George Foreman

George Foreman returned to Houston, where he began preaching on street corners, in prisons, and in hospitals. He gave up boxing to focus on this new career and even founded his own church, the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, in a mobile home. He had never felt more at peace with what he was doing. Not that everything went smoothly. Between 1981 and 1983, he was married and divorced three times. One wife fled to Barbados with their children, but Foreman flew there and literally stole them back. Again, he was forced to take a hard look at his life, to try to figure out what he wanted from women, and what they expected from him.

Between 1983 and 1986, he finally achieved some inner peace, preaching at his church. He married again, and had a son named George (like all his other sons). He had also managed to build a small gym next to the church, where neighborhood kids could find alternatives to hanging out on the streets where he had gotten into so much trouble as a youngster. But the money from his boxing days was beginning to run out, and his kids (eight by now, from various wives), were approaching college age. At the age of 40, George Foreman decided to return to the ring.

It was a momentous decision, but one greeted with a lot of skepticism in the sporting world. The boxing world saw a flabby, middle-aged man with a legendary fondness for junk food. The comeback seemed like more of a joke than a serious attempt, but Foreman was serious—and successful. As Gerald Suster wrote in Champions of the Ring, "Big George carried right on eating vast quantities of junk food hamburgers, joking about the fact—and knocking out everyone they put in front of him, clocking up 19 straight wins by KO from 1987 to 1990."

By April 1991, Big George could not be ignored, and heavyweight champ Evander Holyfield agreed to fight him. The match ended with a Holyfield victory, but by going the distance, Foreman proved that he was no joke. In November 1994, he got another shot at the title, this time against Michael Moorer, who was nearly 20 years his junior. Two minutes in the tenth round, with one walloping punch, George Foreman regained the World Boxing Association and International Boxing Federation heavyweight titles at age 45. It was a remarkable achievement, and forever enshrined him in boxing legend.

In addition to his age, commentators also noted the change in George Foreman from his previous reign. Gone were the snarl and the menacing stance. Instead, a genial and even cheerful man occupied the championship. This newfound popularity was a nice change for Foreman. Due mainly to boxing politics, his title did not last long. In April of 1995, he was stripped of his WBA title when he decided to fight Alex Schultz instead of number-one-ranked Tony Tucker. That fall, he refused to fight Schultz a second time, and for that he was stripped of his IBF title. But nobody could take away that triumph of November 1994 and his new popularity.