George Foreman, legendary boxer and a great loser in mythical combat against Mohamed Ali, before a mythical return to the top, died in Houston, at the age of 76, said his family.
He was the big loser of “La Baston in the Jungle” (“The Rumble in The Jungle”), organized one evening in October 1974, in Kinshasa, against a certain Mohamed Ali. George Foreman is dead, announced his family this Saturday, March 22. The legendary boxer, Olympic champion, twice world heavyweight champion, “died peacefully on March 21, 2025, surrounded by his relatives,” the latter said in a statement.
“Our hearts are broken,” we can read in the family message published on Instagram. “It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of our beloved George Edward Foreman Sr.” George Foreman was 76 years old. “A humanist, an Olympian, a double world champion, he was greatly respected. He was a strength of good, a man of discipline, conviction, a protector of his inheritance, who fought tirelessly to preserve his name, for his family,” added the document.
The causes of the death of George Foreman, however, were kept secret. The New York Times said that the former boxer died in a hospital in Houston, Texas, where he was from. The conspiratorial sphere immediately grabbed this disappearance by publishing videos on the social networks from the former boxer receiving the COVVI-19 vaccine.
George Foreman, from revelation at 19 to fall “in the jungle”
George Foreman, a giant of 1m91 from a black disadvantaged district of Houston, had become Olympic champion at only 19 years old, when he was still a perfect unknown, by shipping the Soviet Jonas Cepulis in the final of the 1968 Mexico Cyle, in just two rounds. Renowned for his superhuman power, he then became the first time world champion in 1973.
An ascent suddenly stopped by this defeat against Mohamed Ali, on October 30, 1974, in Kinshasa, in front of nearly 100,000 spectators. Foreman will be struck down by endurance, the tactic, and the bewitch of his opponent, who had put all the public in his pocket before the fight, claiming in particular to fight for Africa. The confrontation will remain as one of the greatest fights in the history of boxing, by its level and its ferocity. He also marked the rebirth of Mohamed Ali, then 32 years old.
Foreman will no longer compete in professional fight for two years and, despite a new KO against Frazier in a match in 1976, he announced his retirement in 1977, at 28, after a defeat against Jimmy Young. Foreman will later declare that he had fallen seriously ill, suffering from a heat stroke and exhaustion in his locker room. “It was there that he found God,” writes some of his biographers.
“That evening, in the locker room after Jimmy Young, I was so tired and I was so hot that I couldn’t fight, to fight, to fight for my life,” he said. “Then I heard a voice in the locker rooms that asked me, ‘Do you think in God? Why are you ready to die?’ I had just talked about God.
A return to the top at 45
After having multiplied the adventures with women – of which many children will be born, Foreman will thus enter religion, even becoming a pastor, before going up in the rings ten years later. A crazy bet. After two failures for a new title, Foreman, sometimes mocked for his overweight, will be able to become world champion again in 1994, at 45, against Michael Moore, before stopping definitively in 1997 at 48, with 76 victories and 5 defeats.
George Foreman will then live a third career, that of a businessman who had his image grow by associating him with brands, notably Grill, who brought him more than all his boxer matches.
At the announcement of the death, the legendary promoter Bob Arum praised Foreman, “one of the greatest punchers and one of the greatest personalities in sport”, who was “a great friend, for me but also for my whole family, we are devastated”, to report AFP. On his X account, another star of heavy goods vehicles, Mike Tysonsent his “condolences to George Foreman’s family”. “His contribution to boxing, and beyond, will never be forgotten.”