George Foreman

At 6'3" and 220 pounds, George Foreman was certainly a powerful champ, but there was more. He seemed to give off an air of menace that reminded some observers of Sonny Liston. It may have been calculated, but there was no doubting that Foreman had a lot of pent-up rage. As he admitted in his autobiography: "I became the stereotypical heavyweight champ—surly and angry. If someone asked for an autograph in a restauarant, I'd say, 'What do you think, that I'm going to stop eating and sign my name?' Then my eyes would sweep the room in a mean glare."

That anger did serve him well in the ring. He easily beat his first challenger, Jose "King" Roman on September 1, 1973, with a first-round knockout in Tokyo. Ken Norton was a little harder. That knockout took two rounds, on March 26, 1974, in Caracas, Venezuela. So Foreman was looking secure when he went up against Muhammad Ali, in Kinshasha, Zaire, for the legendary "Rumble in the Jungle." It was not a good setting for Foreman, who missed American food and living space. And there was an element of feeling rejected. As he wrote, "This was clearly Muhammad Ali country. Sentiment in his favor colored how everyone looked at me—and they did so incessantly, their eyes following me everywhere." By the time of the match, on October 30, 1974, Foreman was restless and feeling aggressive. He came at Ali with a rapid flurry of punches, but this time Foreman had met his match. Ali absorbed the blows, continually taunting his rival, and then knocked Foreman out in the 8th round. For the first time, Foreman had lost—and this time it cost him the heavyweight championship.