By George Foreman

For fans, the greatest thing in sports is the knockout. You can practice a home run, a touchdown run, or a spectacular dunk. You can’t practice a knockout. It is still the ultimate in sports; everyone remembers it and talks about being there to have seen it. Even when it happens in the gym or at training camp, people start calling all around the country to say they saw it.

Among my many recollections of knockout punches are three that involved me. Twice I was on the delivery end. Once I was on the receiving end.

I remember getting ready to fight "Smokin’" Joe Frazier in Jamaica in 1973, and knowing that when the bell rang, he would be coming after me with evil intentions. The same thing that made me good might also have gotten me whupped: I don’t ever quit and will always give it my best. But I got out there and knocked Joe down to be crowned heavyweight champion of the world. It was the happiest moment of my career.

Then, over confidence set in. I was fighting Muhammad Ali in Zaire in 1974. I was thinking that the $5-million I was making was the easiest money in the world. I was going to whip the guy; he was old and over the hill. And after three or four rounds I was beating him. But by the seventh round, I was tired. I hit him in the stomach and he said, "Is that all you've got, George?" And I’m thinking, "Yup." Then I got knocked down and heard the referee count. My life was devastated.

Twenty years later I was in the ring with Michael Moore, and after about the ninth round I knew he was in territory he didn’t know. I also knew that if I went home without that victory, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself for another 20 years. When I knocked him down and out in the 10th, it was like putting all those skeletons back in the closet for good.

You have to admire a guy who goes 12 rounds and wins or a guy who pulls out a victory after trailing early. Some fighters have the know-how; they’re just good at knocking other fighters out. Still their victims will always call them lucky. In fact, knockouts surprise all of us. You do something in the ring that you did daily in the gym and – BOOM! – all of a sudden the guy is on the ground.

I remember when Sugar Ray Leonard fought Tommy Hearns in 1981, what was supposed to happen didn’t happen. Hearns, who was the guy with the big knockout power, started getting the best of Leonard in other ways. The fight went round after round, and it was enjoyable at least partly because you wanted to see if Leonard could find a way to pull it out. Then this smooth golden boy of boxing turned into a tiger and got a knockout. I’ll never forget that one.

You admire the boxers who did it over the distance and did it right. These are the ones who become the best teachers and trainers. You don’t want a guy who has had a career of knockouts for your trainer. You can’t train for a knockout. A knockout is produced by an element of surprise. When it happens, you ask yourself, "Oops, how did that happen?"

I remember speaking with Muhammad Ali in the early-70’s, just after he was relicensed to fight. I had provoked him in a hotel, and then called to apologize. He said, "That’s okay. I know you’re young. like you, I used to boast that I would knock a guy out in a certain round. But I wouldn’t know when it would happen." I remember thinking, "Wow, even he didn’t know."

When Aaron Pryor fought Alexis Arguello in 1982, they were two evenly matched guys who didn’t leave any openings for a knockout. I don’t know how it happened, but Pryor knocked him out. Even at the end, it wasn’t just a couple of bums throwing punches. It was two very skilled fighters who were boxing each other for the judges. That knockout saved the judges from having to make an impossible decision.

A knockout is not always the greatest accomplishment a fighter can achieve. A decisive victory over the long distance is better to me than a knockout. When I went to the Olympics with all my kayos, the lighter-weight, more skilled fighters told me they didn’t care if I won a gold medal because I would never be as good as they were. They knew that until you could go the distance and do it right, you would never be a complete fighter. At the same time, they had to acknowledge that a knockout is more memorable than a decision, and it remains the best method to get a fight over with.

And that will never change.