Foreman vs Moorer, 1994: Nine Rounds Behind, One Right Hand, and the Oldest Heavyweight Champion
Trailing on all three cards against unbeaten Michael Moorer, 45-year-old George Foreman landed a short right hand in the tenth round at the MGM Grand on November 5, 1994, and became the oldest heavyweight champion in history.
On the night of November 5, 1994, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, an undefeated 26-year-old champion was nine rounds away from an easy defense of the WBA and IBF heavyweight titles. Then a 45-year-old challenger in old red trunks threw one short right hand, and the heavyweight record book had to be rewritten.
A Southpaw Champion and an Unranked Challenger
Michael Moorer arrived at the fight as the man who had made a different kind of history. Born in Brooklyn on November 12, 1967, he had first held a world title at light heavyweight, winning the WBO belt in 1988 and defending it nine times before moving up. Earlier in 1994 he took the WBA and IBF heavyweight titles from Evander Holyfield by majority decision, becoming the first left-hander to rule the division. He was 35-0 with 30 knockouts, and in late 1993 he had brought in the New York trainer Teddy Atlas to sharpen him.
For his first defense he chose George Foreman, who was 72-4 with 67 knockouts and nearly two decades removed from his first reign. On paper the matchup looked like a payday for both men rather than a real test for the younger one. According to Wikipedia's account of the fight, Moorer's purse was $7 million and Foreman's $3 million. The promotion was billed as "One for the Ages."
Winning in Court Before Winning in the Ring
The fight almost did not happen with both belts on the line. The WBA did not have Foreman among its ranked contenders and declined to sanction the bout. Foreman went to court and won on grounds of age discrimination. Boxing News reported that he then had to show the court he was still mentally sharp, and that he did it in part by reciting the serving presidents of the United States in reverse order.
The build-up had its own friction. During the promotion Atlas lost his temper and shoved Foreman. According to Boxing News, Foreman's reply was to tell Moorer's trainer, "Go get me a sandwich and sit down."
Las Vegas bookmakers made Moorer roughly a 2-to-1 favorite, a price that many in the sport considered generous to the challenger. HBO's Larry Merchant later described Foreman's chances in far more extreme terms, joking that he had been a "gazillion-to-one" shot.
Red Trunks and an Old Rival's Trainer
Two details tied the evening to Kinshasa. Foreman walked out in the same red trunks he had worn on the night he lost the title to Muhammad Ali in 1974. And working his corner was Angelo Dundee, the trainer who had stood in Ali's corner against him twenty years earlier. The man who had helped take the championship from Foreman was now trying to help him get it back.
The age gap was stark. By Wikipedia's count, Moorer was 26 years and 11 months old on fight night; Foreman was 45 years and 9 months. The referee was Joe Cortez, and the three judges were Chuck Giampa, Jerry Roth and Duane Ford.
Nine Rounds of One-Way Traffic
Once the bell rang, the fight followed the script the oddsmakers had written. Moorer was faster and busier, working behind his right jab from the southpaw stance and mixing in uppercuts, according to Boxing News. Foreman plodded forward, patient and heavy-footed, absorbing punishment and throwing far less than the champion. Sources describing the early rounds agree that Moorer was clearly outboxing him and that Foreman's face showed the wear.
The official scorecards reflected the gap. After nine rounds Roth and Giampa both had Moorer ahead 88-83, and Ford had him in front by a single point, 86-85. Foreman was behind on all three cards. With three rounds left after the ninth, he needed a knockout or something very close to it.
The Tenth Round
In the tenth Foreman began finding the range. He pushed long, probing jabs at Moorer and landed a series of punches as the champion stayed in front of him. Then came the shot that ended it: a short, compact right hand that landed flush on Moorer's chin. The champion went straight down onto his back, his lower lip split open. Cortez counted, and Moorer did not get up in time. The official time, as The Ring recorded it, was 2:03 of the tenth round.
On HBO, Jim Lampley's call became one of the best-known pieces of commentary in the sport, ending with him shouting that "It happened!" Foreman knelt in prayer while the arena erupted. Boxing News reported that his brother Roy fainted at ringside.
Moorer, looking back three decades later in an interview with The Ring, was blunt about the moment. "It wasn't the hardest. It was just the most accurate punch – that's all," he told the magazine. In the same conversation he called the result one of the biggest upsets in boxing history.
What the Night Put in the Record Book
The knockout made Foreman, at 45, the oldest man to win the heavyweight championship. Wikipedia also notes that the twenty-year span between his first and second reigns set a record for the longest gap between heavyweight title runs. He was named the Associated Press Athlete of the Year for 1994.
Holding the belts proved harder than winning them. The WBA ordered Foreman to defend against its top contender, Tony Tucker; he declined and was stripped. On April 22, 1995, he kept the IBF title against the German Axel Schulz on a disputed majority decision, with cards of 115-113, 115-113 and 114-114. The IBF wanted an immediate rematch in Germany. Sources differ on how that title ended: Foreman's Wikipedia biography says he was stripped after refusing, while the article on the Moorer fight says he relinquished the belt on June 28, 1995.
Moorer After the Upset
For Moorer, the loss was a detour rather than the end. He came back to beat Schulz for the IBF title in 1996, defended it against Francois Botha, and then lost it to Holyfield in their 1997 rematch. He finished his career in 2008 with 52 wins and 4 losses, and in 2024 he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. He remains, alongside Oleksandr Usyk, one of only two southpaws to hold the lineal heavyweight championship.
The two men ended on friendly terms. Speaking after Foreman's death in March 2025 at 76, Moorer told The Ring that the two had got on well in the years since and that he had even bought Foreman's grills. Three decades on, the fight is still remembered less for the nine rounds Moorer won than for the single punch he never saw coming.
Sources
- Michael Moorer vs. George Foreman, Wikipedia, accessed October 2026
- Michael Moorer, Wikipedia, accessed October 2026
- George Foreman, Wikipedia, accessed October 2026
- On this day: George Foreman regains the world heavyweight title at the age of 45, James Slater, Boxing News, November 5, 2019
- Michael Moorer reflects on historic fight with George Foreman: "I'm glad to be a part of it", Manouk Akopyan, The Ring, March 24, 2025
