Former heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman, known as much for his gregarious personality as Hook Vicious Right, died on Friday. He was 76 years old.
Twice heavyweight champion, he also won gold at the 1968 Mexico Games and then saw the success, in his post-box career, launching the counter grid now Ouomnipresent which bears his name.
Foreman’s family announced his death in an article on Instagram.
The retirement pro-boxer George Foreman arrives for the world premiere of “Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World”, in Regal La Live in Los Angeles, April 26, 2023.
Michael Tran / AFP via Getty Images
“A devout preacher, a devoted husband, a loving father and a proud grandfather, he lived a life marked by an unshakable faith, a humility and a goal,” said the press release. “Humanitarian, Olympian and double champion of heavyweights in the world, he was deeply respected – a force for good, a man of discipline, a conviction and a protector of his inheritance, fighting tirelessly to preserve his good name – for his family.”
No cause of death was provided by his family.
George Foreman won the punch against Lou Savare on the fight at the Center Center, Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Ring magazine via Getty Images, file
Born on January 10, 1949, Foreman was the fifth of the seven children and grew up “in the most difficult neighborhood of Houston”, he wrote in his book “George Foreman’s Guide to Life: How to Get Off of the Canvas when life overturns you”, which was published in 2003. “I did not have much to expect life.
At the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, Straight, then 19 years old, had already developed what ESPN was going to call his “demolition ball fists” and defeated the Soviet opponent Jonas Cepulis. The referee had to stop the fight before the end of the second round.
Foreman won his first truck title at only 24 years old with an astonishing KO of the unknown world champion then Joe Frazier in 1973.
Presented as the rumble in the jungle, the most famous fight of Foreman ended with his first professional defeat against Muhammad Ali in October 1974. He made the title of heavyweights in the defeat with direct elimination.
But he would find the belt after a 10 -year retirement in a fight in 1994 against Michael Moorer at 45 years old.
George Foreman demonstrates his range of grills in favor of the British Heart Foundation at Trafalgar Square, London, England-20.10.06 (Photo of Rune Hellestad / Corbis via Getty Images)
Rune Hellestad – Corbis / Corbis via Getty Images
In the pivot at the entrepreneur, Foreman was successful in the 1990s by promoting the “Grilled Machine to reduce the fat reduction of George Foreman George”, a basic food on television infopuralia and home jump chains, which was known for its rope and inclined cooking surface which was designed to allow fat.
“There is hardly a single lesson that I learned in life that did not come to the hard … everyone in life spends a difficult moment, but you cannot let it define who you are,” he wrote in his 2003 book. “What defines you is how you come back from these problems and what you find in life to smile.”
