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Mike Coppinger
“Big” George Foreman, one of the most influential and recognizable boxers of all time, died Friday, his family announced on his social media account.
He was 76.
Foreman, who captured an Olympic gold medal in 1968, was a two-time heavyweight champion and Hall of Fame boxer.
He’s perhaps best known for the historic Rumble in the Jungle bout with Muhammad Ali in 1974 in Zaire, a fight Foreman lost in an upset via eighth-round KO. It’s arguably the most famous fight of all time and the “When We Were Kings” documentary that chronicled the fight won an Oscar for best picture.
Foreman, of course, made history yet again later on in his career. He fought five more times after he lost the heavyweight championship to Ali at age 25, including another fifth-round TKO victory over Joe Frazier (whom he stopped in two rounds to first win the title) and a fifth-round KO of Ron Lyle in a classic.
After that fifth fight at 28, Foreman shockingly announced his retirement and began a career as an ordained minister in his native Texas.
Foreman was retired for 10 years. He returned in 1987 at age 38. And he went on to mount arguably the most-impressive sports comeback ever.
At first, Foreman padded his record with easy KO wins. One of them was a KO-2 of Gerry Cooney. But then, in 1991, Foreman proved this comeback was for real when he pushed the great Evander Holyfield to the brink in a classic heavyweight title fight at age 42. Though he was unsuccessful in his bid to become a two-time heavyweight champion, Foreman was undeterred.
Five fights later, following a loss to Tommy Morrison, Foreman accomplished the unthinkable.
Down on the scorecards, Foreman landed a two-punch combination that laid Michael Moorer down for the count of 10 in 1994. At age 45 and 299 days, Foreman was the unified heavyweight champion of the world, the oldest man in history to hold boxing’s greatest prize (and also the oldest champion ever, a record that stood for 20 years).
“It happened,” Jim Lampley called on the HBO broadcast. “It happened!”
Foreman went on to have a successful career alongside Lampley as an HBO boxing analyst. But his greatest success following his in-ring career was yet to come.
The same year Foreman defeated, he launched his eponymous grill. He went on to sell more than 100 million grills worldwide.
In 1999, he sold the commercial rights to the George Foreman grill for $138 million.
Foreman’s final fight came in November 1997, a majority-decision loss to Shannon Briggs.
He held his role with HBO as a ringside analyst for 12 years, ending in 2004.
The Ring named Foreman the ninth-greatest puncher of all time and in 2002, one of the top 25 best boxers of the past 80 years.
In a statement, Top Rank called Foreman “one of the biggest punchers and personalities the sport as ever seen.”
“George was a great friend to not only myself but to my entire family,” Top Rank chairman Bob Arum said. “We’ve lost a family member and are absolutely devastated.”
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