonstrated more in a single defeat than most boxers will in a career’s worth of wins. He remains one of the finest heavyweight boxers never to win a world title. George Foreman of course underwent retirement, rebirth and resurrection, resuming his heavyweight career after a ten year hiatus as a preacher and once again scaling boxing’s peak by knocking out Michael Moorer in 1994 to regain the heavyweight championship of the world twenty years after losing it in Zaire, capping one of the great comeback stories in sporting history. But it might never have been were it not for the powers that possessed him to get to his feet as he lay face-down in a puddle of his own blood at the end of the fourth round of his fight with Ron Lyle. In this sense, one could say that Foreman-Lyle really did change the course of boxing history. However, as a fan first and foremost and an analyst second, it suffices to say that it remains the greatest heavyweight slugfest of all time; a brutal, beautiful, back and forth masterpiece for the ages.
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