The amiable, soft-spoken, self-deprecatingly jocular giant with no hair and a plastic cooking spatula in one hand — could he be the meanest, baddest, most silently menacing world heavyweight champion who ever threw leather?
Who scythed Smokin’ Joe Frazier to the canvas twice in one round? Whose workouts on the heavy punch-bag were described by Norman Mailer as ”the great overhead blows of a steam hammer driving a channel of steel into clay”?
In his Texan drawl, he insists he is — and his PR retainers confirm it. But he’s sitting in the boardroom of the Michelangelo Hotel in Sandton extolling kitchenware …
There can be no doubt that George Foreman passionately believes in his Lean, Mean Grilling Machines — the GR14 (it grills up to three extra burgers, three plump chicken breasts or two medium, juicy steaks in minutes), the G28 (with a 30-minute timer and variable temperature), the GR20BWC with clear bun-warmer (for those with cold buns) and the rest of his grillers.
Caressingly, he demonstrates how the specially-designed spatula dovetails with the grooves of the grill-plates to remove ”those sticky bits”. He explains that the genius of the griller lies in its ”patented, sloped grooves”, which drain the fat into a detachable drip-tray, the ”floating hinge” for easy cooking, and the double non-stick-coated cooking plate for extra grilling speed.
Hence the slogan: ”Half the time, half the fat, double the flavour.”
This is Foreman’s second trip to South Africa. His first, two years ago, was to commentate on the Lewis-Rahmann fight and launch his griller range. This time, he says, he’s ”come for the knockout punch”.
He is a living testament to the power of sporting endorsements, on which American business spent nearly $1-billion in 2001. And he has a natural affinity with grilling machines, having ballooned on a prodigious daily intake of hamburgers during his 10-year post-1977 layoff.
”When ah announced mah comeback, they all asked: ‘Where’s yo headquarters, George — Burger King?’”
Slugger turned ace salesman in 1995 when Illinois appliance manufacturer Salton lured him into a partnership.
The two-time world champion received the ultimate accolade four years later when he was crowned ”King of the Grill” after selling 10-million units. Salton’s sales, meanwhile, have jumped from $5-million to $400-million annually. Foreman is reputed to have made $150-million of his own from this little sideline.
It is a sideline, he insists — his profession is full-time evangelism for the Church of Lord Jesus Christ, one of several churches he has founded since Jesus cornered him in the dressing-room after his 12-round defeat by Jimmy Young.
And, with such radiant sincerity that one can only believe, he is equally adamant that his African mission is about health, not money. ”Ah’m a grandparent,” he confides. ”Ah’m educatin’ kids not to eat all that grease.”
And then: ”It ain’t about sales, it’s about people. Once folks grill for health, they’ll do everythin’ for health. This is mah contribution to helpin’ mankind.”
What is nice about Foreman is the absence of boastful hype, the kind Muhammad Ali built into the heavyweight’s stock-in-trade.
Ali ”mugged” him in Kinshasa in 1974, he ruefully admits. After that defeat he passed through two years of ”misery and embarrassment”, when he would start into consciousness at night, with the referee’s knockout count ringing in his ears.
He redeemed himself by dragging himself from the canvas in 1976 after Ron Lyles ”hit me so hard ah didn’t even feel it. Ah looked down and said, ‘Where are yer, legs?’”
He also believes that the mean-guy image he cultivated as a young fighter — copied from his stablemate Sonny Liston — ”was mainly because of ignorance”. At a mind-boggling 54 (he regained the world title at a record-breaking 45), Foreman is toying with the idea of another return to the ring.
He says he needs an adventure, and wants to ”carry the standard for the 55 to 65 group”. Doing 16km a day on the treadmill and an hour on the punch-bag, he sails through his physical check-up year after year. ”The doctors say ah have an extremely thick skull. Mah wife coulda told ’em that.”
From the strong comes forth sweetness, says Foreman’s favourite book. In his case definitely. When he steps back in the ring will he bludgeon or beguile the opposition?