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King of the Grill
By Frank Gannon, September-October 2003
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If it seems odd that a small-time preacher also happens to be a multimillion-dollar grill salesman, remember this: After his religious experience in a Puerto Rico shower, George Foreman sought his fortune—beginning with a return to boxing—for one reason. He needed money for his youth center.
By 1987, Foreman weighed 315 pounds. He wore a perpetual smile on his big round face, and he looked like he had swallowed the heavyweight champion, not pummeled one (Joe Frazier) 14 years earlier. Foreman hadn't put on a boxing glove in 10 years. The rage that made him a fighter was gone. But he gave it a try. It became one of the most amazing comebacks in sports history.
At first it was a sideshow. Foreman had worked off much of his flab, but he was still far rounder than he was in his rock-hard thug days, when he was one of boxing's hardest hitters. No matter. Foreman had fun with his inflated image. When writers joked about his weight, he had a plate of cheeseburgers delivered to a press conference. When asked about the difference between his eating habits and those of Evander Holyfield, George said, "He's got a nutritionist, and I've got room service."
After a string of victories over less-than-formidable opponents, his comeback seemed to peak in 1991, when at age 42 he went the distance with Holyfield, then the heavyweight champ. Rather than retire after his noble defeat, Foreman kept slugging away, fighting what boxing people call "tomato cans." Then came the surprise payoff: Foreman, at 45, would fight Michael Moorer, the new (and undefeated) heavyweight champ.
Foreman lovers were worried. Boxing is a young man's game. Ali, Louis, Dempsey—they were never the same after 35. Foreman was getting the title shot because Moorer considered George a safe opponent—and one people loved to watch. A fight with Foreman would not enhance Moorer's reputation, but it would enhance his wallet. It could also put George in intensive care.
For nine rounds, Moorer landed countless right-hand jabs, pounding Foreman's face. George was behind on all the cards when the bell rang for the tenth. Foreman, who stands between rounds, shuffled out to meet his tormentor. His huge grandfather face was horribly swollen. Moorer met him with another hard right jab.
Then Foreman landed a left jab. Moorer seemed to freeze for a second. Foreman hit him with a short right that exploded on Moorer's chin. Moorer landed on his back. The fight was over. Foreman went over to his corner, knelt down, and prayed. He was now the oldest heavyweight champion in history.
Foreman was sure of the outcome the entire time Moorer was punching him in the mouth. "I felt like the lion carrying off a gazelle. The lion shuts his eyes, because he knows he's going to get kicked before he eats his meal. If the contest were on the point system, the gazelle would win. But it's not."
It's a revealing analogy. George Foreman may be a pussycat, but the lion lurks within.
The private George Foreman isn't all that different from the public George Foreman. That's a huge part of his appeal. George Foreman is a real, flesh-and-blood, Home Depot-going, American man whose wife yells at him once in a while. He loves his wife, Joan (Foreman has been married five times, but he has been married to Joan for the past 20 years), and he loves his 10 kids. One of the few moments I saw regret in his eyes was when he told me he would never again know the pleasure of having a child in the baby-carriage stage.
"One son of mine, we call him 'Big Wheel,' " says George, whose five sons are all named George (the nicknames help distinguish them). "I believe that boy has a future in politics. I want him to be a politician, and one day, President of the United States. He's 15 now. He doesn't know it yet, but I see him going in that direction. Next year I'm sending him back up to Boston for prep school. I want him to get in that atmosphere. I think he can be a benefit to the world."
Like any man with 10 kids—even a kid who may become President—George Foreman needs a sanctuary. And like a lot of guys, his favorite place is his garage, which is large enough to hold a basketball tournament with seating for several hundred. It's actually a larger version of his old garage, which had a 24-car capacity. But there were problems with the old place.
"It held 24 cars, but to get one out you had to move them around like a puzzle," he tells me. "Like you had to move the Bentley where the Rolls was, then move up the BMW to where the Bentley was. Move three cars over here one place. Then bring up the car in the rear two places. It took a half an hour to get one out. Then the car wouldn't start, and you had to go back to the beginning."
Now Foreman's cars, all of them, are readily accessible.
On the problem scale, it's quite a step up for a man raised in poverty outside of Houston. One of seven kids, young George was big and mean. "My mom and dad were separated when I was young," says Foreman. "My dad used to call me 'heavyweight champion of the world' when I had no idea what that was." His father worked for a railroad, his mother worked long hours as a cook. George dropped out of school at 16, started drinking, and stole. He found boxing after signing up with LBJ's Job Corps as a teenager. Three years later, in 1968, he won an Olympic gold medal.
When he returned home from the games, Foreman met the man who would most influence the first angry chapter of his life: Charles "Sonny" Liston. A scary thug with a long rap sheet, Liston was once an enforcer for the mob. Now he was heavyweight champ and he needed sparring partners. A surly mentoring relationship was born.
"Sonny Liston and I would go out. We'd sign autographs," recalls George. "Liston would take 10 minutes signing his name. He'd sign two autographs and walk away. All these people would be standing there. He'd just stop, scowl, that was it. I thought, 'That's the way you act when you're on top.' "
George was learning the way of the world, Liston-style. He practiced his scowl. His intimidating silent glare. Then, years before his rebirth, Foreman learned a lesson in Matthew 7:12. Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.
"We were riding around," Foreman remembers. "Dick Sadler [later George's trainer] had a Lincoln and we were cruising. I thought of Liston and me as close by then. I was reading a little horoscope book. I said, 'Hey, this stuff is really real.' Sonny said, 'That cuss word is a bunch of cuss word.' [Foreman does not curse, even when quoting someone else.] I said, 'Oh yeah, look at your birthday,' and I handed him the book. He got mad. I had never seen him that mad at me. 'Get that cuss word out of my face, cuss word!'
"He hurt me. I thought we were close. I was really confused. Later, Dick Sadler saw me and said, 'Don't get mad. The big man can't read.' "
Foreman thought of the autographs and Liston's treatment of fans and media. Liston's meanness, he realized, came from embarrassment. "When he gave an autograph, he wasn't writing, he was sketching. A priest in prison taught him that. I realized that Liston, my role model, had become this brutal, mean person to conceal something. I began to see that the world was more complicated than I had thought."
Bert Sugar has opined that Foreman's nastiness, like Liston's, was a defensive posture, a way to avoid the unfamiliar. Big George, I now suspect, was a nice guy all along.
George Foreman, legend, icon, softie, is not content to rest on his laurels, even though his laurels make a very large resting place. Despite his many successes, he still has two unrealized ambitions: He wants to star in a Broadway play ("Acting and boxing are very close," he says), and he wants to write a major American novel.
"I will not rest until I publish the novel," he says, leaning back in a folding chair in his garage. Foreman is the author of four books. They include a couple of grill-connected works and an autobiography (By George, from 1995), as well as George Foreman's Guide to Life: How to Get Up Off the Canvas When Life Knocks You Down (Simon & Schuster, 2002), a sort of spiritual self-help book. I've just read it, and I'm impressed by Foreman's way with words.
"You got to read, read, read," says George, who is currently plowing through Tolstoy's War and Peace. "They gave me books to read in the Jobs Corp, like The Autobiography of Malcolm X. At first I just pretended, then I couldn't stop…. I loved lying there with my book, thinking up answers. Symbols and metaphors were wonderful, a universe unlocked."
It is hard to reconcile the literary George with the brutal sport that made him famous. I ask him if he worries that the sport has taken some hidden toll on him, as it has on Muhammad Ali. His answer is simple and unambiguous. "No," he says, "I don't." In fact, George Foreman still firmly believes that he can be heavyweight champion of the world. At 54.
"It's not like I quit because I can't do it," he tells me. The reason he quit? He told his wife he would. "I knew that it was time to get off the scene, but not because I couldn't do it," he says. "I can still do it now. But it's feeling bad about winning, like you're taking something from a young person."
He can see that I'm finding this a bit much. He goes on.
"It's like you're playing basketball with your kids. After a while, you want them to win more than you want to beat them. I stepped aside for the next generation. The young people need boxing a lot more than I do."
Apparently, George needs boxing more than he thought. In late June, during the weeklong hype before the Lennox Lewis-Vitali Klitschko fight, Foreman talked about a comeback in 2004. The media didn't take it seriously, particularly after Klitschko's bloody loss, since Foreman made clear he has no interest in fighting Lewis or Mike Tyson. But after watching George work out at his youth center with his daughter Natalie, I think a comeback may not be as absurd as it sounds. I watch Foreman easily do tricep pull-downs with 200 pounds.
"Are you good at lifting?" I ask.
Foreman's eyes lower a little.
"I can outlift anyone who comes in here," he says.
I look in his eyes. I can just make out the old George in there.
George Foreman is driving me around his estate in a golf cart he owns. He is driving fast. We slow down as we pass his lawyer and some friends. He introduces me as we cruise by. "This is my new bodyguard," he says. They all laugh. Couldn't one of them have taken that seriously?
As we bump past the metallic frogs that will adorn a fountain at the front of his stately new home, we continue to discuss the mystery of what makes one person more likeable than another.
"If a guy has no talent, but he's a hard worker, people will follow that man to the end of the earth," he says, steering around the giant frogs. He is near my car. The golf cart slows. We are about to part. George Foreman speaks significantly about what it is to be George Foreman.
"A lot of people," he says, "when they buy those grills, really are buying YOU. And a lot of people think, You know what? I like that guy! I'm going to buy that! And if you can sell the idea to people that you are sincere and you mean what you say, everybody wants to buy sincerity. You don't mean them any harm. They want you. They are going to buy your grill!"
I am at my car. George puts his arm on my shoulder, smiles, and gives me a reassuring pat. He shakes my hand and lets me off.
I watch the golf cart drive away. I like that guy, I think. I am going to buy his grill.
Frank Gannon has written for GQ, Esquire, and The New Yorker. He is the author of a recent memoir, Midlife Irish: Discovering My Family and Myself (Warner, 2003).
Now, try your hand at these recipes especially adapted for the Foreman Grill:
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