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There was no greater punch in George Foreman’s life than the words, “God saved me, and gave me another chance to live.”

Although raised by a working mum with a love for the Gospel, the superstar athlete had rejected religion as a crutch for poor people.

Recounting this darkened corner of his life, Foreman wrote,

“Christianity seemed boring to me — an escape for poor people and little old ladies.”

He “didn’t believe in all this religious stuff.”

He “didn’t need God.”

Foreman had his fists. His hate. His rags-to-riches celebrity and a truckload of money.

The latter, he said, “always solved his problems.”

Reflecting on his youth, Foreman described himself as a “vicious and savage teenager who picked fights every chance he could.”

After quitting school in 9^th grade, he worked as a dishwasher.

He then joined a Jobs Corp program, learned to box, and the rest is history.

In 1974, Foreman, with 40 wins and 37 knockouts, would go on to fight the great Muhammad Ali for 5 million dollars.

Equally matched, it was a fight Foreman would famously lose.

Desperate Prayer

It wasn’t until 1976 that Foreman would pick up a line to God.

His nephew had fallen critically ill, and this time, his money, while needed, wasn’t enough.

Post-Ali’s “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”, things for Foreman were gradually falling apart.

So, with no real connection, other than a keen sense of desperation, Foreman said he prayed.

“Prayer to me,” he would later state, “was like throwing a dart up in the sky, hoping to hit something up there so I could get God’s attention.”

“I didn’t know who God was or how to talk to Him.”

“I was,” Foreman added, “the most unqualified person on Earth to be praying.”

“I was an angry, evil person. I didn’t attend church, I’d never read the Bible, and I mocked and laughed at those who did.”

Crediting God for hearing his frustrated, somewhat dishevelled, and clumsy prayer, Foreman said, his nephew recovered.

Doctors, he added, “had no explanation for it.”

Despite acknowledging his nephew’s surprise recovery, Foreman deconstructed the event, dismissed the miracle, and picked up where he’d left off.

As Paul writes in Galatians 6:7, God will not be mocked.

Resurrection

Almost a year later, Foreman was facedown, dead, then revived, claiming that God had brought him back to life.

The great boxer, who’d faced up to Mohammed Ali and lost, had lost again, this time to Jimmy Young.

It was 1977. Foreman was in Puerto Rico.

Pacing around his locker room after the fight, Foreman described being “transported into darkness.”

“It was a deep dark place, over my head, and around me,” he told I Am Athlete.

“And the smell of death, I haven’t forgotten that yet.

“I got mad and thought, okay, this is death.”

After declaring into the void that he “still believed in God”, Foreman said he was suddenly “pulled out of nothingness by something like a big hand.”

Testifying to being given another chance, he retired from boxing at 28.

By 1980, Foreman was leading a growing Bible study and had founded the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He was ordained, worked in radio, and for the next 45 years, he preached the Gospel — in and around a return to boxing — alongside big sports-related sponsorship deals.

George Foreman said the night he met Jesus was more real than any punch he ever took. Laid out in a locker room, blood on the floor, soul on the line—he didn’t find religion, he found truth. pic.twitter.com/izFAOwEReX

— Restricted Daily (@Restricted_on_X) March 22, 2025

Fondly Remembered

His most recent and perhaps biggest misstep was promoting the so-called COVID-19 vaccines.

Despite this hiccup, tributes flowed with the kind of awe rightly granted to great men, humbled by the transformative power of the cross.

Basketball legend, Charles Barkley said the news of Foreman’s passing “hurt”.

“George was one of the greatest boxers ever, but he was just a gentle man; a pastor. It just hurts, plain and simple.”

Master of the boxing circuit, Mike Tyson, responded on X, stating, that Foreman’s “contribution to boxing and beyond will never be forgotten.”

The voice of boxer and entertainer Micheal Buffer echoed Charles Barkley’s lament, saying he was “totally heartbroken”.

Friends for over 35 years, Buffer wrote,

“I’m finding it difficult to deal with. I’ll collect my thoughts and have more to say soon about a man that I (and so many others) loved and respected.”

Australian boxing legend Jeff Fenech described George Foreman’s life as “something special”.

“We spent a lot of time together […] He wasn’t just a normal person.

“Ali’s rivalry and Foreman’s comeback in the ’90s, that’s something you never forget. He was an amazing fighter and a very special man,” Fenech told The Daily Mail.

George Foreman’s family announced his passing on Instagram a few days ago.

In a brief tribute remembering the “big man”, they said,

“George peacefully departed on March 21, 2025 surrounded by loved ones.

“A devout preacher, a devoted husband, a loving father, and a proud grand and great grandfather, he lived a life marked by unwavering faith, humility, and purpose.”

The Foreman’s thanked supporters for the “outpouring of love and prayers”.

His family then asked for privacy in order to “honour the extraordinary life of a man” they “were blessed to call their own”.

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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.