George Foreman

Foreman with President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968

Foreman won a gold medal in the boxing/heavyweight division at the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games. In the finals, Foreman defeated the Soviet Union's Jonas Čepulis; the referee stopped the fight in the second round.[16] Čepulis' face was already bleeding in the first round from Foreman's punches, and had to take a standing eight count early in the second round.[17] Čepulis, fighting out of Lithuania, was a 29-year-old veteran with a 12-year-long amateur career, having over 220 fights in his record, quite experienced, and 10 years older than Foreman.[18]

• Round of 16: defeated Lucjan Trela (Poland) on points, 4–1
• Quarterfinal: defeated Ion Alexe (Romania) referee stopped contest, 3rd round
• Semifinal: defeated Giorgio Bambini (Italy) by a second-round knockout
• Final: defeated Jonas Čepulis (Soviet Union) referee stopped contest, second round

After winning the gold-medal fight, Foreman walked around the ring carrying a small U.S. flag and bowing to the crowd.[16][17] Foreman maintained that earning the Olympic gold medal was the achievement he was most proud of in his boxing career, more so than either of his world titles.[14]

• He won his first amateur fight on January 26, 1967, by a first-round knockout in the Parks Diamond Belt Tournament.[19]
• He won the San Francisco Examiner's Golden Gloves Tournament in the Junior Division in February 1967.[19]
• In February 1967, he knocked out Thomas Cook to win the Las Vegas Golden Gloves in the Senior Division.[19]
• In February 1968, he knocked out L.C. Brown to win the San Francisco Examiner's Senior Title in San Francisco.[19]
• In March 1968, he won the National Boxing Championships heavyweight title in Toledo, Ohio, vs. Henry Crump of Philadelphia in the final.[19]
• He sparred five rounds on two different occasions in July 1968 with former World Heavyweight Champion Sonny Liston (Liston sparred in 22-oz custom-made Everlast gloves, Foreman later recalled that Liston was the only man who forced him to back up consistently in the ring.)[19]
• On September 21, 1968, he won his second decision over Otis Evans to make the U.S. boxing team for the Mexico City Olympic Games.[19]
• Foreman had a 16–4 amateur boxing record going into the Olympics. He knocked out the Soviet Union's Jonas Čepulis to win the Olympic Games Heavyweight Gold Medal. He was trained for the Olympic Games by Robert (Pappy) Gault.[19]
• His amateur record was 22–4 when he turned professional.[3][19]

Foreman in 1973

In 1972, still undefeated and with an impressive knockout record, Foreman was set to challenge undefeated and undisputed World Heavyweight Champion Joe Frazier. Despite boycotting a title elimination caused by the vacancy resulting from the championship being stripped from Muhammad Ali, Frazier had won the title from Jimmy Ellis and defended his title four times since, including a 15-round unanimous decision over the previously unbeaten Ali in 1971 after Ali had beaten Oscar Bonavena and Jerry Quarry. Despite Foreman's superior size and reach, he was not expected to beat Frazier[22] and was a 3:1 underdog going into the fight.

The Sunshine Showdown took place on January 22, 1973, in Kingston, Jamaica, with Foreman dominating the fight to win the championship by TKO. In ABC's rebroadcast, Howard Cosell made the memorable call, "Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!" Before the fight, Frazier was 29–0 (25 KO) and Foreman was 37–0 (34 KO). Frazier was knocked down six times by Foreman within two rounds (the three-knockdown rule was not in effect for this bout). After the second knockdown, Frazier's balance and mobility were impaired to the extent that he was unable to evade Foreman's combinations. Frazier managed to get to his feet for all six knockdowns, but referee Arthur Mercante eventually called an end to the one-sided bout.

Foreman was sometimes characterized by the media as an aloof and antisocial champion.[23] According to them, he always seemed to wear a sneer and was not often available to the press. Foreman later attributed his demeanor during this time as an emulation of Sonny Liston, for whom he had been an occasional sparring partner. Foreman defended his title successfully twice during his initial reign as champion. His first defense, in Tokyo, pitted him against Puerto Rican Heavyweight Champion José Roman. Roman was not regarded as a top contender, but had managed to beat a few decent fighters such as EBU champion Spain Jose Manuel Urtain, and was ranked the number-seven heavyweight in the March 1973 issue of The Ring.[24] Foreman needed only two minutes to end the fight, one of the fastest knockouts in a heavyweight championship bout.

Foreman's next defense was against a much tougher opponent. In 1974, in Caracas, Venezuela, he faced the highly regarded future hall-of-famer Ken Norton (who was 30–2), a boxer noted for his awkward crossed-arm boxing style, crab-like defense, and heavy punch (a style Foreman emulated in his comeback), who had broken the jaw of Muhammad Ali in a points victory a year earlier. Norton had performed well against Ali in their two matches, winning the first on points and nearly winning the second. (Norton developed a reputation for showing nerves against heavy hitters, largely beginning with this fight.) After an even first round, Foreman staggered Norton with an uppercut a minute into round two, buckling him into the ropes. Norton did not hit the canvas, but continued on wobbly legs, clearly not having recovered, and shortly he went down a further two times in quick succession, with the referee intervening and stopping the fight. "Ken was awesome when he got going. I didn't want him to get into the fight", Foreman said when interviewed years later. This fight became known as the "Caracas Caper".

Foreman had cruised past two of the top names in the rankings. The win gave him a 40–0 record with 37 knockouts.

A cut to Foreman's right eye on September 18, 1974, postponed the bout for a month

Foreman with trainer Archie Moore on September 10, 1974, on the way to Kinshasa for his fight with Muhammad Ali[25]

Foreman's next title defense, on October 30, 1974, in Kinshasa, Zaire, against Muhammad Ali, was historic. The bout, promoted as the "Rumble in the Jungle", exceeded even its wildest expectations.

During training there in mid-September Foreman suffered a cut above his eye, forcing postponement of the match for a month. The injury affected his training regimen, as it meant he could not spar in the build-up to the fight and risk the cut being reopened. He later commented: "That was the best thing that happened to Ali when we were in Africa—the fact that I had to get ready for the fight without being able to box."[26] Ali used this time to tour Zaire, endearing himself to the public, while taunting Foreman at every opportunity. Foreman was favored, having crushed undefeated heavyweight champion Joe Frazier and toppled formidable challenger Ken Norton both within two rounds.

Ali doing the "rope-a-dope" to avoid Foreman's formidable power

When Foreman and Ali finally met in the ring, Ali began more aggressively than expected, outscoring Foreman with superior punching speed. In the second round, Ali retreated to the ropes, shielding his head and hitting Foreman in the face at every opportunity. Foreman dug vicious body punches into Ali's sides; however, Foreman was unable to land many big punches to Ali's head. The ring ropes were unusually loose, and Foreman later charged that Angelo Dundee (Ali's longtime trainer) had loosened them as part of Ali's tactic to lean back and away from the wild swings before clinching Foreman behind the head; Dundee stated that not only did he tighten the ropes because they were so loose due to the heat, Ali came up with the "rope-a-dope" strategy entirely on his own.[27] Ali had been known as a fighter of speed and movement, but the rope-a-dope technique worked exactly to plan, since Foreman had not had a fight that lasted past the fourth round since 1971.[28]

Ali continued to take heavy punishment to the body in exchange for the opportunity to land a hard jolt to Foreman's head. Ali later said he was "out on his feet" twice during the bout. As Foreman began to tire, his punches began to lose power and became increasingly wild. By mid-bout an increasingly confident Ali began to taunt the exhausted champion relentlessly, who had been reduced to mere pawing and landing harmless rubber-armed blows. Late in the eighth round Ali came off the ropes with a series of successively harder and more accurate right hooks to the side and back of Foreman's head, leaving him dazed and careening backwards. After a lightning two-punch flurry squared him up, Ali ended the bout with a combination of solid left hook and straight right flush to the jaw that sent Foreman windmilling hard to the canvas,[29] the first time he had been down in his career.

Foreman later reflected, "it just wasn't my night". Foreman later also claimed he was drugged by his trainer prior to the bout.[30] Though he sought a rematch with Ali, he was unable to secure one. In some quarters it was suggested Ali was ducking him,[31] taking on low-risk opponents such as Chuck Wepner, Richard Dunn, Jean Pierre Coopman, and Alfredo Evangelista. But Ali also fought formidable opponents, such as Ron Lyle, and gave rematches to the still-dangerous Frazier and Ken Norton, the only two men to have ever beaten him. And Foreman clearly lost his edge after the dazing upset in Zaire. Still, a potentially massive money-making encore with Foreman never happened, whatever the reason.

Foreman remained inactive during 1975. In 1976, he announced a comeback and stated his intention of securing a rematch with Ali. His first opponent was to be Ron Lyle, who had been defeated by Ali in 1975, via 11th-round TKO. Lyle was the number-five rated heavyweight in the world at the time per the March 1976 issue of the Ring.[32] At the end of the first round, Lyle landed a hard right that sent Foreman staggering across the ring. In the second round, Foreman pounded Lyle against the ropes and might have scored a KO, but due to a timekeeping error, the bell rang with a minute still remaining in the round and Lyle survived. In the third, Foreman pressed forward, with Lyle waiting to counter off the ropes. In the fourth, a brutal slugfest erupted. A cluster of power punches from Lyle sent Foreman to the canvas. When Foreman got up, Lyle staggered him again, but just as Foreman seemed finished, he retaliated with a hard right to the side of the head, knocking down Lyle. Lyle beat the count, then landed another brutal combination, knocking Foreman down for the second time. Again, Foreman beat the count. Foreman said later that he had never been hit so hard in a fight and remembered looking down at the canvas and seeing blood. In the fifth round, both fighters continued to ignore defense and traded their hardest punches, looking crude. Each man staggered the other, and each seemed almost out on his feet. Then, as if finally tired, Lyle stopped punching, and Foreman delivered a dozen unanswered blows until Lyle collapsed to the canvas. Lyle remained down, giving Foreman a KO victory. The fight was named by The Ring as "The Fight of the Year".

For his next bout, Foreman chose to face Joe Frazier in a rematch. Frazier was then the world's number-three heavyweight per The Ring.[32] Because of the one-sided Foreman victory in their first fight, and the fact that Frazier had taken a tremendous amount of punishment from Ali in Manila a year earlier, few expected him to win. Frazier at this point was 32–3, having lost only to Foreman and Ali twice, and Foreman was 41–1, with his sole defeat at the hands of Ali. However, their rematch began competitively, as Frazier used quick head movements to make Foreman miss with his hardest punches. Frazier was wearing a contact lens for his vision, which was knocked loose during the bout. Unable to mount a significant offense, Frazier was eventually floored twice by Foreman in the fifth round and the fight was stopped. Next, Foreman knocked out Scott LeDoux in three rounds and prospect John Dino Denis in four to finish the year.

Foreman became ill in his dressing room after the fight. He was suffering from exhaustion and heatstroke and stated he had a near-death experience. He spoke of being in a hellish, frightening place of nothingness and despair, and realized that he was in the midst of death. Though not yet religious, he began to plead with God to help him. He explained that he sensed God asking him to change his life and ways. When he said, "I don't care if this is death – I still believe there is a God!" [34]

After this experience, Foreman became a born-again Christian, dedicating his life for the next decade to God. Although he did not formally retire from boxing, Foreman stopped fighting and became an ordained minister, initially preaching on street corners before becoming the reverend at the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ[35] in Houston[36] and devoting himself to his family and his congregation. He also opened a youth center[37] that bears his name. Foreman continues to speak about his experience on Christian television broadcasts such as The 700 Club and the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

In 1990, Foreman met former title challenger Gerry Cooney in Atlantic City. Cooney was coming off a long period of inactivity, but was well regarded for his punching power. Cooney wobbled Foreman in the first round, but Foreman landed several powerful punches in the second round. Cooney was knocked down twice and Foreman scored a devastating KO. Foreman went on to win four more fights that year.

The following year, Foreman was given the opportunity to challenge undisputed heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield, who was in tremendous shape at 208 pounds, for the world title in a pay-per-view boxing event. Very few boxing experts gave the 42-year-old Foreman a chance of winning. Foreman, who weighed in at 257 pounds, began the contest by marching forward, absorbing several of Holyfield's best combinations and occasionally landing a powerful swing of his own. Holyfield proved too tough and agile to knock down and was well ahead on points throughout the fight, but Foreman surprised many by lasting the full 12 rounds, losing his challenge on points. Round seven, in which Foreman knocked Holyfield off balance before being staggered by a powerful combination, was expected to be The Ring's "Round of the Year", though no award was given in 1991.[39]

A year later, Foreman fought journeyman Alex Stewart, who had previously been stopped in the first round by Mike Tyson. Foreman knocked down Stewart twice in the second round, but expended a lot of energy in doing so. He was subsequently tired, and Stewart rebounded. By the end of the 10th and final round, Foreman's face was bloodied and swollen, but the judges awarded him a majority decision win.

In 1993, Foreman received another title shot, although this was for the vacant WBO title. Foreman's opponent was Tommy Morrison, a young prospect known for his punching power. Morrison retreated throughout the fight, refusing to trade toe-to-toe, and sometimes he turned his back on Foreman. The strategy paid off and he outboxed Foreman from long range. After 12 rounds, Morrison won a unanimous decision.

In this period, Foreman also starred briefly in the situation comedy George on ABC. The show, which featured Foreman as a retired boxer, premiered in November 1993, and ran for 10 episodes, where nine aired. The show was co-produced by actor and former boxer Tony Danza.[40]

In 1994, Foreman again sought to challenge for the world championship after Michael Moorer had beaten Holyfield for the IBF and WBA titles. Having lost his last fight against Morrison, Foreman was unranked and in no position to demand another title shot. His relatively high profile, however, made a title shot against Moorer, 19 years his junior, a lucrative prospect at seemingly little risk for the champion.

Foreman's title challenge against Moorer took place on November 5 in Las Vegas, Nevada, with Foreman wearing the same red trunks he had worn in his title loss to Ali 20 years earlier. This time, however, Foreman was a substantial underdog. For nine rounds, Moorer easily outboxed him, hitting and moving away, while Foreman chugged forward, seemingly unable to "pull the trigger" on his punches. Entering the 10th round, Foreman was trailing on all scorecards. However, he launched a comeback in the 10th round and hit Moorer with a number of punches. Then, a short right hand caught Moorer on the tip of his chin, gashing open his bottom lip, and he collapsed to the canvas. He lay flat on the canvas as the referee counted him out.

In an instant, Foreman had regained the title he had lost to Muhammad Ali two decades before. He went back to his corner and knelt in prayer as the arena erupted in cheers. With this historic victory, Foreman broke three records: He became, at age 45, the oldest fighter ever to win a world championship; 20 years after losing his title for the first time, he broke the record for the fighter with the longest interval between his first and second world championships; and the age spread of 19 years between the champion and challenger was the largest of any heavyweight boxing championship fight.

Shortly after the 1994 Moorer fight, Foreman began talking about a potential superfight with Mike Tyson, then the youngest heavyweight champion on record. In 1995, The New York Times quoted Foreman as stating, "If he doesn't sign with Don King, we'll fight before the end of the year... I can't be bothered having trouble with Don King. Every contract has some complication."[41] Tyson signed with King (and by 1998, was suing him for $100 million);[42] the bout never materialized.

The WBA demanded that Foreman fight their number-one challenger, who at the time was the competent, but aging, Tony Tucker. For reasons not clearly known, Foreman refused to fight Tucker and allowed the WBA to strip him of that belt.

On April 22, 1995, Foreman fought midlevel underdog prospect Axel Schulz, of Germany, in defense of his remaining IBF title. Schulz jabbed strongly from long range, and exhibited increasing confidence as the fight progressed. Foreman finished the fight with a swelling over one eye, but was awarded a controversial majority decision. The IBF ordered an immediate rematch to be held in Germany; Foreman refused the terms and was stripped of his remaining title, yet continued to be recognized as the Lineal Heavyweight Champion.[43]

In 1996, Foreman returned to Tokyo, scoring an easy win over the unrated Crawford Grimsley by a 12-round decision. In 1997, he faced contender Lou Savarese, winning a close decision in a grueling, competitive encounter. Then, yet another opportunity came Foreman's way as the WBC decided to match him against Shannon Briggs in a 1997 "eliminator bout" for the right to face WBC champion Lennox Lewis. After 12 rounds, in which Foreman consistently rocked Briggs with power punches, almost everyone at ringside saw Foreman as the clear winner.[44] Like Foreman's fight with Schulz, the decision was highly controversial, but this time the decision went in favor of Foreman's opponent, with Briggs awarded a majority decision. One judge scored the bout 114–114, while the other two judges scored it 117–113 and 116–112 for Briggs. Foreman had fought for the last time, at the age of 48.