The legendary George Foreman was a big man, with an even bigger heart
National Post, 27 March 2025
Careers like Foreman’s are often called redemption stories. His actually was
George Foreman, dead at 76 last Friday in Houston, boxed at the apex of the sport in the 1970s, when the heavyweight champions — Joe Frazier, Foreman, Muhammad Ali — were among the most famous men on the planet. He returned to boxing in the 1990s, when the sport had declined dramatically in quality and public following. When he became champion again in 1994 — at age 45! — he was bigger than boxing, beloved by all.
He fought in two of the most famous matches of all time: his defeat of Frazier to become champion in 1973, and his loss to Ali in 1974. The latter devastated him. Ali not only took away his title, but made him a figure of ridicule. The brooding back-alley bruiser had been outsmarted by the self-professed pretty boy.
Foreman slinked out of boxing altogether a few desultory years later, experienced a profound religious conversion and become a Christian preacher. He began to smile, even laugh — and, more often than not, laugh at himself. When asked about his religious conversion, he would reply: “Ali (or whomever else fit the moment) beat the devil out of me!”
In 1987, 10 years into retirement, he returned to boxing. This time everyone laughed at him; no one feared Big George anymore. He came back for the money. He had a large family to support and his community centre, too, a place for bad boys like the young George Foreman to go.
Boxing saved him from the streets. He was the baddest man in the ring, winning the 1968 Olympic heavyweight gold medal only a year after he took up boxing. Turning professional, he was undefeated when he met champion Joe Frazier in 1973. Frazier, too, was undefeated, having beaten Ali in 1971, the first instalment in their tremendous trilogy.
That 1973 fight was famous for Foreman’s knock down of Frazier in the first round. Howard Cosell was on the ringside microphone: “Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!”
Three times Cosell called that first knock down. He sold Foreman short. Frazier would be knocked down six times in the first two rounds. Foreman utterly destroyed the fearsome Frazier. Could anyone beat the new champion?
Ali would try in Zaire in October 1974, the Rumble in the Jungle. Ali taunted Foreman with his usual outrageous trash talk, often tinged with racism. Ali took up the mantle of anti-colonial Black Africa, improbably calling Foreman a “Belgian.” No matter, the global press descended upon Kinshasa and Ali gave them what they wanted: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. His hands can’t hit what his eyes can’t see. Now you see me, now you don’t. George thinks he will, but I know he won’t.”
Foreman arrived at the Rumble with a record of 40-0. No one had ever beaten him. And there he would learn the lesson that would shape the rest of his life. Foreman was too powerful for Ali; if they stood toe-to-toe, Ali would go down as Frazier did in the first triple-double in sports.
Instead, Ali adopted the rope-a-dope strategy, leaning far back on the ropes as he covered up and let Foreman pummel him with blows to the arms and body. The strategy worked; Foreman exhausted himself, and a relatively fresh Ali came back to knock him out.
In Zaire, Foreman lost the match, learned a lesson, and gained a life. It was not instantaneous, but the realization of the Rumble was that even the most powerful puncher in the world could punch himself out. There were limits to brute force. The power of the fist could be defeated by the power of the mind. And, as Foreman would eventually learn, the power of the soul. Foreman could knock people down with his fists. But he could lift them up with his faith.
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