George Foreman Returned to the Ring After Ten Years and Won the Title at 45

George Foreman was born in Marshall, Texas, and grew up in Houston's Fifth Ward, one of seven children raised by a single mother. He left school at 15 and, by the accounts of those who covered his life, was getting into street fights and trouble before boxing gave him direction.

He learned to box as a teenager and won an Olympic gold medal in 1968 at 19. In 1973 he knocked out Joe Frazier to become heavyweight champion. A year later he lost the title to Muhammad Ali in the famous Rumble in the Jungle in Zaire.

In 1977, after what he described as a religious awakening, Foreman stopped fighting. He became an ordained minister in 1978 and founded the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in Houston in 1980. In 1984 he established the George Foreman Youth and Community Center to serve young people in the Houston area.

The work he cared about cost money, and his own resources ran low. By the time he considered a comeback, CBC News reported, he was near poverty once again.

In 1987, after ten years away, Foreman announced he was returning to boxing. He was in his late thirties, heavier than in his prime, and many observers treated the idea as a long shot. CBC reported that he came back in large part to earn money for the church and its youth center.

His first comeback fight was against Steve Zouski. He did not leap straight to a title shot. He fought again and again, rebuilding his record and his conditioning over several years. The comeback was steady work, not a single dramatic moment.

On November 5, 1994, Foreman knocked out Michael Moorer to win the heavyweight championship. He was 45, and the win made him the oldest man to hold that title. Two decades had passed since he lost the same crown to Ali.

He kept fighting until 1997, then retired for good. He later worked as a boxing analyst for HBO.

Foreman's best-known business success came from a product someone else designed. Inventor Michael Boehm developed a sloped, fat-draining grill, and the appliance company Salton agreed to produce it in 1994. Foreman signed on as the face of the product.

Early royalty checks were small. Foreman promoted the grill at trade shows, in an infomercial, and on QVC, where his enthusiasm for eating what he cooked drew a strong response. Sales grew sharply, and in 1999 Salton bought the rights to his name for a deal reported at about $160 million. A U.S. Senate resolution after his death noted that more than 100 million of the grills had been sold.

George Foreman died in Houston on March 21, 2025, at 76. He was remembered as a champion, a preacher, a businessman, and a father of 12. His later success did not erase the hard decade before it. It grew from a skill he had set aside, picked back up for a purpose he believed in, and worked at patiently long after most people expected him to stop.