There were many incarnations of George Foreman.
The one most Americans knew best, by the time he passed away last week at the age of 76, was the affable middle-age pitchman from late-night infomercials. There was the 24-year-old heavyweight champion of boxing’s Golden Age of the 1970s, who won and lost his title in two of the most memorable fights in boxing history, in just under two years. There was the improbable 45-year-old champion of the 1990s, who broke three records with one knockout punch in the 10th round, becoming the oldest ever to win the title, with the longest interval between championships, and the largest age gap between fighters.
Before any of these was the naive teenager from Houston’s poorest neighborhood who celebrated his win at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City by waving a tiny American flag on a stick. Many thought at the time that the gesture was a rebuke of track and field champions Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who’d raised their fists in a Black power salute on the medalists’ podium days before.
In fact, Foreman had carried that flag everywhere he went in the Olympic Village, “so people would know I was from America.” He’d idolized Smith and Carlos, and was devastated when they were expelled from the games. Unrelated to Smith and Carlos, Foreman was expressing his gratitude to the Great Society that lifted him out of poverty.
At 19, Foreman was new to the struggle for racial justice. Asked by a reporter if he’d admired Muhammad Ali for standing up to racism, he said, “We didn’t even know there was something to stand up to. … I lived in a world where I was striving to get a scrap of food, striving to get a job.”
He’d never read — had never heard of — the Houston Chronicle or Houston Post, his hometown’s leading newspapers at the time. When he made the Olympic team, he asked the public relations reps to reach out to the Black-owned Forward Times, telling them, “You’re going to have to say ‘Monkey’ is on the Olympic Team because no one knows me as George Foreman. No one ever calls me George at home.”
By the time Foreman faced Joe Frazier for the heavyweight championship in 1973, he was undefeated in 37 professional fights, winning most of them by knockout. Despite a 3½‐inch height advantage and a 5‐inch reach advantage, Foreman was a 4-1 underdog. Foreman’s dominance in the 2-round fight was so unexpected that Howard Cosell’s repeated cry of “Down goes Frazier!” became iconic for its genuine shock.
Foreman was the last of the three great heavyweights who dominated the sport of boxing in the 1970s, a decade that included the most famous fights in history, beginning with 1971’s “Fight of the Century” when undefeated reigning champion Frazier defended the title from the undefeated former champion Ali.
Ali regained the title from Foreman in the heavily-promoted “Rumble in the Jungle” in 1974, one of the most watched televised events at the time, immortalized in the Academy Award-winning documentary “When We Were Kings.”
Foreman’s religious conversion in 1977 precipitated both his retirement from boxing and his return to it, in 1987: His George Foreman Youth and Community Center needed funds. His defeat of he much-younger Michael Moorer to reclaim the heavyweight title in 1994 not only broke boxing records, but regained him the fame that launched his career as pitchman for his namesake grill.
But for a generation of boxing fans — myself included — his name will always evoke not the sound of sizzling meat, but of Howard Cosell shouting, “Down goes Frazier!”
Marc H. Morial is president and CEO of the National Urban League and was mayor of New Orleans from 1994 to 2002. He writes a twice-monthly column for the Sun-Times.
Send letters to letters@suntimes.com
Get Opinions content delivered to your inbox. Sign up for our weekly newsletter here.