'If Big George hit you, you stayed hit' - Foreman obituary

One version of George Foreman had only mayonnaise sandwiches to eat at school. Another was winning Olympic gold aged 19. Another was committing muggings at 15.

The 20-something version of Foreman was one-third of heavyweight boxing's "holy trinity", with Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. The 45-year-old version would become boxing's oldest heavyweight world champion.

He was once marked to be another poor kid from Texas, lost to America's wasteland, but instead rose to be one of the most recognisable faces on the planet.

Foreman's powers of transformation served him well in a sporting career brimming with prestige and drama.

'Big' George Foreman, who has died aged 76, leaves behind a professional legacy that many boxers today could only dream of replicating. He had 81 fights, 76 wins and just five losses.

He was twice the heavyweight champion of the world. He fought Frazier, Ken Norton and Ali. His longevity was such that he even faced a 28-year-old Evander Holyfield.

His legacy was forged in the Rumble in the Jungle, his haunting of Frazier and his impossible achievement aged 45.

Foreman secured his spot in the halls of heavyweight greatness many times over.

"I am sure he is in every argument for the greatest heavyweights of all time," 5 Live Boxing analyst Steve Bunce said.

"He had 76 wins and I don't often do stats and facts but 68 ended by knockout.

"I haven't done the research to tell you how many times he dropped men, but I will say of his 76 wins he probably dropped his opponent about 200 times in total.

"If Big George hit you, you stayed hit. It was as simple as that."

Foreman was born in Marshall, Texas, 10 January 1949. He was one of six siblings and took the name of his stepfather, JD Foreman, rather than his birth father.

By his own admission, Foreman was a troubled kid struggling in an environment designed to keep him disenfranchised and angry.

He started mugging people by the age of 15.

"I've always been motivated by food, because I was always hungry," he said. "There never was enough food to eat for me, for various reasons."

His mother, Nancy, convinced him to join the Job Corps aged 16. He earned his GED,, external and learned to be a carpenter and bricklayer, but in a pivotal moment for his life, he was introduced to boxing by a coach called Doc Broadus.

Foreman arrived at the 1968 Olympics aged 19 and with just 25 amateur fights under his belt. He bulldozed the competition, winning gold.

"Less than two years prior to the date that I'd stood on that platform receiving gold and listening to the national anthem, I was under a house, hiding from the police," he said later.

"I climbed from underneath that house, in mud and slop, and said to myself: 'I'm going to do something in my life, I'm not a thief.'"

Foreman's Olympic triumph cleared a path into the pro ranks. He had 13 fights in his first year as a pro, with 11 knockouts. By 1972, he was 37-0 and the clear contender to the heavyweight champion Frazier.

Frazier had beaten Ali. He was the top dog in the division. Foreman was a 4-1 underdog when they met in Kingston, Jamaica in January 1973.

Foreman knocked Frazier down six times in two rounds to become the WBA, WBC and lineal heavyweight champion.

The win completely altered the heavyweight landscape at the time. Foreman was only 24.

"That is the fight where he famously lifts Joe Frazier off the ground with an uppercut. That is George Foreman," Bunce said.

Foreman would say later Frazier was the only man he ever "feared" and how the victory changed his life overnight.

"One day you're no-one and the next day everyone wants to take advantage of you," he said.

It is hard to explain just how iconic the 'Rumble in the Jungle' is. But if there was a room of statues representing boxing's greatest fights, the one representing Ali and Frazier's two seminal bouts would sit in the middle.

It was a fight that encapsulated everything boxing was, and still is. The sublime and the downright grime.

It was staged in Zaire on 30 October 1974, funded by the brutal dictatorship in control there at the time.

Ali, a massive underdog, had cast himself as the charismatic good guy and Foreman the brutish villain. It would be staged at 04:00 local time so some 50 million people could tune in across the world.

A suspected 26 million people watched in the UK, out of a population of 56 million.

Foreman was expected to crush Ali. Instead Ali produced a classic performance, soaking up pressure for seven rounds. Debuting his 'rope-a-dope' style on the ropes, he slowly drained Foreman of his powers.

In the eighth round, Ali pounced. He dropped Foreman, who was not allowed to beat the count by the referee, thus bringing to a close one of the biggest upsets in world championship boxing.

After his first loss in 41 fights, Foreman took two years out of the ring.

"From pride to pity, that was devastating," Foreman said of the loss.

Foreman complained the ropes had been loosened, that his trainer had even drugged him. He campaigned for a rematch but never got it. But once Ali called time on his career, he and Foreman became close friends.

Foreman famously helped a Parkinson-afflicted Ali climb the steps to receive an Oscar for the When We Were Kings documentary in 1996, which told the story of their showdown 22 years previously.

"Foreman was part of that holy trinity of heavyweight boxers, with Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier," boxing promoter Frank Warren said.

"The great fights they had between them were special times for boxing and world sport.

"They're events that have gone down not just in boxing, but significant moments in the world of sport."

At 27, Foreman got back in the ring to fight Frazier for a second time. They each received a $1m fight purse. Foreman was still only 27.

On 15 June 1976, Foreman crushed a 32-year-old Frazier for a second time, stopping him in the fifth.

During the US TV broadcast, commentator Howard Cosell summed up the performance: "George Foreman: Too big. Too strong. In perfect shape. The punches crisp from the very beginning."

Foreman was seemingly on top of the world again, though three fights later he would lose to Jimmy Young on points in a sluggish performance in Puerto Rico.

After the fight, Foreman said he had a "near-death experience" in the dressing as he struggled with exhaustion and heatstroke.

Foreman said in that moment he became a believer in God. He retired from boxing aged 28 and became an ordained minister.

Ten years later, Foreman shocked the boxing world by announcing his comeback.

He returned initially because his George Foreman youth centre was in financial crisis but would rack up 24 wins between 1987 and 1991.

"Everybody laughed, and I listened to them laugh," Foreman told the BBC later. He faced Holyfield in April 1991 for the WBA, WBC and IBF heavyweight world titles.

Holyfield would beat a 42-year-old Foreman, seemingly ending an impossible mission to become world champion again.

He tried again, losing on points to Tommy Morrison in 1993 - but was given the chance to fight WBA and IBF champion Michael Moorer next.

Fellow American Moorer was cruising through the encounter before eating a right hand from Foreman in the 10th round.

The punch made Foreman the oldest heavyweight champion in history at 45. He narrowly retained the title against Axel Schulz in his next bout.

He would fight three more times in non-world title fights, before finally bringing the curtain down on his professional career in 1997 at the age of 48 following a points loss to Shannon Briggs.

"It was a great challenge for me to fight and fight, and when the time was up, I was happy about it."

In 2022, two women filed lawsuits in the United States accusing him of sexual abuse in the 1970s.

One accused Foreman of grooming her when she was eight and having sex with her when she was 15.

The other accused him of sexually abusing and raping her when she was 15 and 16-years-old.

In March 2024, Foreman launched a countersuit, asking one of the lawsuits be thrown out.

Foreman "adamantly and categorically" denied the allegations.

He remained a household name in retirement. He became a boxing analyst but to the younger generations he most known for his George Foreman grill.

Foreman had 12 children, naming all the boys George, and was married five times.