Big George Part Two: The Punching Preacher

 George Foreman

George Foreman spent ten years out of boxing, practicing as an ordained minister at the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in Texas, which he founded and built. He accredited the loss to Muhammad Ali as, “The best thing that ever happened to me” as it led him to “get my message out” through preaching.

In a BBC article, he stated that his preaching started small on street corners and with friends, before growing. “We began meeting informally at various homes in Houston, and before long, the crowds became too large for most houses to accommodate

“Eventually, we bought a piece of land and an old, dilapidated building on the north-east side of Houston.”

He also founded the George Foreman Youth and Community Center, just down the block from his church. It was a large warehouse that was abandoned by a building contractor before completion. Foreman formed a charitable foundation that bought the warehouse, paid for refurbishments, and kitted it out with weights, boxing equipment and a basketball court. 

Unfortunately for Foreman, he did not have the finances to keep the Youth Centre going, and was told by his attorney to close it down. Foreman, who knew the place was helping underprivileged kids in the area, refused and relied on a previous vocation to acquire the funds — boxing!

On 9th March 1987, aged thirty-eight and eight days shy of a decade out of a professional ring, Foreman climbed through the ropes to face Steve Zouski, at Sacramento’s Arco Arena.

Along with his hair, the intimidating, expressionless face and the man of few words had gone, and was replaced by a jovial, quick-witted, mellowed character, who seemed at ease in the limelight. However, the punching power never disappeared, and Foreman, weighing a massive 267 pounds (121.11 Kg) took out the smaller Zouski in four rounds.

And so the comeback began, even though it was widely seen as a gimmick, Foreman firmly set his sights on regaining the heavyweight championship. That dream was realised when he challenged fellow bible basher Evander Holyfield for the undisputed title on 19th April 1991 at Atlantic City’s Convention Center.

Since 1987, Foreman had amassed a 24-0 (23 KOs), which included a seventh-round technical knockout over former light-heavyweight and cruiserweight world champion Dwight Muhammad Qawi, a second-round retirement of Bert Cooper  —  who would later challenge twice for the heavyweight  —  high-profile second-round knockout against fellow veteran Gerry Cooney, and a second round knockout against the top ten rated Brazilian Adilson Rodrigues, with only Everett ‘Bigfoot’ Martin taking him the full ten rounds, bringing his record to 69-2 (65 KOs).

The fight with Holyfield, billed as Battle of the Ages, marked the launch of TVKO —  which later became HBO Pay-Per-View —  saw 1.45 million households in the US paying an average of $37.50 to watch the contest. The revenue from closed-circuit television, foreign rights and rebroadcast rights to Home Box Office generated enough money to pay the champion $20 million and the challenger $12.5 million. “I’m not fighting for money,” insisted Foreman. “You’ve got to have focus. You just fight for money, you get hurt. You focus on the title, you’ll just naturally make money doing it.”

Ex-champions and opponents of Foreman, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, stood in the ring and were announced to the 17,000 spectators in attendance, illustrating the generational gap between the twenty-eight-year-old Holyfield and his forty-two-year-old challenger.

Size was also a factor, Holyfield, who started his professional career in the light-heavyweight division and captured the undisputed cruiserweight championship, tipped the scales at 208 pounds (94.53 Kg), with Foreman weighing 257 pounds (116.57 Kg).

The consensus was that the three-to-one betting favourite champion would stay out of the way of his bigger opponent. However, Holyfield elected to stay close in the opening round, using his speed and lateral movement to good effect and getting in and out of his opponent’s crisscross guard, keeping Foreman on the defensive.

The tactics almost paid dividends for the challenger towards the end of the second round, when he detonated a heavy left to the head. Holyfield was stunned and Foreman started to land some hard blows to prove the doubters he was in the contest.

Holyfield started round three with intent, only to be stunned again by the man mountain in front of him, before unleashing a barrage of unanswered blows to have Foreman tottering at the bell.

The champion’s quickness of hand and foot banked him round four, but Foreman’s heavy hands had Holyfield in trouble in the fifth. Round six was also good for ‘Big George’, proving once again he could hang with the younger champion.

Holyfield was hurt by a looping right hand in the seventh, but the champion bit down on his gum shield and unleashed a salvo of heavy blows to have Foreman looking fatigued. The older man also soaked up punishment in rounds eight and nine, before finding his range with an old-fashioned one-two in the tenth.

A point deduction from Foreman because of a low blow in the penultimate round meant the challenger needed to knock out his opponent if he had any chance of regaining the heavyweight title.

Unfortunately for Foreman, the big punch never came, and both men heard the final bell, with Holyfield winning unanimously by scores of 116-111, 117-110 115-112. The pro-Foreman crowd booed the decision, who scored the contest with their hearts and not the fact that Holyfield out landed Foreman by 335 punches to 188. “He had a granite chin,” Holyfield praised. “He pressured me the full twelve rounds. He made me punch when I didn’t want to punch. If I wasn’t punching him, he’d be punching me.”

Foreman ignored any calls for his retirement and returned to action in December 1991, with a third round TKO over the undefeated Jimmy Ellis. Four months later, he was up against Alex Stewart at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. Stewart boasted a 28-3 (28 KOs), and only lost to Evander Holyfield, Mike Tyson and Michael Moorer.

Foreman looked every part of the six-to-one favourite when he floored Stewart twice in the second round. However, Stewart bravely battled back, grotesquely swelling Foreman’s face with his own heavy hands to drop a majority ten-round decision by two cards of 94-93 and 94 apiece.

Again, any calls for the ‘Punching Preacher’ to retire fell on deaf ears, as he next faced South Africa’s Pierre Coetzer at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center on 16th January 1993. Coetzer had a decent 39-4 (27 KOs) resume, and was at one point the WBA’s top contender until he lost an eliminator within seven rounds to Riddick Bowe in July 1992, and in his last fight was stopped in the eighth round against Frank Bruno in October 1992.

Foreman, 258 pounds (117.03 Kg), floored his 216 pound (97.98 Kg) opponent in the fourth round and later yelled at referee Joe Cortez to stop the fight. Cortez allowed the action to continue and Coetzer was knocked down again in the eighth round, with the South African being rescued shortly after taking a few more punches from the former heavyweight champion.

The victory set up a showdown with fellow hard-puncher Tommy ‘The Duke’ Morrison for the vacant WBO heavyweight title on 7th June 1993. Morrison got his ‘Duke’ moniker from being the nephew (some sources suggest great nephew) of the actor John Wayne, whose real name was Marion Robert Morrison. However, Wayne’s son, Patrick, questioned the relationship, saying: “I really don’t know if he’s related to us or not. But if he keeps winning, I’d have to say, sure, he’s my dad’s nephew.”

Morrison only lost once in his professional career, when he first challenged Ray Mercer for the WBO title in October 1991, suffering a brutal fifth round knockout. Although he bounced back with eight knockouts to increase his record to 36-1 (32 KOs), his vulnerability in previous fights caused the oddsmakers to install Foreman as a seven-to-five betting favourite to become the new champion.

Foreman, at forty-four, and giving away twenty years, could not detonate a lethal punch on the mobile Morrison’s suspect chin, with ‘The Duke’ running out a unanimous 118-109, 117-110 and 116-111 decision to rest the vacant championship, inflicting defeat number four on the veteran’s record.

It looked as if the big man from Texas had retired from boxing, only for the new WBA and IBF heavyweight champion, Michael Moorer, to select him as his maiden challenger. Moorer, a southpaw from Monessen, Pennsylvania, started his career as a light-heavyweight and in his twelfth contest became the inaugural WBO champion with a fifth round TKO over Ramzi Hassan in December 1988.

Moorer made ten successful defences of his championship, before moving up to the heavyweight division in April 1991, making Terry Davis his twenty-third knockout victim in as many fights. Moorer was finally taken the distance in February and March 1992 by Mike White and Everett ‘Bigfoot’ Martin respectively, before having an up-and-downer against Bert Cooper in a vacant WBO heavyweight title fight, which Moorer won in the fifth round.

The new champion never defended the belt, with Foreman and Morrison battling it out for the vacant strap. Moorer, however, continued winning to become WBA and IBF mandatory challenger to Evander Holyfield, getting his opportunity in April 1994. The challenger had to climb off the canvas in the second round to eke out a close majority decision to relieve Holyfield of his belts.

 Moorer-Foreman took place on 5th November 1994 at the MGM Grand, Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas. The twenty-six-year-old champion was nineteen years Foreman’s junior and a three-to-one betting favourite, but the elder statesman outweighed his younger counterpart by 28 pounds (12.70 Kg).

Despite the weight advantage, Moorer was able to soundly outbox Foreman and build up a sizeable lead going into the homestretch. The points advantage was rendered useless when the challenger connected with the champion’s chin with a right hand in round ten. Moorer was flat on his back before starting to roll onto his front when referee Joe Cortez reached the count of five. Fortunately for Foreman, the southpaw was unable to get back up as the referee counted him out at the two minutes and three seconds mark of the round.  

Foreman had regained the heavyweight title he lost to Muhammad Ali twenty years previously, and at the age of forty-five, became the oldest heavyweight champion ever. The fight was named Knockout of the Year by Ring Magazine, who also awarded Foreman with the Comeback of the Year Award.

In January 1995, the World Boxing Association stripped Foreman of their belt for refusing to face Tony Tucker, their mandatory challenger. Still holding the International Boxing Federation title, Foreman elected to face the twenty-six-year-old German Axel Schulz in Las Vegas on 22nd April.

The champion looked nothing like the six-to-one betting favourite, and Schulz found himself on the wrong side of a 115-113 (twice) and 114-114 majority decision. The IBF subsequently mandated Schulz an immediate rematch, only for Foreman to refuse and vacated the championship.

Foreman carried on with his career as Lineal heavyweight champion, and next fought ex-kickboxer Crawford Grimsley in Japan on 3rd November 1996. A unanimous decision in the champion’s favour put the first blemish on Grimsley’s unbeaten twenty-fight career. Five months later, Foreman faced another unbeaten fighter, the 36-0 Lou Savarese in Atlantic City. Despite being the pre-fight favourite, the thirty-one-year-old challenger dropped a split decision to the forty-eight-year-old champion. 

On 22nd November 1997, Foreman found himself once again in Atlantic City, stepping through the ropes at the Trump Taj Mahal. Standing across from him was twenty-five-year-old Shannon ‘The Cannon’ Briggs. After twelve rounds, it was perceived that Foreman, weighing 260 pounds (117.93 Kg), was unfortunate to drop a majority decision to the 227 pound (102.97 Kg) challenger.

This would be the final time ‘Big George’ entered a professional ring and left boxing with a 76-5 (68 KOs) resume. However, promoter Roger Leavitt enticed Foreman to return to action on 23rd January 1999, offering him $10 million to face Larry Holmes. Forman later pulled out of the date when Leavitt lost a major financial backer and could not come up with the money in a timely manner. Foreman had already received a $1 million advance in the purse, with Holmes banking $400,000 of his $4 million purse, with both deposits being nonrefundable

‘Big George’ was not far from the limelight, working as a boxing commentator for HBO until 2004, and, of course, was well-known out of the sport for being pitchman for the George Foreman Grill, which has sold millions since hitting the market in 1994, with his memorable catchphrase, “Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine.”

Foreman had been married five-times and has a dozen children, with five of his sons all being called George, telling his website “they would always have something in common.

"I say to them, 'If one of us goes up, then we all go up together," he explained. "And if one goes down, we all go down together!'"

George Foreman passed away peacefully on 21st March 2025 in Houston, Texas, aged seventy-six, with his family saying he was “surrounded by loved ones.”

A memorial service was held in his hometown on 14th April at Wortham Theater Center and was open to the public through tickets, which were available free of charge due to the site’s limited seating and security measures. Certain portions of the service were also by private invitation only, stated the family on Foreman’s Instagram page.

"The service will reflect on Foreman’s contributions as an athlete, a businessman, a man of deep Christian faith, and a mentor to young people across Houston and beyond. It will also honour his legacy of service through initiatives like the George Foreman Youth and Community Center, where he dedicated himself to providing opportunities and hope for others” read a statement on the memorial's page.

All the best fight fans

Lea

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