LEAN, MEAN MACHINE

IN the boxing ring, George Foreman − who became world heavyweight champ twice, some 20 years apart — was a lean, mean fighting machine.

With fists like wrecking balls and a piledriver punch, all bar eight of his 76 wins ended in a knockout.

He fought in probably the most famous boxing bout in history, the 1974 Rumble In The Jungle against Muhammad Ali, who beat him using a strategy he coined “rope-a-dope”.

But Big George, who died on Friday aged 76, was no dope.

Incredibly, he made far more money outside the ring — selling “a lean, mean grilling machine”. He earned an astonishing $200million from the George Foreman Grill — an electric barbecue that could be used indoors.

It massively overshadowed the $5 million he won for his part in the Rumble In The Jungle, a 4am fight in sweltering heat beamed by a new-fangled TV satellite from Kinshasa in Zaire, central Africa. But thanks to his ­charismatic fame and famous smile, he went on to earn almost $5million every MONTH selling his grill and other household appliances on telly.

Not bad for a teenage mugger brought up in Texas in a family so poor his mother sent her children to school with mayonnaise sandwiches for lunch.

One of the top three heavyweights of all time, along with Ali and Joe Frazier, George, who only lost five fights in his career, was married five times.

He fathered ten children — five boys, all called George “so he would not forget their names”, and five girls, including ­Georgetta. George also adopted two more daughters.

Announcing his death on Instagram on Saturday, his family said he passed away surrounded by loved ones.

Although they did not disclose his cause of death, they paid tribute to “a devout preacher, a devoted husband, a loving father and a proud grand and great- grandfather”, who “lived a life marked by unwavering faith, humility and purpose”.

George Snr was, they said, “a humanitarian, an Olympian and two-time heavyweight champion of the world”.

They went on: “He was deeply respected — a force for good, a man of discipline, conviction and a protector of his legacy, fighting tirelessly to preserve his good name for his family.

“We are grateful for the outpouring of love and prayers, and kindly ask for privacy as we honour the extraordinary life of a man we were blessed to call our own.”

George Edward Foreman was born in Marshall, Texas, on January 10, 1949. In later life, he discovered his real father was a man called Leroy Moorehead.

But he took the name of his stepdad, railway construction worker J B Foreman, who his mother, Nancy, married when George was very young.

He grew to become a big, strong teenager, and was often in trouble with the law for street fighting.

By the age of 15, he had dropped out of school and became a mugger.

George once said: “I’ve always been motivated by food, because I was always hungry. There never was enough food to eat for me, for various reasons.”

The following year, George had a change of heart and convinced his mother to sign him up for Jobs Corps, a US government scheme that trained him to be a carpenter and bricklayer.

He moved to California and, with the help of a trainer, George, by then 6ft 3in and nearly 18st, took up boxing.

By the age of 19, he had won Olympic Gold in Mexico City, knocking out Jonas Cepulis of the Soviet Union, who was ten years older and had already won many of his 200 bouts.

Turning professional straight away, George was soon fighting a bout a month.

By the time he competed in his first heavyweight title against ­Frazier at the “The Sunshine Showdown” in Kingston, Jamaica, in ­January 1973, he already had 39 wins under his belt — and no defeats. The 3-1 underdog, George knocked world champ Frazier down six times before ref Arthur Mercante stopped the one-sided fight in the second round.

After defeating Ken Norton in the Caracas Caper in Venezuela, George’s next fight was the famous Rumble In The Jungle against Ali.

After losing to Jimmy Young in Puerto Rico in 1977, he hung up his gloves aged 28, claiming it was because of his religious beliefs and his mother’s wishes.

George had become a born-again Christian and was ordained as a minister. For the next ten years, he preached to congregations at a church in Houston, Texas, but money worries later drove him back to the ring.

Overweight and out of shape, he said: “I’ve got a three-year plan. I want to start at the bottom. Train harder than any man in the world. Fight once a month.”

Foreman fought up to nine times in a year. He cranked out 24 straight wins, although most were against boxers of lesser ability.

But in 1994, at the age of 45, he got another title shot in Las Vegas against Michael Moorer, 26, who threw twice as many punches.

But in the tenth round, Foreman delivered the knockout blow that made him the oldest heavyweight champion in history.

Foreman returned to the church and a youth centre he had set up, and was never afraid to cash in on his fame. He was approached to endorse the George Foreman Grill in 1994, with a big smile and cheesy lines including: “It’s a knockout.”

George went on to sell more than 100million units and earned a fortune, pocketing 40 per cent of the profits before selling out in 1999 for more than £100million .— Sun.