Outside the Beltway

George Foreman, 1949-2025

The boxing great and grill pitchman is gone at 76.

James Joyner · Saturday, March 22, 2025 · 5 comments

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ESPN, “Two-time heavyweight champion George Foreman dies at age 76“

“Big” George Foreman, one of the most influential and recognizable boxers of all time, died Friday, his family announced on his social media account. He was 76.

Foreman, who won an Olympic gold medal in 1968, was a two-time heavyweight champion and Hall of Fame boxer.

He is perhaps best known for the historic Rumble in the Jungle bout with Muhammad Ali in 1974 in Zaire, a fight Foreman lost in an upset via eighth-round knockout. It’s arguably the most famous fight of all time, and the “When We Were Kings” film that chronicled the fight won an Oscar for best documentary feature.

Foreman made history yet again later in his career. He fought five more times after he lost the heavyweight championship to Ali at age 25, including a fifth-round TKO victory over Joe Frazier (whom he stopped in two rounds to first win the title) and a fifth-round knockout of Ron Lyle in a classic slugfest.

After that fifth fight at 28, Foreman shockingly announced his retirement and began a career as an ordained minister in his native Texas.

Foreman was retired for 10 years. He returned to boxing in 1987 at age 38 and mounted arguably the most impressive sports comeback ever.

At first, Foreman padded his record with easy wins. One of them was a second-round knockout of Gerry Cooney. But in 1991, Foreman proved this comeback was for real when he pushed the great Evander Holyfield to the brink in a classic heavyweight title fight at age 42. Though he was unsuccessful in his bid to become a two-time heavyweight champion, Foreman was undeterred.

Five fights later, after a loss to Tommy Morrison, Foreman accomplished the unthinkable.

Down on the scorecards in another title fight, Foreman landed a two-punch combination that laid Michael Moorer down for the count of 10 in 1994. At 45 years, 299 days old, Foreman was once again the heavyweight champion of the world, the oldest man to hold boxing’s greatest prize (and also the oldest champion ever, a record that stood for 20 years).

“It happened,” Jim Lampley called on the HBO broadcast. “It happened!”

Foreman went on to have a successful career alongside Lampley as an HBO boxing analyst. But his greatest success outside the ring was yet to come.

The same year that Foreman defeated Moorer, he launched his eponymous grill, which went on to sell more than 100 million units worldwide. In 1999, he sold the commercial rights to the George Foreman grill for $138 million.

New York Times, “George Foreman, Boxing Champion and Grilling Magnate, Dies at 76“

George Foreman, a heavyweight boxing champion who returned to the sport to regain his title at the improbable age of 45, and parlayed his fame and amiable personality into a multimillion-dollar grill business, died on Friday night at a hospital in Houston. He was 76.

[…]

Foreman’s career spanned generations: He fought Chuck Wepner in the 1960s, Dwight Muhammad Qawi in the ’80s and Evander Holyfield in the ’90s.

With Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali, Foreman embodied a golden era in the 1970s, when boxing was still a cultural force in America. The three great champions thrilled fans with one classic bout after another. Foreman was the last living member of the trio.

And his popularity helped him make millions selling grills after his retirement.

[…]

Success came quickly in the amateur ranks; only a year and a half later he was Olympic heavyweight champion, defeating Ionas Chepulis of the Soviet Union by a second-round knockout in Mexico City in 1968.

After the fight, Foreman, who was Black, waved a small American flag in the ring, days after the track athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised clenched fists during the national anthem to protest the country’s treatment of Black people.

“I was just glad to be an American,” Foreman said afterward. “Some people have tried to make something of it, calling me an Uncle Tom, but I’m not. I just believe people should live together in peace.”

Turning professional, he started a heavy schedule of fights, boxing as many as a dozen times in a year. He was 37-0 when he got his first shot at a world heavyweight title against Frazier in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1973.

Though he was a 3-1 underdog, Foreman dominated the fight, knocking Frazier down six times before the contest was stopped halfway through the second round. One of those knockdowns led the television announcer Howard Cosell to utter one of boxing’s most famous calls: “Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!”

“It was unbelievable,” the Times sports columnist Arthur Daley wrote. “In little more than four and a half minutes, George Foreman destroyed Joe Frazier tonight, and the man who supposedly couldn’t lose never had even one ghost of a chance for victory. So there is a new heavyweight champion of the world, and he won it with authority in an explosive demonstration of overpowering punching skills.”

Foreman defended the title twice, before a match with Ali in Zaire in 1974 that would become known as the Rumble in the Jungle. This time, Foreman was the favorite, but Ali reclaimed the title, dealing Foreman his first career loss.

Ali used his rope-a-dope strategy, resting on the top rope and allowing Foreman to punch him, but also tire himself out. Ali finished the fight with a left-right combination knockout in the eighth round.

[…]

But the ring lured him back. “I want to be champion again,” he said in 1987. “I’ve got a three-year plan. I want to start at the bottom. Train harder than any man in the world. Fight once a month.”

He admitted money was a factor as well. “You know that story about how you have four pockets in your pants, and you better save what’s in one pocket so you can live?” he said. “I saved one pocket. I’ve got money for steak and potatoes. But the other three pockets I just blew.”

[…]

[He] managed to land another title shot in 1994 against Moorer, 26, who had defeated Holyfield. Some called it undeserved and suggested that Foreman got the chance only because of his fame and the novelty of his age. “It’s not about deserving,” he said with a smile, “because I’ve got it.”

Foreman was trailing on the judges’ scorecards when he managed to land the big punch he was looking for and knocked Moorer out in the 10th round in Las Vegas. Moorer had thrown 641 punches, to 369 by Foreman. But the last one was the one that counted.

Foreman had stood rather than sit on a stool between rounds as if to defy his 45 years. He became the oldest heavyweight champion in history.

“Anything you desire, you can make happen,” he said after the fight. “It’s like the song, ‘When you wish upon a star your dreams come true.’ Well, look at me tonight.”

Washington Post, “George Foreman, champion boxer and ubiquitous entrepreneur, dies at 76“

George Foreman, a towering American sporting and business icon who rose from a troubled youth to become heavyweight champion of the world and a beloved pitchman, died Friday at 76, his family announced in an Instagram post.

[…]

Foreman lived as if setting out to prove there are second acts in American life — and even third, fourth, fifth and sixth acts. He was a self-described “rebellious teen” as a child growing up in Houston’s Fifth Ward. He gravitated toward boxing and rose to become one of the fight game’s most menacing figures at what was arguably the sport’s peak. He sold millions of the George Foreman Grill, an appliance that became ubiquitous in family kitchens and college dorm rooms. He evolved publicly from a scowling fighter to a charming, grinning preacher.

[…]

“Big George,” as he was known — he stood 6-foot-3 and typically weighed in at over 250 pounds — first came into public view at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, where he won a gold medal. He turned professional a year later and began a steady rise. He became heavyweight champion when he knocked out Joe Frazier in 1973, his finishing blow accompanied by Howard Cosell’s famous call: “Down goes Frazier!”

Foreman lost one of the most famed fights in boxing history, the “Rumble in Jungle” in Zaire in 1974, when Muhammad Ali beat him using a strategy he termed the “rope-a-dope.” He lost for only the second time in 1977, to Jimmy Young in Puerto Rico. “In his locker room after the match, George had a deeply religious experience that changed his life forever,” his personal website described. Foreman retired at 28 and became an ordained minister.

Foreman started a youth center down the street from the church where he preached. In need of money to keep the center open, Foreman came out of retirement in 1987. For all his victories and power as a young fighter, Foreman’s most lasting performance may have come in 1990. At age 42, weighing more than 250 pounds, his sculpted muscles rounded off by middle age, Foreman lasted 12 rounds with heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield, losing by decision.

In all, he had an astonishing 81 professional bouts, winning 76 — 68 of those coming via knockout. His final fight was a loss to Shannon Briggs in 1997.

Foreman’s business acumen ensured he wouldn’t have to worry about money. He lent his name and image to Salton Inc. to sell a portable, electric grill with steel plates pitched to allow grease to run off. Salton sold more than 100 million grills and, in 1999, paid Foreman $137.5 million to continue using his likeness.

Foreman had five sons and named them George Jr., George III, George IV, George V and George VI.

“I named all my sons George Edward Foreman so they would always have something in common,” Foreman wrote on his personal website.

I was just shy of nine when the Rumble in the Jungle happened and just shy of ten when the Thrilla and Manilla took place. While I’m sure we watched those events—boxing was on free TV in those days and viewing choices were much more constrained—I don’t have strong real-time recollections of them. But the Ali-Foreman-Frazier heavyweight era and the Leonard-Hagler-Hearns-Duran middleweight era was certainly a golden age of boxing.

Even though the sport itself was in steep decline by that point—both because it had mostly moved to pay-per-view and a growing sense that it was barbaric—I was much more focused during Foreman’s improbable comeback. He started trying to regain the title while I was in the Army and managed to do so while I was in grad school. Even though Moorer was far from heralded champion, there’s something mythic about a 45-year-old being heavyweight champion of the world.

The infomercials that sold the Foreman grills were humorous and wildly successful. Seemingly everyone had one, including my mom and I (separately). Indeed, I still have one, even though I almost never use it anymore.