George Foreman, heavyweight boxing great and undisputed champion of grilling, dies at 76

George Foreman fought and lost against Muhammad Ali in boxing’s iconic 1974 ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ before reclaiming the heavyweight title two decades later.

Referee Joe Cortez holds George Foreman’s arm up in victory after Foreman knocked Michael Moorer out in 1994. Picture: John Gurzinski/AFP/Getty Images

George Foreman’s hulking frame and ferocious power are what made him an Olympic gold medallist and a two-time heavyweight champion of the world. But it was his decision to put his name on a portable kitchen appliance – and a knack for reinventing himself – that made him rich beyond his wildest dreams.

Foreman, who died on Friday at the age of 76, approached his boxing career the same way he approached everything else. The man who made his mark as a fighter and a minister, a pitchman and an entrepreneur was always coming back for more.

George Foreman waves the American flag after winning gold at the 1968 Olympics. Picture: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images/WSJ

He reached the pinnacle of his sport as an amateur, winning gold at the 1968 Summer Olympics, and then climbed the mountain again as a pro.

He quit boxing in 1977, then unretired a decade later to do it all over again and become a world champion in his mid-40s.

And even once he hung up his gloves for good, Foreman couldn’t stay in his corner. He turned his skill as a salesman into a stake in a grill business that earned him more than $US100 million in the first decade alone.

“When you first look across the ring, it doesn’t matter if your opponent is 5’9” and you’re 6’4”, every guy looks 8 feet tall,” he told The Wall Street Journal in 2006.

“You’ve got to be brave.”

George Foreman at Macy’s promoting his ‘Lean, Mean, Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine’ in 1998. Picture: Mitchell Gerber/Corbis/VCG/Getty Images/WSJ

Long before he ever gave any thought to conveniently grilled meats, George Edward Foreman was getting into fights on the streets of Houston and training as a carpenter.

But it didn’t take long after he started boxing in his teens for him to rise to prominence. At just 19, he became an Olympic champion in Mexico City after beating the Soviet Union’s Jonas Čepulis.

No matter what glory came later – and there was plenty of it – Foreman always said that victory was the proudest moment of his career.

Once he turned professional, he won his first 40 fights and claimed the world heavyweight title in 1973 with a stunning second-round knockout of then-undefeated Joe Frazier. Witnessing the shock at ringside, announcer Howard Cosell could only shout, “Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!”

But it was one of Foreman’s rare defeats that came to define the first act of his boxing career. In 1974, he flew to Kinshasa in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo to take on Muhammad Ali for a $US5 million purse.

Immediately considered among the most iconic sporting events of the 20th century, the “Rumble in the Jungle” was the subject of a 1996 documentary, When We Were Kings, which went on to win an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

What few had expected on the night of the fight was that Foreman would play the supporting role to Ali’s leading man.

Perspiration flies from the head of George Foreman as he takes a right from Muhammad Ali in the seventh round of the Rumble in the Jungle in 1974. Picture: Ed Kolenovsky/AP

Foreman had entered the fight as an overwhelming favourite. And even through the first few rounds, he could hardly believe how well things were going for him – which is precisely what Ali wanted. Using a risky rope-a-dope strategy, Ali backed into the ropes deflecting blow after blow as Foreman tired himself out.

“I beat him up for about five or six rounds,” Foreman said later. “I thought it was easy.” That’s when Ali leaned forward and whispered in Foreman’s ear: “That all you got, George?” As it turned out, it was. Late in the eighth round, Ali clobbered a winded Foreman with a right hand.

And Foreman, who couldn’t beat the count, was never the same. After failing to secure a rematch with Ali, he retired from boxing in 1977 and soon became a minister.

By the late 1980s, however, Foreman was nearly bankrupt and scrabbling around to raise money for his youth centre. The best option, he realised, was to return to his first love: the ring.

“A big reason for that came early on when I was trying to raise money to get back into boxing,” he told The Wall Street Journal. “I approached businessmen and investment funds … offering to give them 40 per cent of my boxing earnings in return. But they were afraid. They laughed at me and said I was too old.”

After losing title bouts to Evander Holyfield and Tommy Morrison during his comeback, Foreman proved them wrong in 1994. He knocked out Michael Moorer to take the WBA and IBF heavyweight title belts, becoming the world champion at the age of 45.

George Foreman, the man who made his mark as a fighter and a minister, a pitchman and an entrepreneur was always coming back for more. Picture: AFP

Foreman continued fighting until the age of 48, when he lost a controversial majority decision to Shannon Briggs in 1997 and retired from boxing for a final time. By then, however, he was already well into building his fortune on the George Forman grill.

In a joint venture with Salton Inc, he initially took 40 per cent of the profits from the grill before he sold the rights to use his name for $US127.5 million and additional stock in 1999.

But the appliance was hardly the only source of personal pride he lent his name to.

Foreman had 12 children, barely outnumbering the 11 German shepherds he once kept, also happened to name five of his sons after himself.

“I named all my sons George Edward Foreman,” he once explained, “so they would always have something in common.”

– Dow Jones Newswires