George Foreman

Bio

George Foreman hit harder than anybody who has ever boxed at heavyweight. That is not a fan's exaggeration — sixty-eight knockouts in eighty-one fights, and he was still doing it in his forties.

The young Foreman was frightening. He took the world title off Joe Frazier in Kingston in 1973 by knocking him down six times in two rounds, and he did much the same to Ken Norton. Then Ali took it all apart in Kinshasa in 1974 by letting him punch himself empty on the ropes.

The second act is the one that made him unique. He came back after a decade away, older, heavier and calmer, and in 1994 knocked out Michael Moorer at 45 to become the oldest heavyweight champion in history. Nobody had done anything remotely like it.

He fought George Chuvalo in 1970 and stopped him in three — on cuts, with the referee intervening while Chuvalo, as ever, was still upright.

Foreman died in 2025, aged 76. Two entirely different fighters, one career, and a punch that belongs in a museum.