Sport

Big George Foreman’s legacy was defined by the 'Rumble in the Jungle' against Muhammad Ali

George Foreman and Jimmy Young fight during a heavyweight match on 17 March 1977 at the Roberto Clemente Coliseum in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Young won the fight with a 12-round unanimous decision. (Photo: Focus on Sport/Getty Images)

By Ed Stoddard

22 Mar 2025

From menacing hulk to affable preacher and grill salesman, George Foreman was a larger-than-life character whose most memorable moment was his shocking defeat to the great Muhammad Ali on a sweltering morning in Kinshasa. I interviewed Big George twice when I was a Reuters journalist. He always came across as good-natured, fun and quirky.

George Foreman, the former world heavyweight boxing champion and evangelical preacher who made a fortune hawking fat-draining cooking grills, has died at age 76.

A winner on many fronts, Foreman will be best remembered for his shocking loss to Muhammad Ali in Kinshasa in October 1974. “The Rumble in the Jungle” was the defining moment in the glittering careers of both gladiators, an epic bout that inspired great literature and films, and endless commentary.

Born in the east Texas town of Marshall on 10 January 1949, Foreman and his six siblings were raised in Houston by a single mother.

Growing up black and male in the segregated US south — a background he shared with Ali and Joe Frazier — was not easy, and Foreman initially seemed destined for a life of crime and prison.

But he cleaned up his act and channelled his immense physical power into the ring. His amateur career would be capped with Olympic gold in Mexico City in 1968, and his thunderous punching would propel him up the professional ranks, leaving a trail of battered and broken boxers in its wake.

Foreman won the world heavyweight crown in Kingston, Jamaica in January 1973. In brutally clinical fashion he utterly destroyed Frazier, knocking him down six times before the ref halted the slaughter in the second round.

Foreman’s power and dominance were unprecedented. When he defended his title against Ken Norton, he almost knocked him out of the ring in the second round. Norton — a former US marine who was a rippling wall of muscle — looked terror-stricken.

George Foreman at the World Premiere of Affirm Films and Sony Pictures Entertainment Big George Foreman: The miraculous story of the once and future heavyweight champion of the world. (Photo: Eric Charbonneau/Getty Images for Sony Pictures)

A world of fear and loathing

Being in the same ring with Foreman was to inhabit a world of fear and loathing.

Foreman’s demolition of Frazier and Norton is instructive because it throws into sharp relief why Ali was an eight-to-one underdog on that sweltering morning in Kinshasa.

Ali, who had his heavyweight boxing title stripped in 1967 after refusing induction into the US army, also fought both men after he was allowed to fight again.

Frazier, who was then the champ, won their first fight in a tough 15-round decision in which he floored Ali in the final round. After losing his title to Foreman, Frazier lost his rematch with Ali in a 12-round decision.

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Norton would also beat Ali in their first match, breaking his jaw en route to clinching a 12-round decision. Ali won the 12-round rematch by a close decision.

That was the background to the Rumble in the Jungle: Ali had fought 51 tough rounds with two opponents who both beat him once — two men whom Foreman had smashed to smithereens over the course of four rounds.

The question on the minds of most commentators was not if Foreman would win but how quickly he would dispatch Ali.

But Ali had not read that script, and many of the descriptions of the fight are maddeningly inaccurate.

“... for seven rounds, Ali lay against the ropes and fended off Foreman’s clubbing blows, tiring and knocking him out in the eighth round,” is how The Guardian described the fight in its Foreman obituary.

‘Far from the truth’

That is the general narrative. But it is far from the truth, as anyone who has actually watched and studied the fight knows.

Ali would eventually spend much of this time laying back on the ropes — the “the rope-a-dope” — as Foreman punched himself out in the drenching tropical heat and humidity.

But initially, Ali came out fighting, stunning Foreman with blistering right-hands leads.

“Champions do not hit other champions with right-hand leads. Not in the first round. It is the most difficult and dangerous punch,” wrote Norman Mailer in his classic book about the bout entitled ‘The Fight’. “Right-hand leads! My God!”

Ali would also properly clock Foreman numerous times, rocking him in the fourth round and hammering him with a right in the fifth that unleashed a spray of sweat from Foreman’s head.

In the fifth round Ali also ducked a vicious right thrown by Foreman, which may have been the hardest punch he threw in the fight. But it only hit thin air.

Late in the eighth round, a vicious combination thrown by Ali planted Foreman on the mat, and the big man could not get to his feet before the count of 10. Ali, the crowd favourite, had won by an emphatic knock out.

For Foreman, the loss was utterly demoralising.

George Foreman poses with his trademark grill on 20 October 2006 in London. (Photo: Jeremy O'Donnell/Getty Images)

Reinvention as a grill master and more

But he went on to reinvent himself. Shedding his air of menace and brooding detachment, he would adopt an affable persona, which helped him make a fortune endorsing his famous grills. Foreman also became a born-again Christian and preacher.

He would even reclaim the world heavyweight title at the age of 45 — the oldest man to do so.

Foreman was in many ways likeable and funny. His five sons are all named George and he once told this correspondent that it was because as a boxer he had to make allowance for memory loss!

I interviewed Big George twice when I was a Reuters journalist. He always came across as good-natured, fun and quirky.

But he did change his tune on the Ali fight. The first time I interviewed him, I asked him if he felt he could have won a rematch with Ali and he said no, Ali was too smart and too fast.

I interviewed him a second time in 2007 — about his memoir “God in my Corner: A Spiritual Memoir” — and he alleged that his trainer Dick Sadler had drugged his water, an allegation that he periodically made over the years. With Foreman favoured eight to one by the bookies, anyone with inside knowledge on that score stood to make a lot of cash.

“Just before the fight with Ali, my trainer handed me a glass of liquid and said ‘here’s your water,’” Foreman said in his memoir.

“As I took a swig, I almost spit it out. ‘Hey, this water tastes like it has medicine in it,’” Foreman says he replied.

Foreman told me that explained why his punches lacked power in the Ali fight.

“I was one strong heavyweight punching fighter. I was one punching machine and that was the first time I delivered everything I had and nothing worked,” Foreman said.

But Foreman also said that he cherished the fight because it put him on the path to Christ.

“In my trophy case, I have a photograph on display ... The picture shows me being knocked down and Ali standing over me,” Foreman wrote in his memoir. “As I’ve gazed at the picture that captured my first professional defeat, I’ve fallen in love with that moment.”

Many boxing fans also love that moment and the drama that unfolded in that ring.

RIP Big George Foreman. Like Ali, who died in 2016, the Rumble in the Jungle is his most enduring legacy — an iconic sporting event between two towering sporting icons, the likes of which we will never see again. DM

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Sport

A world of fear and loathing

Reinvention as a grill master and more