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CBC
24-03-2025
- Business
- CBC
George Foreman's famous grill wasn't always a knockout
When heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman signed a profit-sharing deal in 1994 on the kitchen appliance with which he would become synonymous, his expectations were modest. Foreman was already being courted by blue-chip companies, who paid money up front. The outlook didn't improve when the second royalty cheque for what would be named the George Foreman Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine, paid just $2,500 US — less than the first cheque. "I just signed the contract so I could get 16 free grills for my homes, my training camp, my friends, my mom, cousins and other family members," he wrote in the 2009 book Knockout Entrepreneur, co-written with Ken Abrams. "That's all I really expected to get out of the grill deal." In the same book, he admitted he had ignored the test product sent to his home. It was only after his wife Joan extolled its virtues that Foreman put pen to paper. Just a few short years later, the CEO of Salton, the company that bought the grill, estimated that Foreman was earning more than $4 million in monthly royalties. The company bought him out in 1999 — wisely not severing Foreman's name or removing his ever-smiling image from the product — in a deal reported to have paid him about $160 million, mostly in cash. The total was at least three times more than his career boxing earnings — and Foreman earned more than the vast majority of fighters. Rick Cesari, who worked on the grill's direct response marketing campaign, estimated that by 2011, the product was in some 15 per cent of American households. For the second time, Foreman — whose death at 76 was announced by his family on Friday night — wildly exceeded expectations. 'Santa Claus in boxing trunks' F. Scott Fitzgerald famously mused about "second acts in American lives," and Foreman's reinvention was like few ever seen. Foreman grew up in Houston's hardscrabble Fifth Ward, but squandered a lot of good will after winning a gold medal at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. By the time he lost the heavyweight title in a stunning 1974 knockout to Muhammad Ali in Africa, Foreman rarely smiled, and was an intimidating presence who often sneered at reporter questions. Foreman experienced what he characterized as a born-again experience in 1977 and retired, preaching on Houston streets before sermonizing at the Pentecostal Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Near poverty once again, he got back in the ring in 1987, in large part to earn money for the church and its youth community centre. Few hardened boxing observers took his comeback seriously, but Foreman persevered, with a new, positive disposition. "The old George Foreman smoked, drank, chewed and swore," wrote famed Los Angeles Times sportswriter Jim Murray in 1990. "The George Foreman we all know today is a Santa Claus in boxing trunks." At nearly 46, Foreman stunned the much younger Michael Moorer to win a heavyweight belt nearly 20 years to the day he lost to Ali. Even as he succeeded in the ring, Foreman was vocal about his battle with the bulge. He was weighing in for fights anywhere from 20 to 50 pounds heavier than during his 1970s bouts. Madison Avenue heard him, and there would be Foreman-centred campaigns with McDonald's, Doritos, Oscar Mayer and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Infomercial heyday As that was taking place, shopping channels were flourishing on cable television. Local TV channels that once signed off with the national anthem were now increasingly filling post-midnight slots with infomercials for various gadgets and products for the kitchen, garage and home gym. Inventor Michael Boehm began to sense a trend for health-conscious food in the late 1980s, he told Inventors Digest in a 2015 interview, and he eventually struck a deal for one of his creations, a steam grill acquired by Hamilton Beach. That product launched in 1991, but sales were merely OK. Salton and others took to marketing panini, taco, bagel and fajita makers, which also didn't hit paydirt. After Boehm worked up a prototype for a subsequent, fat-reducing grill, nine companies passed, he said, including Salton on its first look. "There's not one person that I can think of [who] had any enthusiasm for it," Boehm told Inventors Digest. Salton reconsidered in 1994; a modification that slanted the clamshell device to let grease slide down into a drip tray was considered key. Salton needed a spokesperson, and they eventually landed on Foreman. Not in a position of strength relative to a proven marketing force, the deal saw Salton agree to 40 per cent of any profits, with 45 per cent going to Foreman, and the rest taken by the agents who got the two sides together. Foreman the Dad emerges victorious Foreman hawked the product at influential industry trade shows, while Salton also created the George Foreman Grilling Show, a 30-minute infomercial that featured clips they had purchased the rights for, and which played on Foreman's prowess in the boxing ring. Sales into 1996 were respectable, but not earth-shattering. But market research was telling its own tale, according to Cesari. "After the first test, we discovered that between 60 and 70 per cent of our target audience were females who lived in households earning $55,000 a year and were college educated," he wrote in the 2011 book Buy Now: Creative Marketing That Gets Customers to Respond to You and Your Product. "Not exactly the crowd known to take an interest in boxing." The infomercial was retooled to include less pugilism, and more shots of Foreman as an everyman who could be your neighbour, grilling and interacting amiably with several members of his brood. (He was father to 12 kids in all.) "The best spokesperson for a product is one who has used the product and genuinely believes that consumers can benefit by using it, too," wrote Cesari. "The magic is getting the spokesperson to convey the 'believability' to an audience, be it online, on television or radio, or in print." That magic, according to Leon Dreimann, Salton's CEO at the time, first occurred when Foreman appeared on the QVC shopping channel in 1996. During a rare moment of idle time in the 30-minute demonstration, Dreimann told Fortune in 2003, Foreman "patted his belly, took a roll, grabbed a burger, and he started eating." QVC was soon flooded with calls. "It was so spontaneous," said Dreimann. "It was a real reaction. People saw that he eats what he sells." Launch of a grilling empire The product achieved liftoff, but QVC didn't reach all audiences. Former Salton executive Barb Westfield would tell Cesari for his book that another impactful moment came when the New York Times printed a favourable review of the grill on Dec. 31, 1997, in time for "all of those people who were going to take the plunge on their [New Year's] resolutions," she said. The product was reasonably priced, with $30 and $60 versions, and easy to use for the vast majority of real-life kitchen dwellers. (In an episode of The Office, Dunder-Mifflin leader Michael Scott burns his foot on a Foreman grill, having kept the appliance next to his bed.) Salton was formed in 1947 to make hot plates and heated serving trays, and endured more than a few periods of peril in the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to a 1999 Forbes magazine article. Foreman grill sales soared from $5 million in 1996 to $400 million in 2002, and he would ultimately lend his name to six grilling books. Related products were also manufactured, including the George Foreman Rotisserie, and he didn't balk when actor Jackie Chan was signed by Salton to help push the grill in some Asian markets. But while a public figure can attempt to remake their image, a corporation operates in an arguably even more unforgiving world. Grill sales were accounting for between 40 and 50 per cent of Salton's revenues, but through a series of transactions, it effectively no longer existed by 2010. (A Quebec company that began as Toastess Inc. in the 1940s retains the Salton name, after once having an affiliation with the company.)
Yahoo
23-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
George Foreman's life was extraordinary, and his transformation fit for a giant
If you were around in the 1990s, the George Foreman you knew was a gentle giant. You could see the dimples in his cheeks when he smiled, which was often. He would talk about his faith in such a warm way that even if you didn't believe, you wanted to believe. The old boxing heads would tell you about his transformation from what he was in the 1970s, back when he was boxing's heavyweight champion. The words they used made no sense. Brooding. Mean. Terrifying. Impossible when talking about the teddy bear who knocked out Michael Moorer just shy of his 46th birthday to recapture the heavyweight title. 'Big' George was the sweetest, most inexplicable man in sports. Everybody rooted for him. When he started selling his George Foreman Grill around that same time, people bought it. He went on talk shows and made everyone laugh. He had such a joy in life that you'd assume that nothing bad had ever happened to him. It wasn't that it all. It was that nothing could kill him. Foreman died at 76 years old on Friday, leaving behind one of the single greatest legacies in sports. He authored some of the biggest knockouts in boxing's history, the most celebrated of which came some 20 years apart. In 1968, he won Olympic gold for the United States at just 19 years old, just a few years removed from being a wayward child in Houston's 'Fifth Ward,' in which he dropped out of high school and committed petty crimes to make ends meet. After he won in Mexico City, he famously walked around the ring waving a small American flag, a gesture that meant different things to different people right in the heart of the civil rights movement, but a powerful sight. That was the first transformation in a life full of them. As a professional, he raced out to a 37-0 record in the span of five years, before truly arriving on the scene in Kingston, Jamaica in January 1973 to face the mighty Joe Frazier, less than two years after "Smokin' Joe" beat Muhammad Ali in the 'Fight of the Century.' It was there that Foreman turned the boxing world's blood cold, knocking Frazier down six times before the fight was mercifully stopped in the second round. The aftershocks carried over the decades, and Howard Cosell's words from that night have become like a soundtrack to the fight game's psyche as Foreman stood over the scene. 'Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!' Yet it wasn't the victories that ultimately came to define Foreman's life. It was the defeats and epiphanies and genuine convictions, the leaps of faith he took which came to define him. It was the greatness he inspired. When he fought Muhammad Ali in the 'Rumble in the Jungle' in Zaire, he was regarded as an indifferent juggernaut come to execute the 'People's Champion.' Such a Goliath figure was he that many close to the fight worried for Ali's life, which from the Foreman perspective was a dark place from which to work. He did what an unreachable champion cast in such a light might as well do. He leaned into it. He dialed his conscience down to the dead level of zero and let the world wobble through his intimidation. Norman Mailer, who was there for both camps and captured it all in his book 'The Fight,' spoke of such fears on the brilliant 1997 documentary, 'When We Were Kings.' "Foreman hitting the heavy bag is one of the more prodigious sights I've had in my life,' Mailer said. 'Of all the people I've seen hitting the heavy bag, including Sonny Liston, no one ever hit it the way Foreman did. At the end of hitting the heavy bag there would be a huge dent about the size of a small watermelon." Foreman had to be regarded as nearly invincible for Ali to reach the magnitudes that he did by beating him. It was a crashing blow to Foreman, who was just 25 years old at the time. He bounced back to win a few more fights in the 1970s, but the sheen of invincibility was off. Yet the lights within came on. He said he heard the voice of God in his 1977 fight with Jimmy Young out in sweltering heat of Puerto Rico, and that was enough to have him walk away from the fight game for a decade. His calling was the pulpit out in Houston. He wanted to help people. He became a preacher. Out of the spotlight, he changed into the benevolent force that emerged by the early 1990s as boxing's unlikeliest champion. As a man given over to faith, he was a personal exhibit in resurrection, a rise from the ashes story wholly made over from what remained of the memory's stronghold on the guy with the German Shepherd and the overalls, whose power made the hair stand on end. Here was the smiling minister, happily rotund in his mid-40s, a jiggling middle that only served as testimony to his new grill, packing preternatural power in his second act. Whatever was vacant before was now full, solemnity all but purged, packing a vibrancy that spoke to everyone. Impossible? Just a word. Foreman wasn't bitter about the fight with Ali. In fact, Foreman was Ali's biggest fan. He said Ali was the greatest man he'd ever met in his life. Tied to him forever, Foreman found more love and acceptance in that fight than he would've if he'd have won. This was the legacy of 'Big George.' Happiness was a byproduct of his discoveries. This, too, changed all narratives. Then he won the heavyweight title against Moorer in 1994. It immortalized him in the end, yet in that moment it humanized him. Imagine that. George Foreman came from such a place of unspeakable mute rage, of such a detached place in those early days, that it took a nearly impossible act to bring him back down to earth. When Ali was lighting the Olympic torch in Atlanta in 1996, Foreman was still on top of the boxing world. It didn't make sense. And he wasn't intimidating in the slightest. He was the lovable, relatable human being. A father, a grandfather, a husband, an entrepreneur, a man of dedicated faith. It made you wonder if the world really knew Foreman at all when he terrified the heavyweight ranks in the 1970s. George himself would be the first to tell you he didn't. But he never forgot who he was, and he loved who he was enough to fill that terrifying figure in. 'Big George,' what beautiful colors you used.
The Independent
23-03-2025
- Sport
- The Independent
From boxing monster to cuddly veteran – George Foreman was unique
George Foreman was one of the fiercest and feared heavyweights in history. There are two clear parts to the remarkable boxing life and times of Foreman, who died aged 76 this weekend, and the fighter became a world heavyweight champion in both. The story of Foreman's return to the ring after a ten-year exile is as remarkable as his unlikely passage to Olympic glory in 1968 and his first world heavyweight title in 1973. Foreman defied the odds and in the middle of his boxing career, made millions and millions from his lean and mean grilling machine. What a life. Foreman fought 81 times as a professional boxer, losing five in total and knocking out 68 of the 76 men he beat. He was the street kid from Houston's notorious Fifth Ward; he should have been in prison, lost to boxing, but somehow made the USA team for Mexico City and then won the gold medal. He was saved, as he said, by the sport. Big George knew a bit about redemption. After Mexico City, he turned professional, and his reign of terror started. It is hard for people in modern boxing to understand just how scary Foreman was at the time. He was sullen, he was vicious, and he was big. He had huge dogs, he wore leather and jeans and snarled at every camera pointed his way. He was a boxing Hells Angel. There was genuine fear for his opponents. He was unbeaten in 37 when he finally persuaded the heavyweight champion, Joe Frazier, to get in the ring with him. The fight was in 1973, in Jamaica and it was called the Sunshine Showdown. It was a massacre; Frazier was sent tumbling and flying to the canvas six times and stopped in two rounds. It is the fight where Don King, later to be one of Foreman's promoters, arrived in the limo with the champ and left in the limo with the champ: King changed sides during the fight. Foreman changed boxing with that type of devastation. He was called an animal and a beast, and he did nothing outside of the ring to persuade people otherwise. The cuddly George was a few years away, trust me. His two heavyweight championship defences were so brutal that I believe they should only be shown to adults and after the watershed; Ken Norton and Jose Roman lasted a total of 420 X-rated seconds and were left ruined in bloody heaps. There had never been a man like him in the ring. When the Rumble in the Jungle was made, there were genuine fears for Muhammad Ali 's life. One British paper did a feature on the route Ali's ambulance would take from the stadium to the hospital. Foreman was a massive underdog but Ali had prepared for a beating and prepared for Foreman to tire; it was his genius that beat boxing's most dangerous champion. Foreman was broken, but he chased a rematch. Just over two years later, after six more fights, Foreman grabbed his bible and walked off into the wilderness. He was only 28 at the time and had lost just twice in 47 fights. He lost a bout in 1977, suffered an epiphany and went wandering for 10 long years of sermons and penance. His abrupt disappearance was stunning, but his return to the ring in 1987 was even more remarkable. Foreman had become a living storybook of extremes. There is a lot of debate about Foreman's return to the ring and there is no dispute that he had easy fights, but the opposition improved, and the dream started to show on the horizon – Foreman wanted to be heavyweight champion of the world. It was not an easy route for the now permanently smiling and approachable fighter. He was the veteran that everybody loved. The beast was tamed, it seemed. He kept winning and beat a few good men; Gerry Cooney and Bert Cooper both went in two. In 1991, after 24 more wins with 23 knockouts, Foreman lost a world heavyweight title fight to Evander Holyfield; two years later he lost another title fight to Tommy Morrison. Foreman never stopped believing that he was getting closer to the mad dream. Michael Moorer was unbeaten in 35, a southpaw, smart, fresh and mean. He met Foreman in 1994 in Las Vegas and was knocked out in round ten. Foreman was trailing on all cards before the single, devastating punch. Foreman was 45, the new IBF and WBA heavyweight champion of the world and the oldest heavyweight champion in history. It was 20 years after the Rumble – the demons were dead; Big George was King again. There were a few more fights, thousands of smiling cameos, over $250m in revenue from the lean, mean grilling machine. And too many memories to ever forget. There will never be a boxing monster like George Foreman ever again.
Washington Post
22-03-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
From polarizing to beloved, George Foreman sold us on his authentic self
The first time George Foreman allowed the world to see him happy, he created an uproar. He was stunned. It was the final day of the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, and after he destroyed Soviet Union boxer Ionas Chepulis in a gold medal heavyweight fight billed the 'Cold War clash,' he circled the ring holding a small U.S. flag. In one of the most tumultuous years in American history, his joy and patriotism became controversial. Ten days earlier, John Carlos and Tommie Smith had raised black fists in protest during their medal ceremony. Part of America thought Foreman had been persuaded to deliver a symbolic rebuke of Carlos and Smith. Part of America delighted and weaponized him against a Black community protesting against racial inequality. At 19 years old, Foreman learned to scowl. 'My face changed into a sword,' he once told ESPN's Andscape. Foreman died Friday as a jolly, beloved man known for his grandpa-like charm, business savvy and unrelenting commitment to personal growth. He squeezed so many lives into his 76 years. Some of his greatest admirers didn't know him as a boxer. He was just Big George, the guy in the funny commercials who sold grills that made cooking foolproof. Foreman reveled in the multiplicity of his fame. He was a little of everything: teen troublemaker from the Fifth Ward in Houston; giddy gold medalist; surly heavyweight champion at age 24; brooding loser to Muhammad Ali in the 'Rumble in the Jungle' at 25; retired boxer and born-again Christian at 28; ordained minister; folksy ringside analyst; surprising heavyweight champion for second time at 45; celebrity entrepreneur; endorsement king. From street brawler to huckster, he kept changing. After his awkward introduction, America learned to embrace all his shifts. His growth is an American story we need to hear and cherish at a different, yet still difficult, time. Foreman learned at an early age that he wasn't for everyone. In 1968, he couldn't meet a combative moment because he wasn't an athlete activist. But with a brawling style and menacing image, he wasn't going to be embraced by the nation, either. The rejection made him distant and defiant. Spencer Haywood, who led the U.S. men's basketball team to gold in 1968, befriended Foreman in Mexico City. The two 'ate up all the food every day' at the Olympic Village, Haywood recalled to me a few years ago. Haywood felt for Foreman after the flag-waving controversy. 'It wasn't that deep,' Haywood said. 'He was just proud. But that's where we were in America. It was just a damn crazy year, you know what I'm saying?' For the next six years, the incident fueled Foreman. It gave him an edge. In the ring, he could knock out his opponent — and everyone else. He was one of the most feared champions ever, a 6-foot-3, 220-pound chiseled specimen with a big Afro and devastating power. He won his first 40 fights, 37 by knockout. Then in 1974, he fought Ali, who was seven years his senior and supposedly past his prime in a bout billed as 'the Rumble in the Jungle.' Ali and Foreman received $5 million, then a record, to fight in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). Foreman figured it would be easy money for a short fight. But he ended up bowing to greatness. Ali unleashed the rope-a-dope, leaning against the ropes and absorbing Foreman's powerful punches and countering when Foreman was too tired to defend himself. Ali knocked out Foreman in the eighth round, shattering his mean and punishing aura. Big George was devastated. His rage was no longer an asset. Instead of fear, people started to pity him. He felt again like the poor kid who brought an empty lunch bag to school, pretending because he was ashamed his family couldn't afford food. Three years later, during a fight against Jimmy Young in Puerto Rico. Foreman was beaten for a second time. After judges awarded Young a 12-round unanimous decision, Foreman collapsed in the locker room. The near-death experience changed him. He devoted his life to God. He started to live for others. He retired from boxing, and 10 years later, he came back at 38 mostly because he needed money to save the youth center he opened. Foreman fought until he was 48. He finished with a 76-5 record and 68 knockouts. In 1997, after he lost a decision to Shannon Briggs in his final fight, he wore sunglasses during an interview afterward with Larry Merchant and lifted his shirt. 'Well, Larry, I want you to see something,' he said. 'That's about eight weeks I spent on that George Foreman lean, mean, fat-reducing grilling machine.' When Merchant tried to redirect him, Foreman pleaded, 'I'm just trying to sell my grill, Larry.' The decision was controversial, as so many are in boxing, but Foreman declared Briggs the winner and refused to complain. 'I'm almost 50 years old, and that young man had to suck it up, and it took everything he had just to stay in there with me,' Foreman said. 'I'm proud of myself, and it's showing the world that the age 50 is not a death sentence for an athlete. You can pursue excellence as long as you want, not when people say it.' In all phases of his life, Foreman pursued excellence for as long as he wanted. He exuded a kindness that helped you tolerate the unapologetic salesman in him. He had many reasons to close himself off, but he remained open. His life became richer because he was willing to show all his dimensions instead of remaining bitter when the nation disliked his first impression. He didn't just lose to Ali. He learned from him. To endure in this world, you can neither stay the same forever nor allow hardship to erase your humanity. Because his initial triumphs weren't celebrated, Foreman let his grievances and prejudices control him. When failure humbled him, he wanted to submit to shame. Then he found joy in the one thing he could control: his own growth. Today, we mourn many George Foremans, and I'm not talking about the five sons he named after himself. We mourn each fascinating piece of a man who resonated with us for different reasons. Put our perspectives together, and we can see Foreman in full, smiling, celebrating, waving that flag without remorse.
Saudi Gazette
22-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Saudi Gazette
George Foreman, heavyweight champion and cultural icon, dies at 76
HOUSTON — George Foreman, the two-time heavyweight boxing champion whose larger-than-life comeback and warm personality turned him into a beloved global figure, died Friday at the age of 76, his family confirmed. The formidable fighter known as 'Big George' rose from a tough upbringing in Houston's Fifth Ward to win Olympic gold in 1968 and the heavyweight title in 1973 by knocking out Joe Frazier in just two rounds. A year later, he would lose that title in the legendary 'Rumble in the Jungle' against Muhammad Ali, one of the most iconic bouts in sports history. Two decades later, in 1994, a 45-year-old Foreman stunned the world again by knocking out Michael Moorer to reclaim the heavyweight championship, making him the oldest man ever to win the title. The win also marked the longest gap between title reigns in boxing history. His family announced the news of his death on social media, describing him as 'a devout preacher, a devoted husband, a loving father and a proud grand- and great-grandfather.' The cause and location of death were not disclosed. Foreman retired with a professional record of 76 wins (68 by knockout) and 5 losses, but his legacy extended well beyond the ring. He became a television personality, an Olympic ambassador, and a hugely successful entrepreneur, most famously lending his name to the George Foreman Grill, which sold over 100 million units. Born in 1949, Foreman overcame early struggles and a troubled youth to become one of the most feared punchers in heavyweight history. His early persona was stoic and intimidating, but after retiring from boxing in 1977 following a spiritual awakening, he became a preacher and mentor for at-risk youth. In a remarkable comeback at age 38, Foreman returned to the ring in 1987, surprising critics with his endurance, power, and charisma. After his 1994 title victory over Moorer, he fought four more times before retiring in 1997. Foreman also embraced the spotlight outside the ring. He starred in commercials, briefly hosted a sitcom, appeared on 'The Masked Singer' in 2022, and was the subject of a 2023 biopic, Big George Foreman. He fathered 12 children, famously naming five of his sons George, and was remembered as both a ferocious competitor and a deeply kind and spiritual man. — Agencies
