The first edition George Foreman, who won the world heavyweight title in 1973, by massacring Joe Frazier, was the Merchant of Menace. The second version, who won it in 1994, was the Saviour of Souls. In between times – well, a lot of stuff happened. Now he’s the Guru of Grill, the Monarch of Menswear. But don’t believe for one second that he’d rather preach and plug, than punch, for pay.   

What are you doing these days, George?

I stay busy. That’s all that keeps me out of trouble. I’m all over the world promoting the grill, and I have a George Foreman clothing line now. People meet me all over the world now and say ‘George Foreman – the grill man!’ But in Australia, I’m still known as a good boxer.

You’re not officially retired, are you? You keep making noises about your next fight.

I’ve been working on making my comeback to the ring like a dog. My main problem is that I’ve got so many business deals that I do things like go to Rome for a week and I come back and have to start all over again. As soon as I can stop for a month and a half or eight weeks, I’m ready to go. I want to have one boxing match. I want to fight someone under thirty, and a contender of some sort. I don’t want to get in the ring and challenge someone my age. Larry Holmes is out of the picture. Even Tyson is too old.

What made you get into selling stuff?

I learned to sell back in 1979. I was some real quiet, lean boxer, and I went out on the street as an evangelist, trying to sell Jesus Christ, of course. No-one would listen. I cut off all my hair and my beard and no-one recognised me as Foreman. I realised, if I’m gonna make these people stop for ten or fifteen minutes, I’m gonna have to really put it on big here. After a few months, I had crowds everywhere I went and I didn’t have to use the name George Foreman. I started selling Doritos, McDonalds, you name it. I was sellin’ everything.  Madison Avenue caught onto it and wanted me to come back to boxing. They thought ‘this guy can really sell himself.’ Once you start selling, it motivates you to always sell something else. Quality stuff of course.

But your faith comes first?

My faith is what keeps me grounded. I still have the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ right here in Houston. I speak three times a week when I’m in town, Saturday evening, Sunday morning and Sunday evening. That’s my profession. I moonlight as a grill salesman. It’s still the main thing in my life. I got four grandkids now and you better have some religion if you want grandkids.

Was it your faith that changed you as a fighter? How does that happen?

In 1994, a different man won the title to the one in 1973. I’d been this brutal guy. Boxing was everything to me. I won the title and thought, ‘This is the greatest thing that could happen.’ When I lost it, I felt like I’d lost everything. The second time around, I was a father, a faithful husband, a salesperson, and when I knocked out Michael Moorer I got down on my knees and thanked God, then jumped up and packed my clothes because I was trying to make it back for Sunday school service. So boxing was only a small portion of my life the second time around.

Boxing seems to be headed south these days. What do you attribute that to?

Writers have got to come back to boxing.  There was a time when we had all the major sportswriters in the world. They gave us nicknames – Smokin’ Joe Frazier, The Brown Bomber, the Manassa Mauler, Iron  Mike Tyson – we had some real names. Now the writers have stopped writing about us we got television, but television never made anything of anyone. It’s the writers who gave us our names. Hemingway and all these great writers would tell stories about boxing and follow the adventures of one boxer or another. They deserted us and left us to television, and we’re shrinking to nothing. Now, they call the Klitschko boys ‘the Klitschko boys.’ The non-boxing people aren’t reading anything about us. When Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali and even I was boxing, press would come in from all over the world, and spend time in our training camps and send stories back home. They made us bigger than life and people looked at us as more than just boxers. Today we’re looked at as just boxers, and boxers can’t do it on their own. The writers made a romantic character out of Ali. Newspapers and writers are still the backbone of all sport.

Have you still kept track of the fight game in Australia since I spent all that time with you in 1995?

Australia is coming out with some good boxers right now. They just need some more exposure. I saw Kali Meehan fight and he had so much promise. He actually beat Lamon Brewster, and I saw the fight and got mad. He lost because the judges thought, ‘This guy’s going back to Australia, but this guy’s mainstream.’ If only he’d been fighting a little more he’d have got the decision. The judges are not crooks, they’re just human, that’s all.

What did punching for pay teach you?

Never underestimate anyone.  I fought Joe Frazier and got a knockout because I looked across there and thought this guy was tougher than anyone I ever saw in my life. I was actually afraid of him and it motivated me to knock him out. Ken Norton, I looked across the ring and I saw ripped muscles. I said ‘I gotta get this guy.’ I looked at Ali, who’d lost to these guys, and I thought, ‘I’m gonna knock this guy out in two or three minutes.’ I learned to respect men. If they’re 195 pounds, respect ‘em. If they’re 187, respect ‘em. Don’t ever take anyone for granted. In business, I go in there with the same sort of urgency and respect I did against Joe Frazier and I’ll always come out on top.

The most important lesson boxing has for life is that getting knocked down is no big thing. But getting up and brushing your pants off and saying, ‘I’ve got more in me’, and going again, that’s important. Going through a divorce, that devastated me. Losing my fortune, that devastated me. Don’t blame anyone. Don’t start cryin’. You can only blame yourself if you don’t get up.

You make no secret of your admiration for Muhammad Ali. Why do you esteem him so highly?

I saw Muhammad Ali on television back in the sixties, and he told Howard Cossell, ‘I’m so fast, I can hit the light switch and be in bed before the room is dark.’ I remember thinking ‘what a liar, what a joker.’ I got in the ring with him. He wasn’t lyin’. He was faster than people thought he was. He’s the greatest man to ever put on a pair of boxing gloves. I’m not going to say the best boxer – give that to a boxer. But I remember writers would come and sit around Ali, and they actually became better writers. Movie stars would sit around him, and they’d come back with an arrogance like nothin’ and they’d become better movie stars. I fought him and I’m happy. When people say, ‘The Rumble in the Jungle’ and ‘the rope-a-dope’, I tell ‘em ‘remember me, I’m the dope!’ He was a marvellous man and I love him. I wouldn’t want to consider living a good full life without remembering something about Muhammad Ali. The one thing I hated about Muhammad Ali was that I loved him so much!

Published in Inside Sport, November 2004