George Foreman

Facts and figures for Evander Holyfield's heavyweight championship defense against George Foreman tonight at Trump Plaza, Atlantic City, N.J.* RECORD -- Holyfield: 25-0, 21 knockouts; Foreman: 69-2, 65 knockouts.Foreman's comeback record: 24-0, 23 knockouts.* AGE -- Holyfield, 28; Foreman, 42.* WEIGHT -- Holyfield, 208; Foreman, 257.* PURSES -- Holyfield, $20 million guaranteed; Foreman, $12.5 million guaranteed.* WON HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE -- Holyfield knocked out James "Buster" Douglas in the third round Oct. 25, 1990.

Goodbye." It's a simple word, but sometimes it's just hard to say. OK, well maybe it's easy to say and hard to, you know, stick with it. That has been Brett Favre's problem. He has come so close to saying goodbye so many, many times. Then, in March, he did say it. There were tears and everything. But we all know what has happened since. Today, he'll be there when the Packers resume training camp. But before we accuse ol' Brett of an acute case of vacillation, let's point out that he's hardly alone.

If you don't care who governs Maryland on what philosophy, or which party organizes Congress, leave the voting to people who do.Latest stereotype out the window: Kenyan ladies can't run marathons.Writing that letter to the American people was President Reagan's finest hour.George Foreman for president!

Whether you adore him or would just as soon never see him again, Colts quarterback Peyton Manning has shown a knack for self-mockery. Admit it, you've chuckled at the Sprint commercial in which a badly disguised Manning extols the virtues of cell phone video by saying, "Like Peyton Manning! That guy's pretty good, if you like 6-foot-5, 230-pound quarterbacks [with a] laser rocket arm." Does Manning need a script and many takes to pull off such moments? We'll find out tonight when he becomes the 22nd athlete and 25th sports figure (not counting professional wrestlers or actors from the Rocky films)

Q. How old was Archie Moore when he fought Muhammad Ali, then Cassius Clay, in the 1960s?Henry WeissGary LockettBaltimoreA. Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you, if you're young at heart -- so goes the song. Maybe Moore was young at heart when he fought Clay on Nov. 15, 1962, in Los Angeles. But, according to "The Ring Boxing Encyclopedia and Record Book," Clay had a bigger advantage; he was young, period -- 20. Moore was 48. Take that, George Foreman.

Are you ready for George Foreman, singer? Home Box Office has hired Foreman to be host of his own entertainment special, but there seems to be some kind of conflict as to exactly what kind of show it will be.HBO wants Foreman to do comedy. Foreman wants to sing."If they're going to [get] me up there before an audience and with a microphone, then I want to sing," he said. "They're going to put the camera on and think the jokes are coming out, and I'm going to sing. I want to be a singer."Foreman went on to say he is going to try to develop what he called a "TV style" of his own. " . . . It's going to be between Howard Cosell and 'Amos 'n Andy,' " he said.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- George Foreman has requested the help of renowned boxing trainer Angelo Dundee for his fight against heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield on Friday night.Dundee was in Muhammad Ali's corner in Zaire, Oct. 30, 1974, when Ali employed his unorthodox "Rope-a-dope" tactics to wear down Foreman and regain the heavyweight title with an eighth-round knockout."Getting Angelo to work with him was George's idea," a Foreman spokesman said. "But the contract hasn't been finalized.

RENO, Nev. -- George Foreman made his getaway at 5:45 a.m. yesterday, $5 million richer, one fight closer to the final heist, the one where the 44-year-old would-be-TV comedian laughs all the way to another heavyweight title shot -- especially since Lennox Lewis now has offered him 55 percent of the take.Foreman, who thought he spent too much time re-arranging Pierre Coetzer's sour puss before referee Joe Cortez finally stopped the Saturday-night slaughter in the eighth round, couldn't wait to get back to his family in Texas yesterday.

It must be the early '70s. Students are protesting the war, George McGovern is thinking about running for president, movie fans are lining up for "The Godfather" and George Foreman is training for the heavyweight championship of the world.Let's turn out the lights, watch the lava lamp and listen to the Rolling Stones' latest album. Maybe we'll switch on the tube and see Cher or Raquel Welch in a flimsy outfit, or maybe we'll see heavyweight contender George Foreman plugging his upcoming bout.

NEW YORK -- Mike Tyson's wallet might be saying go for the big bucks and fight heavyweight champ Evander Holyfield, but his head is telling him to fight George Foreman.Team Tyson guru Don King said yesterday that Tyson shaved his head in deference to the fighting preacher."Mike is so into fighting Foreman he's forgotten about Holyfield," King said. "Mike has shaved his head in tribute to Foreman. This starts the promotional wheels turning. Two bald monks of the same clan, the fighting preacher against the villain, Peck's bad boy."

WHERE THERE IS smoke, there is Steven Raichlen. On a recent Baltimore afternoon, the author of a series of best-selling barbecue books, including The Barbecue! Bible and How to Grill, was sitting in Joy American Cafe on the top floor of the American Visionary Art Museum, where the air, appropriately, was perfumed by the restaurant's wood-burning grill. Raichlen, a native of Baltimore who now splits his time between homes in Coconut Grove, Fla., and Martha's Vineyard, Mass., has set fires around the world.

For quarterback Mark Rypien, the decision to walk away from the game he loved was an easy call. And three years later, after dealing with a family tragedy that had consumed him in his time away from pro football, the idea of returning to the playing field at the ripe age of 38 grabbed him and refused to let go. Rypien, who already had won a championship ring and a Super Bowl Most Valuable Player award with the Washington Redskins 10 years earlier in...

George Foreman was a middle-aged man in 1994 when he laced up his boxing gloves, climbed into the ring with a fighter young enough to be his son and delivered a ferocious punch 10 rounds later to reclaim his title as heavyweight champion of the world. But that's not what makes Foreman one of the greatest comeback kids in history. What might loom largest when the last of the profiles is written - and when all the cash is tallied - is Foreman's unlikely odyssey from a nearly broke has-been to a wealthy TV pitchman.

LAS VEGAS -- Michael Moorer acts as if he has a chip on his shoulder as big as George Foreman, the only man to have whipped him.The International Boxing Federation heavyweight champion, who meets World Boxing Association king Evander Holyfield in a rematch here tomorrow night, can act cold and remote in his dealings with the media, daring anyone to find a soft spot behind his icy demeanor.But as one New York columnist who saw through Moorer's tough guy persona noted, "He speaks in what he thinks are protective riddles, but what really are public confessions.

Hasim Rahman has the whole scenario worked out in his mind."In another two years or so," said Rahman, an unbeaten Baltimore heavyweight, "most of today's top guys -- Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis, Ray Mercer and George Foreman -- will probably be retired from boxing."There will be a whole new group of young heavyweights at the top of the division, and I expect to be at the head of that class."Rahman, 24, took a small step in that direction July 15 when he stopped Jeff Wooden in the ninth round to win the vacant U.S. Boxing Association heavyweight title.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- Don't bother reminding George Foreman that heavyweight legend Jack Johnson was still fighting at 60 or that former light-heavyweight king Archie Moore ended his legendary ring career at 49 with a third-round knockout."

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- "A faithful witness, someone'll stick with you when you need them . . . There are always people sneaking up behind you, hugging your pocket."Thus saith the Rev. George Foreman yesterday, preaching at the Shiloh Baptist Church.It was a sermon by the mount who will challenge Evander Holyfield for the heavyweight championship Friday night in the other Atlantic City. Maybe it was a shill -- getting the 42-year-old minister to Shiloh, a two-story brick building with peeling paint on a block of desolation -- a chance to get a few live minutes of ESPN time and make a few pay-per-view sales.

Former heavyweight champion Joe Frazier is writing a book. It's his autobiography and he promises it will be best-seller material.The title: "Joe Frazier, the Champ Nobody Knows.""This will be about the ordinary Joe -- who ain't so ordinary," says Frazier, with his familiar grin.The former champ gets serious when he tells you more than a few chapters will be on the man he still calls Cassius Clay."It's stuff you never read in any newspapers," says Frazier, who engaged Muhammad Ali in three of the most memorable fights ever.

NEW YORK -- If Leon Gast were a boxer instead of a filmmaker, you'd describe him as a guy with a lot of heart, which is sometimes a nice way of saying that he doesn't know when he has taken too many shots to the head.As it turns out, Gast has taken many blows along the way, and not just the figurative kind, from a Liberian dictator or -- worse, much worse -- from Hollywood producers. There was also the thumping he took from a few of the Hell's Angels. But that's another story.This is the story of a man who needed 22 years to produce a documentary on Muhammad Ali's gloriously incongruous rope-a-dope victory over George Foreman, the famous 1974 Rumble in the Jungle in Zaire.

TOKYO -- George Foreman was supposed to be too old and too fat to box. Tommy Morrison, some said, should not fight because he is infected with the virus that causes AIDS.But the two heavyweights overcame their doubters, at least for the moment, winning convincing victories over clearly overmatched opponents in Tokyo yesterday.The 47-year-old, 253-pound Foreman bested Crawford Grimsley, a 34-year-old former kick boxer, by a unanimous decision.Morrison, on the undercard, used powerful overhand rights to deck little-known Marcus Rhode three times in the first round, winning a mere 1 minute, 38 seconds after the opening bell.