HE’S OLDER NOW.
Sepia-tinted snapshots of a time when he ruled the world are burned in our consciousness.
Big George they called him; still do. A throwback to a time of three African-American kings; George, Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier.
He’s the last of the holy trinity still walking the Earth. Still feeling what the world felt in a dusty old stadium, creaking at the edges of the old fishing village of Kinshasa.
He’s been around the block, too. Inside and outside the ring. Spent 10 years as yesterday’s man while yesterday’s men like Mike Tyson and Larry Holmes held the Heavyweight Championship of the World, before he reigned again.
A lot happened in those 10 years, after he stared death in the eye one Puerto Rican night and said “not tonight”.
That was in 1977, after succumbing to the Caribbean’s humidity and Jimmy Young’s heat. That night, George “had the devil knocked out of me” and thought his days were numbered.
“For 10 years I didn’t make a fist, or put on boxing gloves. I took care of my ministry. I never would have gone back (to boxing), but I ran out of money. In those 10 years I got a chance to find myself. The boy that my mom loved. The boy that I liked.
“I was able to recapture my feelings of who I really was. When you find yourself, you find the peace you were looking for. I thought I wanted wealth, I thought I wanted the Heavyweight Championship of the World and don’t get me wrong, they were great, but finding yourself is the greatest prize of all.
“Now, I’m living a good life. I’m getting to see the world, not as an athlete, or a boxer; as a human being. I’ve been to a lot of Asia including China, Japan, Thailand; I’ve been to all of Europe; even Lithuania. I love Lithuania! My life is great.”
Life wasn’t always ‘great’, however. Young George was angry. Young George was mean. Young George didn’t talk much. Young George would kill you in two rounds and want to kill you again in the third.
“Sonny Liston acted tough and mean all the time,” says Foreman. “So I figured, if a man’s gonna be jumping (up in) the world, that’s how you gotta behave. So I really copied Sonny Liston, even though I didn’t know why he was doing certain things, and I ended up making myself mirror his personality.
“I wasn’t intentionally being mean, I just figured, if you’re gonna be champ, as a young man, that’s how you gotta do it. I wanted to take care of my mom, and my brother, who was going to school. I wanted to make as much money as I could. So I sat down one day and I thought, ‘If I’m gonna do all the things need to do, the best way for me to do it is to become a boxer.’
“I made up my mind to pursue boxing as a profession; I didn’t like it, but it was an honest profession for me.”
It’s fair to say, Foreman’s heavyweight division hasn’t got the blood flowing since the turn of the century in the same way as it did in the 1970s, and even the 1990, with the likes of Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis, and Foreman himself squaring off in some biblical battles.
But he has a lot of time for some of today’s young gunslingers talking the talk, and often walking the walk, too.
“Boxing is a wonderful sport. There’s some guys that haven’t won that may fights, but everybody’s gonna want to pay to see them because they realise they’re not gonna quit. They’re gonna fight every minute of every round. Then there’s guys like Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder, they’re the cream of the crop. One day, when they face each other, we’re gonna see a real World Heavyweight Title fight again. I am looking forward to that day.”
Who does George fancy to emerge triumphant when the two most exciting prospects in the current heavyweight division eventually collide?
“Wilder needs to throw his punches; there’s no way (for Joshua) to cover up, so I think he (Wilder) has a bigger chance of gettin’ the knockout. Should the fight extend, Joshua can win on decision.”
Like many last year, Foreman kept a close eye on the Floyd Mayweather – Conor McGregor build-up, and subsequent fight, and he felt it was more than just an express-hyped, money-making machine for both men.
He believed McGregor could, and should, have claimed the most historic, and unlikely of victories. He felt the fight had real boxing, and sporting merit.
“Vote Conor McGregor! Vote Conor McGregor!” Foreman shouts. “He didn’t win that boxing match, but he shook up the world. He went out there with one of the greatest fighters at that weight class and he out-boxed him. He just didn’t have enough legs for 12 rounds. Most (career) boxers don’t even have that. But he showed the world that he could have done it. One more little tactical tweak, or a real boxer standing in his corner, he could have beaten Floyd Mayweather. It was a great fight.”
What should McGregor do differently next time, if he boxes again? “He’s not gonna sneak up on anybody else again. He jabbed Mayweather, hit him with the right hand. If that fight had gone 12 rounds, he was enough rounds ahead to win that fight. He’s not gonna sneak up on anybody else again. He’s probably now able to tell me what to do!”
Where once Foreman was sporadic and impulsive, he’s now a creature of routine. He preaches several times a week at The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in Houston, Texas.
It sits on the side of an interstate highway, connecting traffic to nearby towns, including Humble, where George previously resided. He’s a humble man forever now, thankful for the many great people that have played a part in his life.
Few quite as prominent as Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, during a truly golden era of heavyweight boxing, played out to a captive audience in the early to mid-1970s. Zaire. Manilla. Kingston. Madison Square Garden.
A hundred thousand stories told, documentaries filmed, articles written. We know what happened. Frazier and Ali fought to a pulp three times, both men becoming the champion of the world, and the champion of each other. Foreman conquered Frazier twice – easily and brutally. In between, Big George headed for central Africa and a date with the Louisville Lip.
Ali, boma ye. Ali, boma ye.
“It (the fight against Ali) was a wonderful time in my life. Wherever I go, that conversation crops up. It’s the most wonderful conversation ever. Everybody has something to say, or ask, about it. How many people can go around the world, and everybody they meet knows something about you,” he states, hypothetically.
“Everybody knows that about me. I am happy that fight happened. Of course I wish I had won, but what’s better than winning? Just to know people care about me.
“I always tell people, ‘it was the rope-a-dope, and I was the dope.’”
It was a long road back from Zaire for Foreman, literally and figuratively. Some would say it finished with him improbably reclaiming the Heavyweight Championship of the World, aged 45, in 1994, against Michael Moorer. Indeed, he did so wearing the same red trunks he had worn in his loss to Ali 20 years previous. But, that would be a simplified version of a complicated journey George undertook after the jungle rumbled.
He found God but, most importantly, he found himself.
“I looked in the mirror one day and realised I didn’t wanna be like anyone else; I wanted to be myself. You may be a failure at being someone else, but you’ll never be a failure at being yourself.”
In 2016, the world lost a sporting colossus with the passing of Ali. Foreman lost a great friend. He and Ali long since settled their differences by the time George launched his comeback – Ali can be seen in the ring with Foreman in the moments before his title fight with Evander Holyfield in 1991. Two icons captured in time, fighting very different battles.
“Some say Muhammad Ali was the greatest (ever) fighter; I don’t agree with that but I can tell you one thing; he’s the greatest man I ever met in my life. He was the greatest show on earth.
“There’s never been a man in my lifetime that was more exciting than Muhammad Ali. We became great friends (after Rumble in the Jungle), talked on the telephone, we’d Facetime each other often. It (the rivalry) was always there; I’d ask, ‘how many children you got?’ If I said ‘five’, he’d say ‘six’; if I said ‘four’, he’d say ‘five’. That competitive thing never left. I miss him so much. I really miss Muhammad Ali.”
Foreman was close to Frazier, too, having gained his fearsome reputation after taking Frazier’s heavyweight belt from him inside two rounds in Kingston. Frazier and Ali, however, never seemed to settle their differences borne out of Ali’s insatiable appetite for verbally abusing Smokin’ Joe.
“Joe Frazier was a kind man; he didn’t hate Muhammad Ali,” reveals Foreman. “They were like two brothers when they’d get together; one teases one real quietly, and then the other reacts. Joe Frazier was always the one reacting, so everyone always thought he hated Muhammad Ali; but he loved him.
“It’s just that Muhammad would not stop teasing him. He continued to do it. But Joe loved Muhammad. Joe was a common man – he treated everybody the same. I spent time with both of them. They loved each other, really loved each other. They just never expressed it.”
