Obituary
Genuinely extraordinary man and last of the great heavyweights from a bygone era when, rather than the sportswashing shambles it’s become, seemingly the whole world followed the sport
George Foreman
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Apols, this is supposed to be the whole film.
Just a tiny part of the Foreman story
Don’t know if he was the last, Tyson, Holyfield, Bruno,Lewis? But none of those produced a rather impressive grill
At the time he seemed unbeatable, knocking out Frasier in the first round I believe. Strange then that his most famous fight is one that he lost. Remember watching it with my dad (must have been a re-showing the next day), one of the most memorable sporting events of my life
Think most people would consider the early- to mid-70s as being the Golden Era of Heavyweight boxing.
After that, Don King started getting involved (he and his absurd ‘fro are already hovering the background of some scenes in WWWK) and the sport started devolving into the sad joke it is today.
Interesting that your list of great fighters from the late 80s/early 90s is missing the one truly great heavyweight who, although by then a spent force, fought on into that era – Larry Holmes.
While Tyson, Holyfield and Lewis are shoo-ins for the list of Great Heavyweights, there is no way on earth that Frank Bruno is anywhere near the same class
Mentioning Bruno was a bit of a joke actually, although he did (very) briefly have Tyson in trouble when they fought.
It was a bit like Henry Cooper putting down Ali (then Cassius Clay) at – IIRC – Highbury in the summer of 63. The “Jesus-what-the-fuck-have-I-done?” look on Bruno’s face after his punch connected was priceless.
One of my (very) few claims to fame is I briefly met Muhammad Ali in the Nova Park Hotel in Jeddah in the spring or summer of 1982. The ad agency where I was working was a couple of hundreds of yards down the road from the hotel and me and another guy called Mike Gordon (also from Coventry though I never knew him there) nipped out for a coffee. Mike saw Ali on the phone in reception and went over to get his autograph and I sheepishly tagged along.
Ali was clearly not all there by that point – it wasn’t long after the Trevor Berbick fight – but he was graciousness itself. He put down the phone in the middle of what would then have been a ruinously expensive call to the US to chat, sign autographs and shake our hands.
Mike and I put his being a bit confused down to jet lag, Sadly, as became increasingly apparent a couple of years later, he was clearly starting to suffer the effects of the many punches he’d taken towards the end of his career.
The autograph still resides in my sister’s house in Reading. While I would never sell it, I read a few years back that despite the countless. thousands of autographs Ali signed in his life, his signature was still worth US$25.
A friend of mine met Ali – in greatly reduced circumstances – in a Manchester hotel foyer, where he’d been hired as a meet-and-great celebrity at some posh do. If ever a sportsman’s money was mismanaged, there’s your great example.
Sadly, it would be infinitely harder to think of a top boxer who didn’t get shafted every which way from Sunday.
Even Ali was “owned” by a consortium of businessman at the very start of his career.
He opened a new Leisure Centre in my town IIRC. This would have been in the 70s.
And he did win (a version of) the World Championship, lest we forget.
Anyone who steps into the ring deserves a modicum of respect. Frank perhaps deserves more than a modicum.
My favourite ever sports commentary when Harry lost it for a moment … Get in there Frank!
A nice post from the writer Mark Evanier’s blog about George Forman.
https://www.newsfromme.com/2025/03/21/george-foreman-r-i-p/
I just watched the first Foreman v Frasier fight. Awesome!
Awesome but terrifying too. I find boxing compelling but also conflicting.
Yes, agreed. Shocking in so many ways. The sport you can’t call a game, as they say.
Five sons, all named George !
A right royal bunch
I wonder if he ever got confused between the youngest and second-youngest – “No dad, I’m George Four, man!”
I see what you did there. V.good !
Or “me be George Four”