Name: George Foreman Wants To Whip Mike Tyson's Butt | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2025-03-22T04:43:45.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'George Foreman Wants To Whip Mike Tyson's Butt | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-03-22. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'George Foreman Wants To Whip Mike Tyson's Butt | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-03-22. Transcript available.

Hi, I'm late-night production assistant Barbara Sheehan, and welcome to Barbara
Sheehan's Fight Corner.
My guest tonight is former heavyweight champion George Foreman.
Let's get right to the point, George. Is Tyson ducking you?
Absolutely, Barbara.
Thank you. That concludes tonight's visit to Barbara Sheehan's Fight Corner.
Stay tuned for Late Night with Letterman.
By the way, that's a lovely jacket, Barbara. And clan?
Yeah, 30% off at Macy's.
Well, they have some cute stuff there, huh?
Tell me about it.
Excuse me. Are you guys about finished?
Oh, yes.
Okay, great. Hal, go ahead and roll the regular opening. Thanks.
You got a hit on your hands here.
Hal, thank you very much for being here, by the way. You look great. You do.
You look much younger than...
What did you say? You were 39, 40 years old in that area?
Yeah, once you get to be 39, you shouldn't say any more.
I know. What does that mean?
Jack Benny syndrome.
Oh, I see. So you're permanently going to be a 39.
But you look good. You look great.
You're only saying that because it's true.
Don't make me take you out of here, all right?
How much did you weigh? Because when you retired, you kind of ballooned. There
were stories of you being...
No, but I mean...
But you were heavier than you are now, right?
I'm not really smiling. My teeth are fixed like that.
I see.
But, I mean, you were a heavier person than you are now, right?
Well, actually, my ambition...
I left Houston, Texas in 1965 to get some money so I could eat.
I grew up so poor that you couldn't put two O's in it. It was just poor.
When I said, one day I'll come back and I'll have enough money, I'm going to
eat all I wanted.
So when you retired, you did that?
Yeah, I came back with a lot of money and did I eat?
Yeah.
They invented all these fast food chains.
Right.
And I would just go down the street and disguise myself, you know, one card,
one Big Mac,
next card, Burger King, and boy, I had a ball. Next thing I knew, I couldn't
fit any clothes.
Uh-huh. And I'll ask you one more time if you can give us a figure or do you
not want to give us a figure?
What you finally topped out at.
Well, you have a good memory. You're not going to let me slide it.
It was like three minutes ago.
It's longer than Mike Tyson's fight.
Yeah, that's true.
I weighed in, I think, about 315 pounds.
315. All right.
Now, when you were heavyweight champion of the world, what did you weigh?
About 220.
Uh-huh.
And what are you fighting at now?
It doesn't matter now. I don't even know.
It depends on if I have breakfast or not.
Now, when you're in the ring now fighting, do you feel like a different fighter
or do you feel like the same fighter?
Do you feel better, not as good? How do you feel when you're fighting now?
I feel a lot better now.
It's a lot easier to me than it was when I was young.
Now, why would it be easier? Because everybody would...
I was scared. I was only fighting.
You know, you hear, hey, you get to be a boxer, man.
You can get a fine car and a nice home and a swimming pool.
Right.
So, you find out that I got... the big houses I moved into, I was kind of
superstitious, scared of ghosts, so I don't want another big house.
Right. You don't need that.
And I couldn't swim that well.
Mm-hmm.
And I couldn't swim that well.
Mm-hmm.
Insurance got to be too high on the car, so now I just relax and have a good
time in the ring.
So, the pressure in that regard...
The pressure is all off.
...is off.
...is off, yeah.
Yeah.
You were... let's take a look at this here. You were last heavyweight champion
in 1973.
Uh-huh, 1974.
Yeah, 1974. And how long were you the champ? Was it just a...
Not very long. About two years, almost. I lost the title. Won it from Joe Frazier.
Joe Frazier in Jamaica, is that right?
And then lost it to Muhammad Ali in Africa.
In Zaire, yeah, yeah.
I don't like talking about that part of it.
Well, we're not going to dwell on that. No, I got enough sense not to dwell on
that part.
You know, we talked to Joe Frazier last week, and he was... I don't know if he
was being serious or not,
but he was talking like he might be interested in a fight with Tyson.
Boy, that'd be something, huh?
Yeah.
I'd pay to see it, really.
Yeah.
But Joe seemed like a really nice guy.
He's the greatest.
Yeah, do you have any kind of ongoing relationship with the man at all?
We're pretty good friends.
Now, I fought as a... my previous career.
I'd scare everybody in the world, but when I was getting ready to fight Joe Frazier,
he was the only guy that I was afraid of.
He was very famous for... he stared at his opponents, right?
It was my thing of staring them down.
I remember looking in guys' face, and if they would drop their face for a
moment,
I knew I had this edge I could knock them out.
But I remember when it was time to fight Smokin' Joe Frazier,
I knew if you hit him, he liked it.
Yeah.
If you missed him, he would only just... you know, he'd get upset.
Yeah.
So, I was thinking, I've got to stare him down,
because it's something people would think it ought to not.
Yeah.
And I was hoping I wouldn't win that staring match.
If he looked down, he would see my knees.
I couldn't keep them from shaking.
He was tough. He was tough.
He was tough.
In his prime, he was as good as they ever got, wasn't he?
That's right.
And the same is true for you.
Well, yeah.
So, why now, because you were still living in Houston,
you have a club for young fighters, a gym down there.
You're involved in, I guess you have a church.
Yeah.
So, you have an active, full life.
Why do you need the aggravation of training and getting into some kind of shape
to wage a comeback to become world heavyweight champion again?
I mean, you've already been there once.
Well, after listening to you, I think I need an analyst now, too.
That didn't mean to be discouraging.
What is the motivation?
But actually, I'm having a lot of fun.
You say to yourself, one day, I'm going to make a million dollars, and I'm
going to rest.
I'm going to do everything I want to do.
But you've done all of that.
And all of a sudden, after one or two years, you buy a boat, you fish, you fish,
you fish.
Right.
And then you say, man, I better do something with my life.
So, you try it on the boxing gloves again, and then all of a sudden, you
realize the trunks don't fit.
You let them out, and you have a lot of fun.
Yeah.
You know, you've described there what is a significant problem for a lot of
professional athletes.
In many cases, sometimes, before they are too far beyond the mid-30s, it's over
for them.
Yeah.
You can set your goals and reach them too quick in life.
Yeah.
To retire, I was only about 27, 28 years old.
Are you really going to fight Tyson?
No doubt.
I'm going to whip his head until he's rope like okra.
But you know, a lot of guys have said things like that.
And it hasn't happened yet.
And I'm not, see, I think in your prime, in your first prime, because you're
right, this could be your second prime.
It would have been probably, I think you can beat him, is what I'm trying to
say.
But you know what I'm saying, people are saying, he's tough, he's dangerous,
and he still hasn't peaked yet.
He's not as good as he could be.
You've got to understand, I had some mature people who were very sharp in 1965
when I went off to the Job Corps.
They told me, George.
How old were you then?
You were about 16.
And they got me to the side and they said, son, never believe that people are
going to land on the moon and orbit the earth.
Never believe it.
Don't believe it.
The best advice they were giving me.
Now I go back home and they're talking about space programs as if they never
told me, gave me this good advice.
So Mike Tyson is just some skeleton in the closet that needs to come out.
Boo!
He's not so tough.
Don't be doing that.
Oh, don't be doing that boo stuff.
But really, he's not so tough.
He's got that reputation.
You know, once you get a reputation.
But you know, the last fight lasted 93 seconds.
I guess the sphinx fight was even shorter than that one.
And the people are now saying, geez, you know, we're not really interested in
seeing Tyson fight these guys anymore.
But I have a feeling people would be interested in seeing you fight him.
That's right.
I tell people all the time, at my age, I'm 40 years, okay?
If Mike Tyson get in the ring, he wins.
But there's another sports car or whatever you buy, a swimming pool.
But if I get in that ring and whip him, can you imagine all the great beers who
are going to stand up and say,
Whippy Ty-yo!
I got that energy behind me.
Plus, I can hit pretty hard.
Yeah, I would think so.
Are you worried about maybe at this stage of your life with a family and all of
these other responsibilities now,
are you worried maybe about getting hurt in this fight?
Not at all.
One of my daughters, she used to hear about my evangelistic stories about how I
traveled around the world and lived high on the hog and sold my oats, so to
speak.
One of my children got me off to the side and said, Daddy, 16-year-old, I want
to know, is Mike Tyson your son?
I had to convince her with the geography part, you know, hey, no way.
It would just be impossible.
She had heard that he was kind of, you know, the orphan type.
Okay, all right.
So the only fear is that I might be whipping my son.
When might this happen if it happens?
Well, I'm hoping that it'll get signed before the year's over.
Dunn King just had Al Braverman just call me his man.
So really, they're talking about this, man.
It may happen pretty quick.
We can make a lot of money.
It's a pleasure to meet you, George.
Good luck to you.
And come back and see us.
George Foreman, we'll be right back.