I’ve been thinking about Big George all weekend.

There have always been threads on here about Young George v Old George. The youth, physicality and sheer malevolent power that he had in his first incarnation ….. compared to the ring smarts, IQ and patience he showed later.

We have also seen threads wondering how we missed the real prime of Muhammad Ali, after he was put into exile. To a much lesser extent, people say the same thing about Tyson’s jail time.

Ali was out of the ring for less that four years, Iron Mike for three years.

Foreman was 28 when he disappeared, and he was out for TEN YEARS.

Look what we missed out on, arguably more than with Ali and Tyson. Foreman would have been at his physical heavyweight peak, he would have begun to merge the two George’s together. Ali was in decline (and would have run a mile from getting in the ring with George unless he had to), Holmes was still young and green. It’s possible Foreman would have dominated the division for quite some time and burnished his undeniable legend even further.

(although George later did say the defeat was the best thing that happened to him, as a human being)