George Foreman

Boxer

• Born: January 10, 1949
• Place of Birth: Marshall, Texas

BOXER AND ENTREPRENEUR

Overcoming the challenges of his early life, Foreman won two heavyweight boxing world titles, twenty years apart. In addition to his successful boxing career, Foreman also became an ordained minister, an entrepreneur, and a sought-after media personality.

AREAS OF ACHIEVEMENT: Business; Entertainment; Religion and theology; Sports: boxing; Sports: Olympics

Early Life

George Edward Foreman was born in Marshall, Texas, the fifth of seven children, to Nancy Ree Nelson. His real father was Leroy Moorehead, but Foreman did not discover this for many years (the man he called father was J. D. Foreman). George Foreman’s mother was from a poor sharecropping family, and his father worked on the railroad and spent much of his time drinking. Foreman knew that his father loved him, however, and the two often played at boxing, father telling son that he would be a champion someday. When the family moved to the Fifth Ward in Houston, Texas, Foreman attended several different schools. Hungry and poorly dressed, he felt inferior and played truant. He started playing football at school when he was thirteen; he was a talented player but was removed from the team for smoking.

Foreman left school when he was fifteen and began working at menial jobs. Disillusioned, he began mugging, fighting, and drinking and ended up losing his job. Salvation appeared when his sister Mary told him about President Lyndon Johnson’s Job Corps, part of the War on Poverty program. Foreman was sent to a center in Oregon to learn a trade. There his aggression was curbed, and he caught up on his schooling, acquiring a thirst for knowledge. Foreman also began boxing and trained with one of the counselors, Charles “Doc” Broadus. Foreman won his first amateur bout by a knockout in the first round. Proud and pleased, he felt that at last he had direction in life.

Foreman lost one or two of his early bouts because of his lack of experience and technical ability, but gradually his immense natural strength began to assert itself. He started winning regularly by rushing his opponents and using his hitting power to knock them out. Even at that early stage, Broadus discussed the possibility of Foreman going to the Olympic Games or turning professional. However, Foreman just wanted to get home to show off his medals and use his new qualifications to get a job. When one did not appear straightaway, he started drinking again. After he beat up two brothers after flirting with one’s girlfriend, he faced a one-hundred-dollar fine or a custodial sentence. Foreman appealed to Broadus, who found him work at the Job Corps. This provided Foreman the opportunity to prepare for the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, and he also stopped drinking for good.

Life’s Work

By dint of hard work, Foreman qualified for the Olympics, winning the gold medal against Russian boxer Ionas Chepulis. On the podium, Foreman pulled a tiny American flag from his robe and waved it enthusiastically to demonstrate his patriotism. However, many of Foreman’s friends and family could not forgive him for appearing to undermine the protest against racism made by two other African American athletes—the sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith, who gave the Black Power salute during the national anthem.

Lacking any real job prospects, Foreman entered the professional boxing ranks. He signed a three-year contract with Sonny Liston’s trainer, Dick Sadler, and made his professional debut in New York in June 1969, against Don Waldheim. He won in the third round on a technical knockout (TKO). By the end of 1972, Foreman had won all of his thirty-seven contests, nearly all by knockout. The following year in Kingston, Jamaica, he met Joe Frazier, one of the great heavyweights and the undisputed world champion. Foreman stopped him in two rounds, becoming the heavyweight champion. A few months later he took an easy first defense in Japan against an unknown boxer named José Roman, whom Foreman knocked out in one round. In 1974, he made his second defense against the highly rated Ken Norton, who had just beaten Muhammad Ali and broken his jaw.

Boxing promoter Don King paid Ali and Foreman five million dollars each to contest the championship in Kinshasa, Zaire. While everyone expected that Foreman would do Ali some damage, on the night of the contest Foreman seemed listless and confused (he had suspicions that he had been drugged). After enduring several rounds of sustained assault by Foreman, Ali took control and astonished everyone by knocking out Foreman in the eighth round to earn a famous victory at what became known as the “Rumble in the Jungle.”

In the two years that followed, Foreman fought and defeated Ron Lyle in one of boxing history’s most exciting fights. Foreman also beat Frazier a second time. Then in March 1977, in an eliminator to meet Ali again, Foreman lost a unanimous-points decision to Jimmy Young. It was in the dressing room after this fight that Foreman experienced an epiphany. He refused to box again and, after relating his experiences to congregations in his local church, became a self-ordained minister. Foreman also tried to put in order his personal life, which involved children from several marriages and liaisons. In 1984, he found that a friend he trusted to invest his money had embezzled it. He used what remained of his fortune to set up the George Foreman Youth and Community Center.

In 1987, Foreman decided to return to boxing because both he and the center were in need of funds. Ten years older and overweight, Foreman found his announcement greeted with skepticism and derision. However, he came back prudently, boxing lesser-known heavyweights and gradually building up a winning streak before finally meeting the respected Evander Holyfield for the championship, which Foreman lost on points. Foreman then won three more times against rated fighters before getting another championship chance against Michael Moorer in November, 1994. This time he boxed well and won by TKO in the tenth round, becoming champion again at the age of forty-five. Soon afterward Foreman became a familiar face on television and became very successful, selling the George Foreman Grill and other products. Foreman’s last fight was in November, 1997, against Shannon Briggs, to whom he lost with a majority decision on points. Foreman has remained involved in his ministry and charitable work, including the “Knock-Out Pediatric Cancer” initiative.

In the first decades of the twenty-first century, Foreman continued to work as a successful entrepreneur and spokesperson. As part of his entrepreneurial spirit, in 2014 he began serving as a celebrity spokesperson for the company InventHelp, which works directly with hopeful new inventors to advise them on how to go about the process of bringing their ideas to companies and securing patents. In keeping with the prolonged success of the George Foreman Grill, he also decided in 2015 to branch out into the world of online food ordering. Marketing the service as an online version of the old-fashioned butcher shops that used to be popular in the country, his mail-order online meat venture aims to provide consumers with quality, crafted selections of meats.

Though Ali has suffered from Parkinson's disease for decades, Foreman has told interviewers that he and his former boxing rival have remained close friends over the years.

In 2023, Big George Foreman, a biopic sports drama focusing on the life of heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman, was released. The film was directed by George Tillman Jr. and featured Khris Davis portraying Foreman.

Significance

Foreman overcame his difficult childhood and a delinquent youth to become an Olympic gold medalist and a holder of two world heavyweight boxing titles. A powerful fighter who often won his bouts by a knockout in the early rounds, Foreman gained a worldwide reputation as unbeatable after defeating Frazier in 1973. Foreman was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame in 2003. Using his earnings from his post-boxing career as an entrepreneur and a media personality, Foreman founded a center to provide sporting and academic opportunities for young people. Foreman has published several autobiographical and motivational works, using his life experiences to inspire others to overcome obstacles and achieve their goals.

Bibliography

Dwyre, Bill. "Muhammad Ali vs. George Foreman: 40 Years Later, a Rumble Reverberates." Los Angeles Times. Tribune, 29 Oct. 2014. Accessed 9 Mar. 2016.

Foreman, George, and Ken Abraham. God in My Corner. Nashville: Nelson, 2007. Print.

Foreman, George, and Joel Engel. By George: The Autobiography of George Foreman. New York: Simon, 2000.

Foreman, George, and Linda Kulman. George Foreman’s Guide to Life. New York: Simon, 2003.

Olmsted, Larry. "From Boxer to Butcher: George Foreman Takes Shot at Mail Order Meat." Forbes. Forbes.com, 22 Sept. 2015. Accessed 9 Mar. 2016.