The two-time world heavyweight champion’s career included his historic fight — the Rumble in the Jungle — with Muhammad Ali
George Foreman. Photo: Clutch Pockets Wambli/ShutterstockGeorge Foreman has died at the age of 76.
Foreman was a two-time heavyweight boxing champion and Olympic gold medalist. Nicknamed Big George, in later years he became the spokesperson for the George Foreman Grill, which sold millions of units.
The news was shared by his family on his official Instagram account on Friday, March 21.
“Our hearts are broken. With profound sorrow, we announce the passing of our beloved George Edward Foreman Sr. who peacefully departed on March 21, 2025 surrounded by loved ones. A devout preacher, a devoted husband, a loving father, and a proud grand and great grandfather, he lived a life marked by unwavering faith, humility, and purpose,” the statement read.
Foreman was born in Texas in 1949. He grew up in Houston. “I grew up in the Fifth Ward of Houston — the Bloody Fifth, we called it. Every weekend someone got killed,” he told Esquire in 2006. His family was poor, and he dropped out of high school at 15 and was involved in petty crime. But at 16 he signed up for the Job Corps, where he got his GED and learned carpentry and bricklaying. During that time he also began training as a boxer.
“I went into boxing at the age of 17 to lose weight and become a great street fighter,” he told Ringside Report in 2000. “Next thing I know, I was fighting as a Golden Glover. It basically all happened as an accident.”
In 1968, at 19 years old, Foreman won a gold medal at the Mexico City Olympic Games. “Winning that gold medal at the end, I wanted the whole world to know where I was from, so I picked up a small American flag and paraded around the ring to make sure they knew,” he told On the Ropes, a boxing radio show, in 2023. “This was my chance to represent my country. That was greater to me than even winning the boxing matches.”
The next year, Foreman went professional. He won all 13 fights that year and all 12 fights in 1970. By the end of 1971, with 32 wins and no losses, he was the number-one challenger in the world and expected to face World Heavyweight Champion Joe Frazier in a bid for the title.
The two finally fought in 1973’s The Sunshine Showdown, which Foreman won by total knockout. “I didn’t fear anyone except Joe Frazier,” Foreman admitted in a 2023 interview with Andscape. “I hoped something would’ve happened to him before I’d ever fight for the title.”
“I’ve never told anyone this, but that was the happiest time of my life in boxing because I worked so hard to fulfill my dream and become heavyweight champion,” Foreman explained. “It was the first and last moment I felt that.”
Foreman defended his title against José Roman and Ken Norton. In 1974, he faced Muhammad Ali in a historic fight dubbed “the Rumble in the Jungle,” believed to be the most-watched live television broadcast of all time. Ali, a massive underdog, defeated Foreman.
Through the years, Foreman told different versions of the event, at times alleging that the fight was fixed for Ali. He was upset that they never had a rematch.
“For years afterwards I would agonize, ‘How could this happen?’” he told Vogue Man Arabia in 2019. “That night I lost everything I ever was. It was the most devastating event in my life as an athlete. I was not even a man no more.” But he and Ali eventually became friends.
Source: https://people.com/george-foreman-dead-championship-boxer-grill-pitchman-dies-at-76-8599492
