George Foreman
*George Foreman was born on this date in 1949. He was a Black professional boxer, businessman, minister and author.
George Foreman was born in Marshall, Texas. He grew up with six siblings in the Fifth Ward community of Houston, Texas. Although he was raised by J. D. Foreman, whom his mother had married when George was a small child, his biological father was Leroy Moorehead. He dropped out of school at 15 and spent time as a mugger. At age 16, Foreman had a change of heart and convinced his mother to sign him up for Job Corps after seeing an ad for the Corps on TV. Foreman earned his GED and trained to become a carpenter and bricklayer as part of Job Corps. After moving to Pleasanton, California, with the help of a supervisor, he began to train.
Foreman was interested in football and idolized Jim Brown but gave it up for boxing. In boxing, he competed between 1967 and 1997 with the nickname "Big George". He was a two-time world heavyweight champion and an Olympic gold medalist. After a troubled childhood, Foreman took up amateur boxing and won a gold medal in the heavyweight division at the 1968 Summer Olympics. He won the world heavyweight title with a stunning second-round knockout of the then-undefeated Joe Frazier in 1973. He defended the belt twice before suffering his first professional loss to Muhammad Ali in the Rumble in the Jungle in 1974. Unable to secure another title opportunity, Foreman retired after a loss to Jimmy Young in 1977.
Following what he referred to as a born-again experience, Foreman became an ordained Christian minister. Ten years later, he announced a comeback, and in 1994, at age 45, he won the unified WBA, IBF, and lineal heavyweight championship titles by knocking out 26-year-old Michael Moorer. He dropped the WBA belt rather than face his mandatory title defense soon after. Following a single successful title defense against Axel Schulz, Foreman relinquished his IBF title on June 28, 1995. At 46 years and 169 days old, he was history's oldest world heavyweight champion. He retired in 1997 at 48, with a final record of 76 wins (68 knockouts) and five losses. Foreman was inducted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame and International Boxing Hall of Fame. The International Boxing Research Organization rates Foreman as the eighth-greatest heavyweight ever. In 2002, The Ring named him one of the 25 greatest fighters of the past 80 years.
Outside boxing, Foreman was a successful entrepreneur known for promoting the George Foreman Grill, which had sold more than 100 million units worldwide by 2011. In 1999, he sold the commercial rights to the grill for $138 million. He was married to Mary Joan Martelly from 1985 until his death. He had four previous marriages: to Adrienne Calhoun from 1971 to 1974, Cynthia Lewis from 1977 to 1979, Sharon Goodson from 1981 to 1982, and Andrea Skeete from 1982 to 1985Foreman died at a Houston hospital on March 21, 2025, at the age of 76.
