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MARSHALL (AP) \u2014 George Foreman, the fearsome heavyweight who lost the \u201cRumble in the Jungle\u201d to Muhammad Ali before his inspiring second act as a 45-year-old champion and a successful businessman, died Friday night. He was 76. Foreman\u2019s family announced his death on social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cA 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,\u201d his family wrote.<\/p>\n
A native Texan, Foreman began his boxing career as an Olympic gold medalist who inspired fear as he climbed to the peak of the heavyweight division by stopping Joe Frazier in 1973. His formidable aura evaporated only a year later when Ali pulled off one of the most audacious victories in boxing history in Zaire, baiting and taunting Foreman into losing his belt in one of the greatest fights ever staged.<\/p>\n
Foreman left the sport a few years later, but returned after a 10-year absence and a self-described religious awakening. He then pulled off one of the most spectacular knockouts in boxing history in 1994, flooring Michael Moorer \u2014 19 years his junior \u2014 with one perfect combination to claim Moorer\u2019s two heavyweight belts.<\/p>\n
Foreman\u2019s transformation into an inspirational figure was complete, and he fought only four more times before moving onto his next career as a genial businessman, pitchman and occasional actor.<\/p>\n
He was best known as the face of the George Foreman Grill, a rudimentary cooking machine which sold more than 100 million units and made him much wealthier than his sport ever did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MARSHALL (AP) \u2014 George Foreman, the fearsome heavyweight who lost the \u201cRumble in the Jungle\u201d to Muhammad Ali before his inspiring second act as a 45-year-old champion and a successful businessman, died Friday night. He was 76. Foreman\u2019s family announced his death on social media. \u201cA devout preacher, a devoted husband, a loving father, and … Continue reading Marshall native and heavyweight champ George Foreman, dies at 76<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":1399245,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/03\/george-199x200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1399234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-09 12:47:29","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/03\/george-199x200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1399234"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1399393,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399234\/revisions\/1399393"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1399245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1399234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1399234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1399234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}