After his easy win over Jimmy Ellis in December of 1991, George Foreman agreed to fight Alex Stewart on April 11th in Las Vegas. Stewart had been knocked out by Mike Tyson in December of 1990, and by Michael Moorer in the following July, so George figured he would be easy pickings.
The night of the fight, I went to see a concert. On the way home, I stopped by my sister’s apartment to pick up the VHS tape I gave her to record the fight. My brother went over to watch it live on HBO, and when I pulled up, he leaned out the window to say the fight had one more round. I insisted he not tell me anything about it, so I could go home and watch it fresh.
The first thing I noticed was how fat George was. He weighed a fleshy 258 and 3/4 lbs., but it looked like he didn’t train very hard at all. When George knocked Stewart down twice in the second round, it appeared he might get an easy win. The opposite in fact took place. Stewart got up and fought the fight of his life. He bloodied George’s nose, closed his eyes, and boxed better than anyone could have predicted.
By the tenth round, George’s face was a grotesque mess. His eyes were closed, his nose was swollen and bleeding, and he struggled to breathe. He did suck it up in the last round to win it in my book, but the decision was anything but certain. The judges gave George a majority decision win, with it called a draw by one, and a one point win by the other two.
George had his victory, but if he struggled this hard with Stewart, you had to wonder if it was time for him to quit. Jim Lampley and Larry Merchant echoed the same sentiments, but one thing was for certain. This narrow win did nothing to help the ex champ’s chances for another shot at the title.
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