Big George Part One: The Brooding Menace

 George Foreman

 

On Friday 21st March 2025, the boxing world was left with a huge void when it was announced by his family with a post on Instagram that George Foreman, the former two-time heavyweight champion of the world, had died peacefully. The post read: “Our hearts are broken. A devout preacher, a devoted husband, a loving father, and a proud grand and great-grandfather, he lived a life marked by unwavering faith, humility, and purpose.

"A humanitarian, an Olympian, and two-time heavyweight champion of the world, He was deeply respected - a force for good, a man of discipline, conviction, and a protector of his legacy, fighting tirelessly to preserve his good name - for his family."

Tributes poured out from the world’s boxing community, with Mike Tyson saying: “Foreman’s contribution to boxing and beyond will never be forgotten.”

The Ring Magazine, recently revived by Turki Al-Sheikh, described him as “one of the greatest heavyweights of all time,” adding: “The Ring is deeply saddened to learn of the passing of George Foreman.

“(He) will be remembered as an icon of the sport forever. Our deepest sympathies are with George’s friends and family at this time.”

Born in Marshall, Texas, on 10th January 1949 as George Edward Foreman, he was raised along with six siblings by his mother, Nancy, and J. D. Foreman - whom she married when George was a small child - in the segregated American South. His biological father was a man named Leroy Moorehead.

Foreman, by his own admission, was a troubled child, dropping out of school aged fifteen and turning to street robberies before joining the Job Corps at sixteen in an attempt to turn his life around.

It was there, in 1966, that he started boxing - not successfully - losing his amateur debut only to storm back in 1967 to win the Parks Diamond Belt and the Californian Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championships, both in the Junior Division. He also won the Nevada Golden Gloves title by knocking out Thomas Cook.That same year, Foreman lost to Clay Hodges in the National Golden Gloves Final, held in Milwaukee. In 1968, he won the Californian Golden Gloves and the National Amateur Athletic Union championships. He also made the US Olympic team, capturing a gold medal in the Mexico City Games with a victory over Russia’s Ionis Chepulis.

Foreman turned professional on 29th June 1969, scoring a third-round technical knockout over Don Weldham. In his fourth contest, he stopped Chuck Wepner in round three - Wepner went on to challenge Muhammad Ali for the heavyweight title in March 1975, scoring a knockdown over the champion, which inspired Sylvester Stallone to write the Oscar-winning movie, Rocky.

By May 1971, aged twenty-two, Foreman, taking part in his twenty-seventh contest, challenged Gregorio Peralta for the vacant North American Boxing Federation heavyweight title, vacated by Muhammad Ali when he challenged unsuccessfully for Joe Frazier’s world heavyweight championship in March 1971.

This was not the first time Foreman and Peralta had met in the ring. They first crossed swords in February 1970 on the undercard to Joe Frazier unifying the heavyweight title against Jimmy Ellis. That night, Foreman won an unpopular decision in New York, and the Madison Square Garden crowd booed the victor out of the ring. On this occasion, Foreman made no doubt of whom the winner was, knocking out the vastly experienced Peralta in the tenth round to claim his first professional championship.

On 22nd January 1973, Foreman travelled to Jamaica’s National Stadium to challenge Joe Frazier for the heavyweight title. The challenger had an unblemished record of 37-0 (34 KOs) whilst the champion, who was making his tenth defence, also boasted an impressive 29-0 resume with twenty-five knockouts, which included a points victory over former champion Muhammad Ali.

Las Vegas bookies made the champion a 3½-to-1 favourite to hold onto his crown, but Foreman made the oddsmakers look stupid when he floored the defending champion three times in the opening round. Three more knockdowns in the next round cemented Foreman’s victory as he became the new heavyweight champion of the world.

In September 1973, Foreman travelled to Tokyo, Japan, making the first defence of the title against Puerto Rico’s Jose Roman. The Japanese fans, seeing the heavyweight championship in their country for the first time, only got to witness two-minutes of the contest, with Foreman rendering his opponent unconscious with a right uppercut.

Six months later, the heavyweight champion found himself in Caracas, Venezuela, facing the challenge of Ken Norton, who had gone twenty-four rounds with Muhammad Ali - winning and losing twelve round split decisions respectively - in his last two contests.

Foreman, like with Frazier and Roman, wasted little time and crushed Norton in the second round, flooring the challenger three times to set up a high-profile encounter with former champion, Muhammad Ali, which was signed four days before the Foreman-Norton contest.

The bout was set for 24th September 1974, in Kinshasa, Zaire - now the Democratic Republic of Congo - with both Ali and Foreman spending much of the summer training to get their bodies acclimatised to the African country’s tropical weather.

The fight was Don King’s first big venture in boxing, and the colourful promoter managed to get the fighters to allow him to promote them if he could secure a purse of $5 million. There was one small problem - King did not have the funds, nor was he welcome to hold an event of this magnitude in the United States - so he looked for an outside country to sponsor and hold the event. 

President Mobutu Sese Seko was persuaded by his American advisor, Fred Weymar, to hold the event in Zaire, saying the high-profile event would generate enough publicity to help his regime. The dictator, who was as flamboyant as Don King, agreed.

King arranged the Rumble In The Jungle with music businessman Jerry Masucci, who took his record label’s showcase group, the Fania All-Stars, to play at the Stade du 20 Mai venue, along with performances by James Brown, the Pointer Sisters, B.B. King and Celia Cruz, among others.

To finance the event, King pulled together a consortium that included Risnelia Investment from Panama; the Hemdale Film Corporation, a British company founded by film producer John Daly and actor David Hemmings; Video Techniques Incorporated of New York, and Don King Promotions. 

To pay the athletes, King admitted in a television interview that Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, was involved in covering the cost of the purse and the fighters’ expenses, although the precise process was not made clear. 

Ali may have been a heavy underdog, but he was a very endearing figure, in contrast to Foreman’s brooding and menacing demeanour. Saying things like: “George Foreman is nothing but a big mummy. I’ve officially named him ‘The Mummy.’ He moves like a slow mummy, and there ain’t no mummy gonna whup the great Muhammad Ali,” and: “If you think the world was surprised when Nixon resigned, wait till I whup Foreman’s behind,” helped to win over the Zaire people and his mind games played out well, turning them against the champion, with the Congolese people chanting “Ali bomaye!”, which means “Ali, kill him!”

However, the original September date had to be rescheduled to 30th October when Foreman suffered a cut right eye that required eleven stitches when his sparring partner, Bill McMurray, accidentally caught him with an elbow during sparring.

The delay did not change the minds of the experts, who had the thirty-two-year-old Ali as a massive underdog, despite being the twenty-five-year-old champion’s top contender. Ali’s chances of winning were so bad, it was reported that some of his own entourage feared for his health. 

Of course, Ali defied the odds and employed his legendary tactic of rope-a-dope from the second round. Foreman unleashed barrage after barrage of his murderous punches, which were mostly absorbed on the challenger’s gloves as he covered up on the ropes, waiting for the champion to expend energy.

By round eight, Foreman had punched himself out and Ali’s plan had worked, regaining the heavyweight title - only the second man to do so after Floyd Patterson - after two minutes and 58 seconds of the round.

The defeat was a hard pill to swallow, with Foreman saying: "After the fight, for a while I was bitter. I had all sorts of excuses. The ring ropes were loose. The referee counted too fast. The cut hurt my training. I was drugged. I should have just said the best man won, but I'd never lost before so I didn't know how to lose."

On 26th April 1975, Foreman returned to the ring in an exhibition, fighting five men on the same night over a duration of three rounds, at the Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto. The event was shown live on ABC Wide World of Sports. Alonzo Johnson, Jerry Judge and Terry Daniels were knocked out, whilst Charley Polite and Boone Kirkman were allowed to survive the three rounds.

Howard Cosell, the ringside commentator, along with the majority of the 5,500 crowd, found the exhibition an embarrassment. Muhammad Ali, who was co-commentating with Cosell, heckled the former champion at every opportune moment, with the spectators occasionally chanting Ali’s name. 

Foreman got his career on track on 24th January 1976, taking on Ron Lyle for the NABF heavyweight title, left vacant by Ken Norton. The ex-heavyweight champion was a five-to-one favourite but was rocked in the opening round. Lyle was hurt in round two, though weathered the storm and dropped Foreman early in the fourth. It was Lyle’s turn to taste the canvas, only to regroup and floor Foreman again at the end of the round. In 2001, Ring Magazine named the round the sixth most exciting round in boxing history.

The fighters weren’t done yet; Lyle hurt his man early in the fifth, but Foreman fired back with a barrage of heavy punches to put Lyle down for the count with 32 seconds of the round remaining.

On 15th June, the new NABF champion put his title on the line against Joe Frazier in New York. Despite his two round blowout against Foreman some three years previously, one Las Vegas oddsmaker installed Frazier - who, some hours before the contest, decided to shave his head on pure impulse - as a seven-to-five favourite.

Foreman ended the challenge in the fifth round, dropping his opponent twice, with Frazier’s trainer, Eddie Futch, signalling to referee Harold Valan to stop the fight after he rose from the second knockdown.

Foreman knocked out his next three opponents to improve his record to 45-1 (42 KOs) before facing Jimmy Young at the Coliseo Roberto Clemente, San Juan, Puerto Rico on 17th March 1977. Young, having been hurt in the seventh and admitting later, "George did not know it, but while I may have been standing, I was out cold. He could have pushed me over with his little finger. How I survived that round I will never know," floored Foreman in the twelfth round to secure a unanimous decision.

San Juan’s high temperatures were definitely a factor for Foreman, who suffered from heat exhaustion. He told his trainer, Gil Clancy, in the dressing room after the fight that as he left the ring he was plunged into despair. He believed he had died, and a giant hand was carrying him out of the emptiness that was engulfing him. He also thought his head and hands were bleeding, as he yelled, “Jesus Christ is coming alive in me.”

Foreman jumped into the shower before his entourage could stop him, and as the water poured over him, he shouted, “Hallelujah, I’m clean! Hallelujah! I’ve been born again.”

“It was hot as hell in the ring,” Clancy said later. “He was hallucinating from dehydration.” 

Foreman believed he had had a real religious experience and retired from boxing to become an ordained minister.

All the best fight fans

Lea

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