Two-time world heavyweight boxing champion and successful entrepreneur George Foreman has passed away at the age of 76.
His family announced that he died peacefully on March 21, 2025, surrounded by loved ones.
“With profound sorrow, we announce the passing of our beloved George Edward Foreman Sr, who peacefully departed on March 21, 2025, surrounded by loved ones,” his family said in a statement posted on the boxer’s official Instagram page.
“We are grateful for the outpouring of love and prayers and kindly ask for privacy as we honour the extraordinary life of a man we were blessed to call our own.”
Born in 1949 in Houston, Texas, Foreman overcame a challenging upbringing, finding direction through the Job Corps programme, where he discovered boxing.
“At 13 years old, George was about 6-foot-2, 200 pounds and the terrorist in the neighbourhood,” his younger brother Roy told the BBC in 2024.
“And when you’re bigger and stronger and think you’re better than everyone else, you take things.”
Foreman’s athletic ability was shown when he won a gold medal at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.
At 19, he crushed his way to the super-heavyweight title, brandishing an American flag in the ring just days after Tommie Smith and John Carlos’ historic Black Power salute.
Standing 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m) and known as ‘Big George’, he was a formidable presence in the heavyweight division.
His destructive power and quickness propelled him fast up the professional ranks. In 1973, he won the heavyweight belt by destroying Joe Frazier in two rounds.
By October 1974, when Foreman defended his title against Muhammad Ali in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), he had a perfect 40-0 record.
Ali’s ‘rope-a-dope’ tactic wore him down, and tired, Foreman gave up in the eighth round.
Foreman’s impact on boxing and beyond is permanent.
A two-time heavyweight champion, an Olympic gold medallist, a preacher, an entrepreneur, and a devoted family man, his life was one of success, atonement, and reinvention.
