This fight was infamous at the time and served to continue the myth that boxing was a genetic superiority test that favored black men, as well as build suspicion that the comeback of Big George Foreman was ‘fixed’.

In a way George’s comeback was fixed, in that it was well-managed with him building demand for his more lucrative pay-per-view appearances with one-sided beatings of cruiserweights. Eventually George recreated himself as more than a match for the biggest and best young men of his second era. Most of this was accomplished through the use of a peek-a-boo guard that invited the younger faster men to open themselves up and shift their weight into the pocket so that the slower George could chop them down.

Note George’s power jab that put all of his 260 pounds on opposing chins and sapped their leg strength, setting them up for a power combination. George has the keen balance of a gymnast though it is not apparent. He has a feel for using the balls of his feet to engage his hips and for using his hips to transfer his considerable weight and strength back and forth. The shovel hook to overhand right combo that ends this human sacrifice of the rusty Cooney is a perfect—and conveniently slow motion—example of a boxer using his body as the fulcrum for his fists, shifting weight through the target zone in brutal syncopation.

George Foreman understood better than most boxers that his art was in essence a broken dance; musical chairs without a seat in sight.