George Foreman's Top Ten HW's of All Time (from todays newspaper)

From the Daily Mail.. Is Ali just the seventh greatest boxer of all-time? Muhammad Ali has been universally acclaimed as boxing's supreme champion of the world since he and Big George rumbled in the jungle 31 years ago. On that legendary night in Zaire, the noble ring artist formerly known as Cassius Clay came back from beyond the self-imposed exile of his conscientious refusal to fight in Vietnam to knock out Foreman, the most fearsome pugilist of his younger generation. It was the upset of the ages. So seismic was the shock that the lives of the two men were fused together for all time. To this day - and reaffirmed as late as last night in London - Foreman talks of Ali as "my best friend". Yet, still, he does not let his personal affection cloud his professional judgment as he ranks Lewis - "even though America was in denial" - and Mike Tyson - "love him or hate him and I love him" - among those above Ali in the heroic pantheon of the prize ring. By way of launching 10,000 tiffs in bars across the country, Big George rates Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Lewis, Tyson, John L Sullivan and Jack Dempsey above Ali. And by the way, before we go into a few explanations of all that, Britain's Audley Harrison will be the next heavyweight champion of the world, dethroning Vitali Klitschko some time next year. Not that either Klitschko, who pronounced Lennox's career over even though a cut eye rendered him the Londoner's last victim, or Harrison, who is approaching a dalliance with fellow Englishman Danny Williams, will intrude upon Big George's favourites. 'The young Tyson was a genuine, destructive phenomenon' "Joe Louis was so far and away the greatest that it is almost an insult to rank anyone second to him," says Foreman. "He was the pure heavyweight. A machine whose timing of the knockout punch was sweet perfection." Marciano - 'the unbeaten' - comes in that distant second. Then Lewis. "He came back courageously to beat the two men who knocked him out, could stop the biggest opponent with that left jab, swung his right hand as hard as Babe Ruth slugging a baseball and was never given his dues in the US because he was British." Inform Big George that Iron Mike is planning to follow him across the Atlantic for a speaking tour of Britain and he says: "I would prefer him to make a comeback. I would love to work with him, train him back down to 220lbs and then let him loose again on the heavyweight division. He's my No 4 because the young Tyson was a genuine, destructive phenomenon. "All I hear and read about his madness must refer to some other Mike Tyson. The one I know has never been anything but courteous, charming and respectful to me." A snap review of others in his list includes: "Larry (Holmes) for his longevity; Evander (Holyfield) for his cleverness and his warrior heart; Sullivan as history's first heavyweight champion; Dempsey for his power." It is Foreman's love of knockout punchers, like himself, which elevates some while relegating his old mate Ali from his top six. "Muhammad was some self-publicist but when future generations switch off the sound and watch the video they will recognise Louis as the greatest," says Foreman. "Muhammad was brilliant but he was not a big hitter." 'Maybe I'd punched myself out but Muhammad wasn't a power puncher' So how did he knock out Foreman after seven-and-a-half rounds of rope-a-doping in Zaire? The only trouble with interviewing this man is that it is he who gives you the grilling. After all, he is over here to promote the Lean Mean Grilling Machine: the Next Grilleration, with which he not only bankrolls himself, his large family and his self-ministered Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in his Texas home town but with which this giant American Jamie Oliver hopes to wean away from obesity "generations of junk-eating schoolchildren like yours and fat-loving seniors like me". So when he explains the Shock of the Century, it comes by way of revelation which knocks you back: "The truth is I should have got up from that knockdown. Although I had tired myself out hitting him and listening to him asking in my ear if those huge punches were all I'd got, I was ready to rise at eight. "But I took the count from my trainer Dick Sadler and he kept me kneeling all the way to 10 because he thought I had nothing left and would get badly hurt. I never spoke to him for years after that. "Maybe I'd punched myself out but Muhammad wasn't a power puncher. He caught me with the fastest one-two I'd ever seen but I wasn't out on the canvas. "It wasn't just my world title that had been stripped from me. It was my manhood. I had nightmares. I would rather have died in that ring." 'So I'm saying here and now that it's over' It was 20 years, including 10 years in retirement, before Big George found his redemption. It came on the night in 1994 when he knocked out the 26-year-old Michael Moorer in the 10th round to become, at 45, the oldest heavyweight to win the world title. "One almighty blow for the grey brigade," he chuckles, pointing at my hair. Earlier this year, at 56, he went back into serious training with a view to turning back the clock beyond belief. "My wife stopped my third coming," he says. "She reminded me that I hear Muhammad whispering down the telephone on our early morning calls and that that's usually the only time of the day this magnificent man can really make himself heard. "Did I want to leave this game while I still had all my senses to take with me? Answer, yes. So I'm saying here and now that it's over." So, no age-defying bid for a third title - prised from an era of "good heavyweights but not to be compared with the golden age of Ali, Frazier, Norton, Liston and myself" - which would propel him into everybody's top 10? "No," he says. "Not for me to be up there with the greatest. I was too much of a savage first time around. In my comeback I was too caught up by the promotional propaganda. Now I'm happy that 2006 will be Audley's year. Maybe he's come on slow since his Olympic gold medal but he's a big, late-maturing heavyweight - just like me." That is a huge compliment to live up to, one as big as Foreman himself.