George Foreman, a heavyweight boxing champion who returned to the sport to regain his title at the improbable age of 45, died on Friday night at a hospital in Houston.
He was 76 years.
His family announced his death on his Instagram account.
Roy Foreman, George’s brother, said the cause of death was not known.
When Foreman returned to the ring after 10 years away, there was skepticism that a fighter of his years could beat any younger fighter, much less come back to the top of the game.
But in 1994, he beat the undefeated Michael Moorer to reclaim the world title, shocking the boxing world.
Foreman’s career spanned generations: He fought Chuck Wepner in the 1960s, Dwight Muhammad Qawi in the ’80s and Evander Holyfield in the ’90s.
With Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali, Foreman embodied a golden era in the 1970s, when boxing was still a cultural force in America.
The three great champions thrilled fans with one classic bout after another. Foreman was the last living member of the trio.
And his popularity helped him make millions selling grills after his retirement.
George Edward Foreman was born Jan. 10, 1949, in Marshall, Texas, to Nancy Ree (Nelson) Foreman and J.D. Foreman, a railroad construction worker.
As an adult, he learned that his biological father was a man named Leroy Moorehead.
Foreman was candid about being a bully and a petty criminal in his youth.
After dropping out of school, he joined the Job Corps at 16. At 17, he tried his hand at boxing.
Success came quickly in the amateur ranks; only a year and a half later he was Olympic heavyweight champion, defeating Ionas Chepulis of the Soviet Union by a second-round knockout in Mexico City in 1968.
After the fight, Foreman, who was Black, waved a small American flag in the ring, days after the track athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised clenched fists during the national anthem to protest the country’s treatment of Black people.
“I was just glad to be an American,” Foreman said afterward.
“Some people have tried to make something of it, calling me an Uncle Tom, but I’m not. I just believe people should live together in peace.”
Turning professional, he started a heavy schedule of fights, boxing as many as a dozen times in a year.
He was 37-0 when he got his first shot at a world heavyweight title against Frazier in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1973.
Though he was a 3-1 underdog, Foreman dominated the fight, knocking Frazier down six times before the contest was stopped halfway through the second round.
One of those knockdowns led the television announcer Howard Cosell to utter one of boxing’s most famous calls: “Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!”
“It was unbelievable,” the Times sports columnist Arthur Daley wrote.
“In little more than four and a half minutes, George Foreman destroyed Joe Frazier tonight, and the man who supposedly couldn’t lose never had even one ghost of a chance for victory.
“So there is a new heavyweight champion of the world, and he won it with authority in an explosive demonstration of overpowering punching skills.”
Foreman defended the title twice, before a match with Ali in Zaire in 1974 that would become known as the Rumble in the Jungle.
This time, Foreman was the favorite, but Ali reclaimed the title, dealing Foreman his first career loss.
Ali used his rope-a-dope strategy, resting on the top rope and allowing Foreman to punch him, but also tire himself out.
Ali finished the fight with a left-right combination knockout in the eighth round. (NYT/vitalnewsngr.com)
