The Man, the Legend
By 
George Foreman has passed away.
George Foreman, a heavyweight boxing champion who returned to the sport to regain his title at the improbable age of 45, and parlayed his fame and amiable personality into a multimillion-dollar grill business, died on Friday night at a hospital in Houston. He was 76.
His family announced his death on his Instagram account. Roy Foreman, George’s brother, said the cause of death was not known.
When Foreman returned to the ring after 10 years away, there was skepticism that a fighter of his years could beat any younger fighter, much less come back to the top of the game. But in 1994, he beat the undefeated Michael Moorer to reclaim the world title, shocking the boxing world.
A monster of a man, and an absolute hero. When We Were Kings is primarily a study of Ali but it offers deep insight into Foreman’s character, which is interesting primarily in its mutability. The brutal Foreman of the early 1970s is the same man as the amiable Foreman of the 1990s, as long as you understand the pathways through which a man may manage the change in his outlook and his personality. Boxing isn’t the thing it used to be and that’s fine, but a well-fought match is still a beautiful thing to watch. Watching the fat, old Foreman put Michael Moorer on the ground is one of the finest moments in the history of televised sports.
Foreman added something to this world (and let’s not sleep on the Grill, the best late-night infomercial invention ever), and it’s worth remembering who he was and what he wanted to be.