Former boxing boxer George Foreman, who lost a historic fight against Muhammad there before recovering the title two decades later, died on Friday at 76, his family announced in a statement.
“With deep sadness, we announced the death of our beloved George Edward Foreman Sr., who departed in peace on March 21, 2025, surrounded by his loved ones,” says the former publicist’s family note.
“A humanitarian, Olympic athlete and twice world champion of heavy weights, he was deeply respected: a force of good, a man of discipline and conviction, and a protector of his legacy, fighting tirelessly to preserve his good name and that of his family,” continues the text.
“We are grateful for the demonstration of love and prayers, and we kindly ask for privacy as we honor the extraordinary life of a man who had the blessing to call ours,” the family concluded in the message.
Foreman lost his first title to Muhammad Ali in the famous fight “Rumble in the Jungle” in 1974. Twenty years later, he was able to recover the heavy weight crown by knocking out Michael Moorer.
Foreman’s return and the fortune he accumulated selling his famous electric grills that reduced fat fat have turned him into a successful symbol outside the ring.
Shortly after his birth in Marshall, Texas, on January 10, 1949, his family moved to Houston, where he and his six brothers were raised by a single mother. Growing in poverty in the segregated south of the United States, Foreman abandoned high school and used his physical size and fists strength to commit robberies.
At that time, he ended up in a program created by President Lyndon B. Johnson, the Job Corps. The project “I rescued me from the streets”, Foreman wrote later.
Through the program, he, at age 16, left Texas and was encouraged to channel his anger and growing size for boxing.
At age 19, in his 25th amateur fight, Foreman won the Olympic gold medal in the weight-heavyweight category at the 1968 Games in Mexico City. In professionalizing, he won 37 consecutive combat until we face the then champion Joe Franzier in Kingston, Jamaica, winning by technical knockout in the second round.
Foreman defended the belt twice more before facing there in Kinshasa, Zaire (current Democratic Republic of Congo), in one of the most famous struggles in boxing history.
There he had lost his title seven years earlier for refusing call to the Vietnam War and entered the fight as a great misfortune against the youngest and most strong champion. But for seven rounds, he leaned over the ropes and resisted Foreman’s powerful blows, ticking him and knocking him on the eighth round.
“I was a very strong weight-weight fighter,” Foreman told Reuters in 2007. “I was a punch machine, and it was the first time I delivered everything I had, and nothing worked.”
The defeat devastated Foreman. He took a year off before returning to the ring and, after a second defeat as a professional, retired in 1977 to become a pastor of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
A decade later, and considerably heavier with 143 kg, Foreman returned unexpectedly to the ring to raise funds to a youth center that had founded in Texas.
He won 24 straight fights, gradually losing weight, before losing to Evander Holyfield in a 12-round decision in 1991. Three years later, he knocked out the unbeaten left-handed Moorer, becoming the oldest heavyweight champion in history at age 45.
Foreman’s last fight took place in 1997, ending his career with a professional history of 76 wins and five losses.
Foreman was married four times in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1985, he married for the fifth time with Mary Joan Martelly, with whom he remained for the rest of his life. He had five children – all called George – five biological daughters and two adopted daughters.
During the 1990s and after his retirement, he was an enthusiastic seller of various products, especially an electric appliance maker Salton Inc. electric grill in 1999, the company paid Foreman and its $ 137.5 million partners to use its name on the equipment and other products.
“What I do is fall in love with every product I see,” Foreman wrote in his autobiography, “by George”. “This is what it sells. As with preaching.”
