His family announced Friday that heavyweight champion George Foreman died at the age of 76.
His family said the foreman died from a loved one.
“Our hearts are sad,” the family wrote in an Instagram post. “With deep sorrow, we announced the death of our beloved George Edward Foreman Sr., who left peacefully on March 21, 2025 and was surrounded by loved ones.”
George Foreman premiered on April 26, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Mark von Holden/by Getty image)
“The Devotional Missionary”, a devout husband, a loving father, and a proud and great-grandfather who lived a life marked by unwavering faith, humility and purpose,” the Post continued.
“He is a humanitarian, an Olympian and two-time heavyweight champion, and he is deeply respected – a force of kindness, a protector of discipline, faith, belief and legacy, relentlessly fighting his good name to maintain his good name – for his family -“.
His family said they “grateful for the pouring of love and prayer and beg for privacy because we respect the extraordinary life of someone we are lucky enough to call ourselves.”
The foreman became the Olympic gold medalist in 1968 when he defeated the Soviet Union’s Jonas Čepulis at the Mexican City Olympics that year.
But the foreman is known for his big matches against legendary boxers Muhammed Ali and Joe Frazier.
The Foreman won the heavyweight championship with an amazing second-round knockout match by Frazier, who was unbeaten before 1973. He defended his championship twice, but then lost notoriously to Ali’s first professional game in the iconic 1974 match, known as “Rumble in the Jungle.” The match was played in Kinshasa, Zaire, now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The foreman then retired after losing to Jimmy Young in 1977, but returned to boxing in 1994 at the age of 45. A comeback, the foreman won a unified WBA, IBF and straightforward heavyweight championship.
After his second successful match (46 years and 169 days), he became the oldest world heavyweight champion in boxing history. The foreman is also the oldest boxer ever, winning the main honor of the world heavyweight boxing champion and the second largest boxer in any weight class.
Then, he was 48 in 1997, with a final record of 76 wins, passing the knockout rounds 68 times and losing only 5 times.
During his boxing career, the foreman became a successful entrepreneur when he awarded his portrait to home appliance company Salton, Inc. (now known as Russell Hobbs Inc.) to launch the George Foreman Grill, a portable electric barbecue grill that has always become a common household appliance.
