Kenyans are generally known for their determination to succeed in life even when odds are against them. In sports, Kenyans have competed against the best and proved their worth. Some have succeeded in their careers, but others have ended up poor and desperate. Others have tried comebacks in vain.
But Kenyan boxers seeking comeback can learn from the life of George Foreman, the former two-time world heavyweight boxing champion. The American remains one of the most feared boxers in the history of the sport.
In his book “George Foreman: God in My Corner - A Spiritual Memoir”, he says: “Everyone needs a second chance, even if your name is George Foreman. You might know me as the guy on television who advertises the George Foreman grills, Meineke Car Care, or Casual Male Big & Tall clothes. If you follow sports, you may know me as the world heavyweight champion who lost to Muhammad Ali and then came back 20 years later to win the heavy weight title again at 45 years of age.
“But what few people know is that something incredibly strange happened to me on the evening of March 17,1977. The supernatural experience defined my life so dramatically that it divided my identity into two Georges. The old George lived prior to that day, which I refer to as ‘my first time around.’ Ever since then, I have been the new George. God gave me another chance at life, and I have been determined to do it right this time.”
Foreman explains that when we start our life, we often travel down some wrong roads, hurting ourselves and others along the way.
Most of us have to hit bottom before the light bulb turns on and we realise that we have blown it. It is at that critical moment that we must seize the opportunity and change direction. One has to travel down a different road leading to a new destination.
His second chance arrived unexpectedly in a Puerto Rican dressing room after a heavyweight boxing match.
Says Foreman: “What happened to me in that room is so incredibly bizarre, it is unlikely you have ever before read anything like it. Simply stated, I died and went to the other side. The experience impacted me so profoundly that three decades later I can’t go a single day without thinking about it.”
One day in December 1976 as Foreman was training on his ranch in Marshall, Texas, for his scheduled fight against Jimmy Young in three months in Puerto Rico, he received a call from his sister Mary, who was crying.
Her five-year-old son, George Edward Dumas, was playing outside their home and had a seizure. By the time she got him to the doctor, he was in a coma. The doctors checked on the boy and didn’t think he was going to make it. They had said that if he managed to come out of the coma, he wouldn’t be able to walk or talk. When Foreman’s mother, Nancy Ree Foreman, told her son that what remained about the little boy was only prayers, the boxer felt bad.
He says in his book: “This hit me. All of George Foreman’s money can’t solve this crisis. All of my fame, fortune, and friends couldn’t fix this problem. I was powerless to do anything to help. That little boy’s future was out of my hands, and the doctor’s hands too. They had done the best they could, but sometimes the best human efforts aren’t enough”.
Foreman says it is during such crisis that a lot of people turn to prayer. When humans can’t fix a problem, they will cry out for divine assistance. If there is a God, maybe He can help.
For somebody like Foreman, prayer was a last resort. He had never really prayed before, simple because he didn’t need to. He did not believe in all that religious stuff anyhow. His money always fixed all of his problems.
“I didn’t need God. I was George Foreman, Olympic gold medalist and heavyweight champion of the world. I had tasted the best this world has to offer but I had also experienced the worst, growing up in a poor section of Houston,” he says.
Foreman’s early life was full of misery. Poverty was part of their daily life where his alcoholic father, J.D. Foreman worked in railroad and did not live at home most of the time, leaving his mother to provide for her seven children.
It was not easy for the mother and Foreman knew at that early age that life was not going to be easy.
Foreman grew up hungry and angry. At some point he would mug people. Through all manners of struggle he eventually become a boxer. He rose through the ranks in boxing, winning an Olympic gold as a heavyweight in Mexico in 1968.
He later became a sparring partner for Sonny Liston who was trying to make a comeback after losing his world heavyweight title to Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali). They became close friends. Liston spoke little, could not read, and rarely let his true thoughts and feelings be known.
On January 22, 1973 in Kingston, Jamaica and with a record of 37 wins and no losses, Foreman met undefeated Smokin’ Joe Frazier for the heavy weight title of the world. Frazier was a tough fighter with a record of 29 wins out of which 25 were by knockout.
Foreman dropped Frazier five times in the first round and finishing him in the second round. From his humble beginnings in Houston, Foreman now reigned as the heavyweight champion of the world.
Along with the title and the huge championship belt came money, lot of it. He had cars, houses, and investments. The following year, he would make even more money. That is when he fought Muhammad Ali in the ‘Rumble in the Jungle” in Zaire in October 1974 where each boxer was paid US$ 5 million. He lost the fight in the eighth round via knockout.
Foreman started experiencing strange things in life in December 1976 when it become obvious that only a miracle could save his nephew’s life. And this is the miracle he needed most. Miracles only come from God through prayers.
For a man not known to embrace any religion or God for that matter, to prepare to tell God what he wanted was more difficult than hitting a heavy punching bag. Nevertheless, he knelt down to pray.
George Foreman was so obsessed with his nephew’s recovery that he had more questions to ask God than to seek mercy.
He couldn’t sleep and had to kneel again and had this to tell God: “Why would you bother a poor kid like this?” Take me! Take me! I’ll give up my life instead. Just let the boy live. If you are God, take my life.”
“I got back into bed and I fell soundly asleep, as if my prayer had finally been heard,” he says.
The following day, Foreman received a call from his sister. “He woke up”, she exclaimed.
Soon after his loss to Jimmy Young, Foreman started encountering a series of extremely strange things in the dressing room that would forever transform his life.
Briefly and simply put, he had a series of talks with God that put some fear in him as he thought he would die. Instantly, he says he was transported into a deep, dark void, like a bottomless pit. If there was a place called “nowhere”, this, was it.
Foreman says Jesus Christ was revealed to him in that dressing room in Puerto Rico in a manner that confused his handlers, including his doctor, Dr. Keith West. At some point they had thought he was out of his mind. This was a new George Foreman, a true follower of Jesus Christ.
Foreman’s encounter with Jesus was a reminder of how God turns brutal people into useful members of society as happened over 2000 years ago when Saul, known for killing many Jews for being follows of Jesus, was stopped from further killings on his way to Damascus. His name changed to Paul, one of the best known followers of Christ.
The transformation of Foreman from a ring monster who hardly smiled to a church pastor whose broad smile could melt the northern pole meant a totally new era.
First, he was to obey God’s instructions to forgive all those who had offended him including the friends turned foes who had stolen millions of dollars from him. He also wanted to be forgiven by all those he had offended. All other aspects of life had to be handled carefully.
As situation demanded, the media would visit the Reverend George Foreman at the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, in Houston, Texas. During such a visit the Associated Press watched the Rev.
Foreman flip his Bible open to the book of Genesis, let fly with a left hook for Jesus and sent Satan sprawling into the ropes.
“You have got to learn how to fight he exhorted. “If you believe in God, you have got to fight for Him”.
The Sunday morning faithful, warmed by a hand clapping round of gospel singing, rocked on their hard wooden pews with the verbal punch. In a 60-minute exposition on God’s creation of the world, Rev.
Foreman would touch on false philosophers, biology, Pluto, marijuana, boxing punches, the morals of dogs and of women who buy booze by the gallon, and of course, Adam, Eve, the Garden of Eden, a treacherous, serpent and an angry God.
I had an opportunity to watch live on TV in Mlango Kubwa at Pangani in Nairobi where I lived, the world heavyweight boxing fight between champion Michael Moore and the challenger George Foreman on November 5, 1994 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
As the fight progressed, I noticed Foreman had developed some kind of defence mechanism that seemed to bother the champion.
However, Moore moved faster and managed to score more points. By the ninth round, Angels Dundee who was handling Foreman told him he was behind on points and only a knock out would assure him a win.
On the tenth round, Foreman looked at Moore in the eyes and seemed to send a clear message. He became more aggressive and followed Moore. Then he unleashed one powerful punch that sent the champion to the canvas.
He could not beat the count. The fight was over. Foreman at 45 and 20 years since losing the heavyweight boxing title to Muhammad Ali in Zaire, become the oldest boxer ever to hold a world title. Many lessons for Kenyan boxers seeking a comeback.
