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" lpt n r F r n": l r h p n nth ld n f Bl H v htAndrew R.M. Smith

Journal of Sport History, Volume 40, Number 3, Fall 2013, pp. 455-473(Article)

P bl h d b N rth r n t f r p rt H t rDOI: 10.1353/sph.2013.0099

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SMITH: “SCULPTING GEORGE FOREMAN”

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“Sculpting George Foreman”: A Soul Era

Champion in the Golden Age of Black Heavyweights

ANDREW R.M. SMITH†

Department of HistoryPurdue University

The most consistent aspect of George Foreman’s life has been his willingness to change. Yet with regard to Foreman’s early career, scholars have fixated only on snapshots of the flag-waving gold medalist at the 1968 Olympics, the surly heavyweight champion at the “Rumble in the Jungle” in 1974, or the gregari-ous pitchman for an eponymous kitchen appliance in the 1990s. These images, however, were not as important to the history of prize fighting as his process of transition in the early 1970s. Borrowing heavily from Soul Era popular culture to reinvent his public image allowed Foreman to interject himself into the sport’s greatest rivalry between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali and initiate a series of mega-matches in exotic locales that ultimately became the hallmark of this “Golden Age” for black heavyweight boxers.

†The author would like to thank Randy Roberts, Darren Dochuk, and John Matthew Smith for their valuable feedback at various stages of the essay, Eric Hall and Christine Abreu for organizing a North American Society for Sport History conference panel where it was originally presented, and the anonymous reviewers at the Journal of Sport History for their careful reading. Correspondence to [email protected].

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“THERE WE STAND IN THIS YEAR 1972, no longer bemused by White Hopes, no longer disturbed by racial rivalries.” In its annual review issue the self-styled “Bible of Box-ing,” Ring Magazine, trumpeted a new era for prize fighting—one that no longer needed to match undeserving white challengers against black champions in order to stir up popular interest. The latest cohort of “White Hopes” had largely been discredited in the early 1970s, and African-American heavyweights unquestionably dominated the sport’s most illustrious division, yet a Harris Poll showed that in the previous year boxing’s popularity surged nonetheless. This high-water mark for prize fighting resulted not from an absence of racial rivalries, as Ring suggested, but rather from an intensifying intraracial conflict between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali, each symbolizing opposite ends of a fractured Black Freedom Struggle, and a refashioned George Foreman whose new image represented a cultural critique of them both.1

Foreman’s most consistent characteristic was a willingness to change. He recast his public persona twice in three years of amateur and professional boxing, but in 1970 he prepared his third, and most significant. Facing criticism for a record built on, in the vernacular of the sport, palookas and tomato cans, Foreman and manager Dick Sadler believed, “To earn my title shot, I had to look, even in street clothes, like I deserved that title more than Frazier . . . or Ali.” Fortunately for Foreman, looks were often enough in the venal world of prize fighting. To market himself as a profitable opponent against Fra-zier or Ali, Foreman drew on the popular culture of the 1970s and cast himself as a strong black antihero. “These were the days when I was sculpting George Foreman,” he recalls. “I shaped the clay to match what Sadler taught; manipulated it to resemble characters in books and movies; and squeezed it to copy heroes.” The product was so successful that it interrupted the most storied rivalry in boxing history and catapulted this “new” Foreman to the heavyweight championship.2

The Fighting CorpsmanOn the eve of the 1968 summer Olympics Foreman eked into the public eye through

the back pages of Sports Illustrated. Surveying the lowly-regarded U.S. Olympic boxing team for one good story before they left St. John’s College in Santa Fe for the Olympic Village in Mexico City, Gilbert Rogin gravitated toward the unheralded heavyweight more for his personality than his boxing ability. “I’m a lover, a gamer, a woman tamer,” Foreman rapped, “Fight a little, talk a lot.” Up until that moment, however, Foreman had been quite the opposite. From his earliest days in Houston’s overcrowded and underdeveloped “Bloody Fifth” Ward, the shy, impoverished junior high school dropout tended to let his fists speak for him. “George was a bully . . . living off other kids’ hush money,” recalled former Oakland Raider Lester Hayes, who grew up in the same neighborhood. Six years younger than Foreman, Hayes and his friends were surely relieved when a Jim Brown com-mercial for the Job Corps inspired Foreman to enlist in the program and leave Houston.3

In his first assignment at Grants Pass, Oregon, Foreman regained his reputation for violent outbursts. A transfer to Parks Job Corps Center in Pleasanton, California, effected little change. But it did attract the attention of Parks boxing coach Charles “Doc” Broadus, who recognized the potential of a quiet, angry teenager that stood 6’3”. After just a few fights Broadus extolled, “[H]e’s a natural. God bless the puncher!” and hastily ushered Foreman


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through a series of Golden Gloves and Amateur Athletic Union tournaments until he earned a berth on the 1968 U.S. Olympic team. The rules of international boxing, however, did not bless the puncher as much as Broadus believed. With less than twenty bouts worth of experience, Foreman lost his only international match by disqualification. When Rogin visited St. John’s College Foreman feared that he “wouldn’t be noticed without some show-manship,” so he mimicked the boastful rhyming of the recently suspended ex-champion, Muhammad Ali. Solely on the basis of some shadow boxing and pithy couplets—“I can move to your right / Stick all night / Move to your left / Cause your death”—Rogin made Foreman the centerpiece of his article and deemed him “a spiritual descendent of Ali.”4

Foreman’s “proclivity for near rhymes” extended all the way up to his robe, inscribed with large red letters: “GEORGE FOREMAN, THE FIGHTING CORPSMAN.” The irony of identifying with the Great Society’s flagship program while parroting boxing’s most outspoken anti-authoritarian must have been lost on both Rogin and Foreman. It became less apparent as Robert “Pappy” Gault exerted his influence on Foreman. The first black head coach of the U.S. Olympic boxing team, Gault peered over a large gold medallion that read “Sock It to Me” and discouraged Foreman’s newfound bravado while insisting the right-handed slugger practice a left jab—quietly. Gault’s advice paid off at the Olympics. In the championship match Foreman relied on his left, although he used it more like a battering ram than a jab, to open a stream of blood from Ionas Chapulis’ nose that his Soviet cornermen could not dam. Breathing heavily in his corner, Foreman heard the announcement that he won the gold medal. Still exhausted, he reached into the pockets of his robe and pulled out a miniature American flag. After a few tired flicks of the wrist, however, he enlivened and began an elaborate version of Olympic boxing’s traditional bow-ing ceremony. He danced in and out of the bowing position at each corner before juking his way to the next. The momentary flag-waving might have appeared insignificant next to the intricate bowing performance. But in the charged context of debates over racism and nationalism, heightened by the demonstrations of American track stars Tommie Smith and John Carlos only three days earlier, the brief quiver of a tiny flag became Foreman’s biggest movement of 1968.5

Scholars and journalists in recent years have described the (in)famous flag-waving as a counter-demonstration to the protests of Smith and Carlos, couching Foreman’s display as an act of conservatism at best, one of racial betrayal at worst. In its time, however, Foreman’s display of patriotism engendered less controversy. Although scholar-activist Harry Edwards added a scathing indictment of Foreman to his Revolt of the Black Athlete (1969), both the mainstream and African-American press circulated predominantly favorable reviews of the teenaged gold medalist. But no one would ever again call him a “descendent of Ali,” and Foreman quickly discarded the thinly-veiled facsimile of Ali’s persona before launching a professional career of his own.6

Within weeks of Foreman’s Olympic victory Ring carried his picture on its cover and ran a feature article titled “Foreman, 19, Aspires to Success as Pro Champ.” The story recounted Foreman’s troubled background in the “Bloody Fifth,” narrated his road from a Job Corps gymnasium to the Olympic podium, and finished with an optimistic sugges-tion that he might carry his success all the way to a heavyweight championship. The article skirted around one major obstacle to Foreman’s professional career: he had not yet turned



professional. In fact, he had not even chosen a trainer to guide him out of the amateur ranks or a manager to represent him in the duplicitous world of prize fighting.7

Most insiders expected Foreman to retain the services of either Broadus or Gault, whose hard work training Foreman as an amateur entitled them to guide his much more lucrative professional career as well. Others believed that Foreman could be wooed by noted professional managers such as Cus D’Amato, who coveted Foreman even before his Olympic victory. The cover story in Ring, however, provided an important clue to Fore-man’s future. Lead writer Dan Daniel casually mentioned that Foreman had sparred with former heavyweight champion Charles “Sonny” Liston in the summer of 1968. During Ali’s suspension from boxing, Liston set up camp with manager-trainer Dick Sadler in Hayward, California—only a twenty-minute jaunt down I-580 from the Parks Job Corps Center. Sadler and Foreman already had a working relationship through Broadus, who implored Sadler to arrange some amateur fights for the inexperienced Olympic hopeful earlier in 1968. Impressed by Foreman’s size and power, Sadler eagerly put Foreman in amateur bouts on professional undercards around the Bay Area and recruited him as a sparring partner for Liston as well. Although Broadus groomed Foreman for the Olympics, Gault coached him to the gold medal, and D’Amato courted him, Dick Sadler was Foreman’s only link to prize fighting before the Olympics. When Foreman turned pro in the summer of 1969, he did so under the guidance of Sadler.8

Sadler certainly knew the business of boxing. In the late 1960s he piloted heavyweight and welterweight champions in Liston and Charley Shipes. Yet his success as a manager overshadowed his own failures as a boxer. Between 1939 and 1942 Sadler fought seven times, losing all but one match. Given his unspectacular record, Sadler’s ring expertise was questionable at best. His cousin Sandy Saddler, however, was one of the most dominant featherweight champions in recent memory. Sandy trained the talent while Dick’s skills lay elsewhere. Described as “a tap-dancing, piano-tinkling, one-time hobo,” he was a gifted dancer and musician before his short-lived boxing career. Though he settled in Hayward and dedicated himself to guiding boxers, he never lost his flair for the world of entertain-ment. In that respect, perhaps he was uniquely suited for a sport that relies on an informal network of managers and promoters to conjure up intriguing storylines in order to sell each individual fight card to a discriminating public. Dick understood the importance of fashioning characters to spur popular interest, and with Sandy to teach the skills of the ring, Dick gave his attention to training Foreman’s image.9

Sadler’s new protégé built on the good press he received after the Olympics, including a plethora of copy about his invitation to out-going President Lyndon B. Johnson’s White House, praise by the presidential campaigns of both Republican nominee Richard Nixon and Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey in the last leg of their election race, and one report from St. Louis suggesting that Foreman’s performance in Mexico City motivated a factory owner to integrate his workforce. Foreman parlayed that Olympic image into his professional career by standing outside of Madison Square Garden (MSG) on the eve of his professional debut, clad in plain denim overalls and a straw hat, smiling broadly and passing out miniature American flags. The Los Angeles Sentinel thought Foreman might “steal the show,” but nothing could have been further from the truth. His obvious mismatch against journeyman Don Waldheim, described as a “club fighter” who “looked like a middleweight”


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next to Foreman, largely overshadowed the previous day’s patriotic promotion. The vocal Garden crowd took exception to three one-sided rounds and trolled a chorus of boos for Foreman as they awaited the main event between Joe Frazier and Jerry Quarry.10

Boos seemed to follow Foreman around the nation. Even at the Sam Houston Coli-seum his hometown crowd jeered Foreman’s second-round victory over Vernon Clay. He returned to MSG for a Halloween event featuring a full card of heavyweights, but the wily Peruvian veteran Roberto Davila staved off Foreman’s relentless attack until the final bell. Ali watched the bout from ringside and voiced the fans’ dissatisfaction because Foreman “showed promise,” but his manager was “nursing him along.” The negative reaction to Fore-man had little to do with his carefully fashioned Olympian image, rather it was a response to the insipid opposition he faced at every stop of Sadler’s barnstorm.11

Sadler responded by increasing the theatrics instead of the competition. He secured a fight on the undercard of Joe Frazier and Jimmy Ellis’ highly anticipated contest for the vacant heavyweight title and dressed Foreman in dazzling red-white-and-blue trunks to emphasize his ultra-patriotic persona that was only enhanced by his match against a foreign opponent, Gregorio Peralta. Unfortunately for Foreman Peralta was fifteen years older, twenty pounds lighter, and much less interested in trading blows. Foreman chased Peralta around the ring for ten rounds, taking more abuse from the crowd than his adversary. Still undefeated in the ring, Foreman failed to win over fight fans. Despite Mays Andrews’ comparison of Foreman to the legendary Joe Louis for his combination of power and patriotism, even in his adopted home state of California a large and vocal majority rooted against him. Paying customers were not blinded by the miniature flags, the red-white-and- blue trunks, or the “Fighting Corpsman” robe. In 1970 boxing already had its political symbolism with the looming contest between a conservative representative in Frazier and liberal icon in Ali, and they were both undefeated champions who had bested everyone in the sport save each other. In light of the inferior competition he faced, Foreman seemed uninteresting when compared to Frazier and Ali.12

“The Two Faces of George Foreman”In Foreman’s first year as a professional prize fighter he won more than twenty consecu-

tive matches. Seventeen times in twelve months he beat an opponent out of consciousness, into submission, or to the point of imploring the referee’s mercy. On paper it was a sterling record, but such paper records meant less in an age where television networks and closed-circuit outfits vied for the rights to broadcast boxing matches. One manager acknowledged that with the added pressure of Nielsen ratings, “you’re developing matinee idols first and fighters second.” In person and on television, Foreman’s Olympic image and lackluster opponents remained unexciting. Many writers agreed that Foreman did not appear to be a viable contender for the heavyweight championship anytime soon.13

George Chuvalo occupied a similar place to Foreman: on the periphery of contention for a heavyweight title shot. Chuvalo squared off against the greatest heavyweights of the era, and although he was never knocked down in any of those crucial matches, he was rarely victorious. By the end of the decade, Chuvalo seemed to be more of a right-of-passage for aspiring heavyweight contenders than a realistic contender himself. But one decisive knockout victory over highly-touted Jerry Quarry in late 1969 made Chuvalo suddenly



relevant again. The savvy Sadler leapt at this opportunity to match Foreman with a very well-known veteran who was both on the heels of a victory and on the downswing of his career. Sadler was so anxious to make the match that he agreed to a contract that offered Foreman only $17,500—less than half the $50,000 guaranteed to Chuvalo.14

Marketed as a titanic slugfest between two juggernauts, the fight did not live up to its billing. From the opening bell Foreman bored in on Chuvalo, who was either unwilling or unable to slip Foreman’s heavy jab. In the third round a stiff left hook propelled Chuvalo into the ropes, rebounded him back into Foreman’s two-fisted attack, and marshaled him into a corner he refused to leave. Hunched over, he weathered the storm while Foreman rained down punches. Teddy McWhorter, Chuvalo’s trainer, was reduced to tears. Chuvalo’s wife was left to play the role of second, sprinting to the ring and pleading with referee Arthur Mercante to stop the fight. Chuvalo, one reported commented, was “impressed, literally and figuratively, by Foreman’s fists.” Foreman was uncharacteristically dower after the fight. “I was hoping he’d go down,” Foreman admitted. “I was hoping he wouldn’t even show up.”15

Although many writers cast the fight more as a requiem for Chuvalo than a celebration of Foreman, Sadler chose this as a launching pad for Foreman’s championship campaign. He announced: “We are interested in any fight which would help us get closer to the title,” and added, “If everybody cooperates with us by letting us win, then we’ll be happy.” Sadler clearly overestimated his standing. Quarry, who suffered a knockout at the hands Chuvalo, was still ranked above Foreman. MSG’s boxing director, Harry Markson, dangled a Foreman-Quarry matchup in the near future but would not yet consider Foreman for a title shot.16

Foreman’s flag-waving gold medalist image became even less compelling as the prepara-tions for Munich ’72 superseded the waning memories of Mexico City ’68. Moreover, his patriotic schtick was open to trenchant criticism as military veterans returning from Vietnam swelled the ranks of professional boxing. Former Marine Ken Norton rifled off sixteen con-secutive wins, and undefeated Navy veteran Jim Elder brought the comparison into sharp relief when he said: “[Foreman] got big publicity build-up when he waved a flag around at the Olympics. . . . While he was waving that flag around, I was busy fighting for it.”17

Sadler, the entertainment guru, understood that Foreman needed to sell himself as a champion before he would be given the opportunity to fight for the title. Sadler’s only previous heavyweight champion, Liston, had success projecting the image of a brutish vil-lain—particularly against lighter-weight and more popular opponents like the soft-spoken Floyd Patterson and the outspoken Muhammad Ali. Cus D’Amato explained, “If Sonny liked you, he could be very friendly. The trouble is, he didn’t like many people.” With Foreman’s career in limbo and Liston as a frame of reference, Sadler instructed his aspir-ing contender to change. In a public interview Sadler begged Foreman to assume a “take charge” attitude “like he’s saying ‘I’m the boss,’” and not just dominate but intimidate his opponents, as well as the fans in the stands and the television cameras transmitting his performances across the continent.18

Three months after his drubbing of Chuvalo a new George Foreman introduced himself to the world. More than 18,000 spectators crowded MSG not only to see Foreman take on Boone “Boom Boom” Kirkman but also to view a closed-circuit telecast from Detroit of Joe Frazier’s title defense against Bob Foster. Millions more watched the first electronic double-header on Theater Network Television (TNT) in one of 110 locations throughout


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the U.S. and Canada. They all saw a very different Foreman than the newcomer of 1969 who plastered a smile on his face and handed out American flags in front of the arena.19

At the first bell Foreman sprang out of his corner and instead of throwing a jab or a hook Foreman simply threw Kirkman—across the ring and onto the canvas. When he arose Kirkman looked perplexed as Foreman stung him with quick lefts and hard rights. After a clean knockdown one minute later, Foreman again heaved the “New White Hope” onto the off-white mat and scoffed at Arthur Mercante as he deducted a point for the “palpable foul.” Kirkman’s reputation as a heavyweight contender had more to do with his septuagenarian manager Jack Hurley’s public relations work than Kirkman’s ring expertise. Steeped in the art of ballyhoo, Hurley’s incessant trumpeting of Kirkman’s power sold the unknown prodigy of the Pacific Northwest to East Coast matchmakers, but it did not impress Foreman. In the second stanza Foreman gave up all pretense of the sweet science and hurled haymakers until Kirkman, in the eyes of one ringside reporter, did “a drunken stumble along the ropes” and Mercante stopped the fight. When questioned about his new aggressive tactics, Foreman’s answer echoed Sadler’s instructions: “I wanted him to know who was the boss.”20

“There is some unpleasantness inherent in the ‘take charge’ philosophy advanced by Sadler,” Boxing Illustrated wrote, as it exposed “The Two Faces of George Foreman.” Even if unpleasant, his new face clearly impressed boxing promoters. Markson improved his opinion of Foreman in the wake of the Kirkman fight, acknowledging that “he may be only two fights away from being in the thick of it.” Those next two fights included first round knockouts of Mel Turnbow, three years removed from his last victory, and a “mystery opponent” masquerading as Foreman’s scheduled foe, Phil Smith. Yet Ring and the World Boxing Association (WBA) promoted Foreman to the status of number one contender nonetheless. Sadler’s insistence on an image change paid dividends, but Fore-man’s new persona was more complicated than simply “Sonny Liston redux.” He borrowed from a new model of black masculinity that appeared on the big screen, melding African-American folk heroes like the “trickster” and Stagolee with the “social bandit” antiheroes so prominent in white American culture. Since he and Sadler continued their pattern of dominating lesser opponents while avoiding top-ranked talent, Foreman’s subsequent rise in the heavyweight rankings certainly had more to do with this change in his image than his boxing record. It gave credence to Les Matthews’ suggestion that boxing had become a “hot pants contest”—judged on pageantry rather than ability—by 1971.21

The changes Foreman underwent were visible at first glance. He transitioned from an affable personality in plain clothes to an aloof demeanor with expressive attire. He began to choose his words as carefully as his wardrobe—short, pointed quips accompanied tight bell-bottom pants, an open vest over his bare chest, and fashionably oversized driving caps resting on top of a carefully styled afro. In short, he looked like he belonged with the other Soul Era celebrities when he entered a swanky jazz bar in Harlem the night before “Super Fight,” one of the many superlative monikers that sportswriters attached to Frazier and Ali’s first encounter.

According to Foreman, that pre-fight party was a formative experience because of two short and utterly disappointing meetings. First, he spotted New York Knicks all-star point guard Walt Frazier. Nicknamed “Clyde” for his wide-brimmed hats and sharp suits that



drew comparisons to Warren Beatty’s recent portrayal of gangster Clyde Barrow, Frazier was a paragon of black masculine style. He also completed an image transition very similar to Foreman’s. Formerly one of the quietest members of Southern Illinois University’s unher-alded basketball program, Frazier became the NBA’s most dynamic personality. From his perfectly picked afro to the fastidiously laced canvas shoes that Puma paid him to endorse, he epitomized the Soul aesthetic that Foreman had recently assumed. Their similarities did not resonate with Frazier as he interrupted Foreman’s introduction, nonchalantly drawling, “I’ve seen you do your thing, you’ve seen me do mine,” and coolly strutted away—“Rockin’ Steady,” as he would say.22

Foreman remained stupefied for the better part of an hour, but he refocused at the sight of iconic football player-turned-actor Jim Brown. Foreman literally wore his admiration for Brown by sporting mutton-chops modeled after Brown’s performance as Lyedecker in “100 Rifles.” The character inspired more than a pair of sideburns, however. Brown’s role as a strong antihero, including his steamy sex scenes with Raquel Welch, bridged the non-threatening and asexual leading roles afforded to black actors like Sidney Poitier in the 1960s and the Blaxploitation film heroes who dominated the 1970s, including Melvin Van Peeble’s Sweetback, Richard Roundtree’s Shaft, Ron O’Neal’s “Super Fly,” or Max Julien’s “the Mack.” To Foreman’s dismay, Brown played it as cool in the club as he did on screen. He did not make eye contact let alone conversation and offered Foreman nothing more than a limp handshake while gazing off in the distance. After encounters with Frazier and Brown, Foreman recalls this night as an introduction to the “cool pose” he would adopt.23

The next day, Foreman watched Super Fight from ringside with a look of cool indif-ference. It was the same coolness that led him to spurn the invitation from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to join them at the only place in Harlem with closed-circuit television access, the 142nd Street Armory, when they asked him to dress in the colors of “black liberation”—black, green, and red. Instead, he donned the panache of a Soul Brother: stark white bell-bottoms, a tight denim shirt, and brown felt driving cap. He spoke with a fashionably curt braggadocio—at the weigh-in Foreman eschewed the cliché of demanding a match with that night’s winner and instead wryly offered a challenge to whomever would lose because, he said, “you can’t rush success.” Truthfully, Foreman hoped that at least one, if not both, of the combatants would fall from the upper echelons of the heavyweight divi-sion that night and clear his path to the title.24

“The Challenge and the Blood” Despite the hopes of Pulitzer-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks, whose poem

graced the fight program and conveyed a sense that the brutality would be mitigated by racial unity—“black love”— Frazier and Ali’s rivalry represented intensifying intraracial conflicts. Ali had been an icon of the Black Power ovement since he converted to Islam and discarded his “slave name” Clay in 1964, briefly adopting Cassius X before accepting a “full Muslim name” from Nation of Islam (NOI) leader Elijah Muhammad. Frazier, on the other hand, was a devout Christian with an equally strong faith in capitalism. He had no qualms purchasing a large piece of land in his hometown of Beaufort, South Carolina, and calling it his “plantation.” In many ways, Frazier reflected the most moderate arm of the Civil Rights Movement while Ali appeared on the leading edge of its radical wing.25


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Black sportswriters like Brad Pye magnified the conflict by writing that Frazier was “the blackest White Hope in history.” In response, Frazier challenged Ali’s authenticity, first claiming that Ali was “no leader of black people” then dredging up the politics of pigment, “I’m blacker than he is. There ain’t a black spot on his whole body” and finishing with a class-based argument that “Clay is a phony. He never worked. He never had a job. He don’t know nothing about life for most black people.” The Young and Rubicam Advertis-ing Agency incited the rivalry further when they televised a tense telephone conversation between Frazier and Ali that ended when Frazier’s percussion-like repetition of “Clay, Clay, Clay,” spurred Ali to scream that “even white people call me Muhammad now. . . . You’re known as the Tom in this fight!” Their hostility reflected pronounced divisions in the Black Freedom struggle.26

To Foreman’s dismay, the fight lived up to its ample hype. At the end of fifteen bruis-ing rounds the weeping of Ali’s stalwart cornerman, Drew “Bundini” Brown, forecast a unanimous decision in Frazier’s favor. Many writers worked to reify the caricatures they had drawn before the fight. Bryant Gumbel penned a cover story for Boxing Illustrated that questioned whether Frazier was a “White Champion in a Black Skin.” Jet magazine sustained the image of Frazier as a “white created champion” and called Ali “one of the few Black heroes still alive.” Foreman downplayed the attraction of their rivalry altogether. “It sure wasn’t the fight of any century,” he quipped after the match. “I didn’t see much skill demonstrated by either fighter.” The gibe only belied his concern that a chance to compete for the title would have to wait until the completion of Frazier and Ali’s saga.27

Foreman’s terse comments and hip clothes were part of a new image he fashioned in the months leading up to Super Fight—one that diverged from the Frazier-Ali dichotomy because it was more rooted in popular culture than politics. At the dawn of the 1970s a glut of music, movies, and television targeted the growing demographic of young African-American consumers. In these media—especially Blaxploitation film—the “radical” sepa-ratists and conservative “accommodationists” that Ali and Frazier seemed to represent were both subject to ridicule. Instead, strong, cool, fashionable yet aloof black antiheroes were the order of the day. Foreman tapped into this cultural sea change to interpose himself in a heavyweight division gridlocked by Frazier and Ali’s unsettled scores.

Despite the success of Frazier and Ali’s first bout, and an overwhelmingly negative opinion of Foreman as a boxer by writers and readers who jointly labeled him “awkward,” “overrated,” and suggested he was getting worse with time, Sadler believed that he could market Foreman to a championship bout without fighting his way through the competi-tion. In June of 1971 he enlisted the services of Marty Erlichman, a well-known manager and publicist for celebrities including Barbra Streisand, to increase publicity for the newly constructed Foreman. Although Erlichman had no experience with boxers, Sadler felt that boxing had little to do with the heavyweight championship. After all, Foreman climbed up the rankings fighting figurative and literal “unknowns” (such as the fraudulent Phil Smith). Just as he persuaded Foreman to reform his image the previous year, Sadler now convinced him that it was necessary to spend considerable resources marketing that image if he wanted a title fight—and the huge paycheck it promised—in the near future.28

Erlichman quickly realized that the new Foreman, according to some observers, already



possessed “star material.” Waning contender Floyd Patterson acknowledged that Foreman was “the only man left in the top ten capable of . . . stirring up some interest among the fans.” When negotiations for Frazier and Ali’s rematch ground to a halt over disputes about the venue and purses, MSG’s matchmaker Teddy Brenner suddenly proclaimed Foreman “the best title prospect since Joe Louis” and the press followed Brenner’s lead. On its cover page, Ring asked “Is George Foreman Next Champ?” The New York Amsterdam News answered, “George Foreman is pounding on the championship door and youth will be served.” Within a year and without doing any of the publicity work he promised, Erlich-man sold his contract, incorporated as George Foreman Associates Ltd., to a Philadelphia business conglomerate. Foreman, meanwhile, sold himself as boxing’s new antihero—at once strong and threatening but with the “aplomb, cool, detached indulgence” that Bill Russell associated with a winning style in the 1970s—just as the “politics of cool” sold Blaxploitation films and Soul records.29

Ironically, Foreman did not live out his image like some contemporaries. Walt Frazier, for example, embraced the playboy lifestyle for which he was credited and even invited Jet into his lavish apartment to discuss his busy romantic life. Foreman looked every bit the swinging bachelor when he fought Stanford Harris at the Playboy Club in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, had photographs taken with Playboy Bunnies, and secured the all-important endorsement of Hugh Hefner. Yet Foreman was about to marry Minneapolis business-woman Adrienne Calhoun in a private service attended only by Calhoun’s aunt and niece, as well as Foreman’s mother. Every effort was made not to disturb Foreman’s hot new image because, he said, “there never was a moment when I considered marriage more sacred than the heavyweight championship.”30

Foreman’s idol, Jim Brown, transposed his action hero characters into real life and faced accusations of assaulting men, women, and the occasional police officer as well. Foreman did not ply his trade outside of the arena, but he was more than happy to keep up the illu-sion. To that end, his most significant fight of 1972 was not any one of his five consecutive second-round knockouts of inferior opponents—such as the forgettable “Mustang” Joe Goodwin, who had not won a fight since his debut in 1960—but a ringside donnybrook with Ali. Parading around the Las Vegas Convention Center’s boxing ring after a lethargic victory over the listless Quarry, Ali goaded Foreman at ringside. Foreman interrupted him and slowly enunciated, “I want Frazier, I don’t want no bo-y” drawing the last word into two prolonged syllables with centuries of meaning attached. Ali exploded in a fury of punches, and Foreman responded in kind. While the other celebrities at ringside, including Marvin Gaye, Al Davis, Jack Palance, and Joe Louis, might not have appreciated being swallowed into the melee, they probably agreed that it was the most competitive fight of the evening. Ali dubbed the event, which co-featured a light heavyweight match between Bob Foster and Quarry’s younger brother Mike, “Soul Brothers versus Quarry Brothers.” Ali’s conservative dress and aesthetic lifestyle, however, were anathema to Soul culture. Unlike his smiling, flag-adorned debut three years earlier, this time Foreman did steal the show with a “cool pose” that reinforced he was, in the parlance of the Soul era, a “bad mother.”31


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“Superman’s Evil Twin” The scene from Las Vegas reverberated back to New York, where Harry Markson began

to consider the “opulent fiscal possibilities” of a Foreman-Frazier title fight. The attraction stemmed not from a personal feud between the two combatants, like the one billowing between Foreman and Ali, but from a cultural and generational division that Foreman and Frazier mirrored. Foreman’s wardrobe could have come from the closets of Isaac Hayes, Curtis Mayfield, or Marvin Gaye—in a much larger size. Frazier openly derided such “hip-pie clothes.” In between fights he performed a synthesis of pop-gospel music with “The Knockouts” whose bedazzled costumes and diamond rings projected a curious blend of Old Testament religion and postwar consumption. They represented Motown at a time when its popularity significantly waned. Foreman, on the other hand, looked like the new cadre of Soul musicians who abandoned or rejected Barry Gordy’s heavy hand. After re-tooling his image Foreman became the perfect antihero to Frazier, and a fight between the two reflected a larger battle in black popular culture. Although commentators still wrote about a “Foreman Controversy”—whether or not he deserved a title fight or posed any real threat to Frazier—they had to acknowledge Foreman’s enormous “box office . . . and closed-circuit television potential.”32

“The money opportunities in a Frazier-Foreman affair with world-wide television revenues,” Dan Daniel opined, “are gorgeous.” Murray Goodman, owner of the newly constructed Nassau Coliseum, tried to lure the event out of Manhattan and onto Long Island by offering Frazier a $500,000 purse. Markson, on behalf of MSG, responded with an offer of more than $700,000. But after the New York State Tax Commission invoked its non-resident tax on “one-night performers,” liberally garnishing the purse money from Frazier and Ali’s first tilt and derailing their rematch, the champion refused to defend his title anywhere in the state. Perceiving an opportunity to dislodge MSG as the “Mecca of Boxing,” Las Vegas casinos bid on the right to host Frazier-Foreman in Sin City, and gam-bling money also backed the promise of Philadelphia race track owner John J. Finley to hold their bout at the Spectrum. In the end, Las Vegas and Philadelphia both folded when Jack O’Connell of the Houston Astrodome upped the ante and guaranteed $800,000 for the champion, with an offer of half-that to the hometown challenger. The bidding war for Frazier-Foreman stimulated so much press that it took the form of a public auction, with readers of mainstream newspapers and boxing magazines desperately following each raise of the paddle from all ends of the country.33

Erlichman followed the bidding process as closely as anyone. When the deal for a title fight at the Astrodome seemed all but done, he suddenly countered a breach of contract lawsuit filed by Sadler and Foreman and asked for an injunction against the proposed Frazier-Foreman match. Representatives for two other heavyweight fighters, Larry Middle-ton and Oscar Bonavena, piggy-backed on Erlichman and filed their own injunctions, arguing that Foreman reneged on contracts to fight them before Frazier. The legal action effectively barred Foreman from fighting in the U.S., yet the World Boxing Commission suddenly demanded Frazier and Foreman choose a date and sign a contract within forty-eight hours or risk losing their place as champion and number-one contender. It was all symptomatic of the swelling interest in a battle between Frazier and Foreman and the huge financial returns it now promised. While American judges slogged through injunctions



and appeals, however, the Jamaican government leapt into action. With guidance from Alex Valdez, the promoter responsible for “The Knockouts” recent European tour, and Lucien Chen, a Chinese-Jamaican restaurateur with ties to both boxing and gambling in Kingston, Jamaica borrowed the resources necessary to host a boxing mega-event. Frazier and Foreman wasted no time signing contracts that set in motion the first in a series of championship bouts between African-American heavyweights in exotic, foreign locales that would become the lasting legacy of professional boxing in the 1970s.34

Safely outside the jurisdiction of New York tax collectors and American courts, the bejeweled champion said he fought because “[t]he kids are always in need of something like new shoes. I always need something like a new home, new car.” Foreman chuckled while admitting that as a child he did not even own a matching pair of shoes but added in all seriousness, “[W]e used to jump on a rich boy in a minute.” Although odds-makers deemed Foreman a decided underdog he snapped back, “I ain’t no dog.” And when a German reporter suggested that “critics” believed Foreman undeserving of a title bout he demanded, behind a smirk, “Take that back. . . . Say you’re sorry.” But just as the interviewer relented Foreman sneered, “I earned it and I’m gonna get it, that’s all. Speak the truth.”35

Frazier grew frustrated by Foreman’s cool quips, including a promise to “whip his head until it ropes like okra,” but he should have been thankful. His previous two title defenses against similarly untested challengers with very long odds combined for less than $200,000 in closed-circuit television revenues. The “Foreman Supercool” that Jet identified spurred millions to pay for the privilege of watching a live closed-circuit broadcast, even though it would be replayed on network television in less than a week. The “Sunshine Showdown” garnered $3 million from television proceeds. Many of those viewers were just as shocked as Howard Cosell when Frazier went down for the sixth time and Foreman, the newly crowned heavyweight champion, declared himself “the baddest man in the world.” There would not have been a more fitting handle for a black champion in the Soul era.36

The image Foreman admittedly “sculpted” in the early 1970s clearly succeeded. It thrust him into a championship prize fight that most believed he did not deserve, sim-ply because he promised the best ticket and television sales of any contender. But in the delirious whirlwind of his victory celebration Foreman briefly forgot that new character. He talked about praying for the dethroned Frazier and promised to build libraries for underprivileged kids. Sport magazine rolled with this charitable Christian persona—one that would resurface many years later—but Foreman quickly stifled it. Instead of libraries he built a better wardrobe, including a new Rolls Royce custom-painted to accessorize his burgundy suit, and landed a place on the American Fashion Foundation’s ten best-dressed men of 1973. When he again met Jim Brown at the Battle of the Sexes tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, Foreman took extra pleasure in returning the snub from two years earlier. Like many others, however, Foreman had trouble keeping his cool in the presence of Ali.37

The feud between Foreman and Ali escalated from throwing punches in a Las Vegas boxing arena to throwing water glasses at the Waldorf Astoria during the 1974 Boxing Writers Association annual awards dinner. In tattered clothes over broken shards the two fighters played their respective characters—antagonist and antihero—dramatically growing interest in their upcoming title bout but at the expense of Foreman’s popularity. Under the


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weight of Ali’s insults as well as continuing lawsuits and an impending divorce, Foreman was visibly agitated and unable to maintain his poise. He reverted back to the bully that Lester Hayes recalled from the “Bloody Fifth.” Aiming, he said, for a persona akin to “Superman’s evil twin,” Foreman instead recognized that “the public began thinking of me as a thug.”38

In the fall of 1974, when the two finally met in Zaire, Foreman’s attempt to stymie his anger fostered even shorter sentences frequently parsed out from behind a scowl. He appeared mean and reclusive when juxtaposed with the gregarious Ali. Ring magazine called Foreman’s camp “too serious” and thought his demeanor screamed “get out of my way.” George Plimpton politely described him as “phlegmatic” while Norman Mailer simply called him a “catatonic menace.” Foreman still looked every bit the Soul Brother, his clothes undecipherable from the musicians who came for the “Zaire ‘74” African music festival set to precede the “Rumble in the Jungle,” or the young Zairois fans that swarmed them. Ali, by comparison, dressed very conservatively as prescribed by the NOI. But Foreman belied any façade of coolness when he punched himself into exhaustion as Ali rested against the ropes. He got hustled and almost instantly lost his cachet as a “bad mother.” While Ali’s legend only grew, especially with another international mega-match against Frazier the next year, Foreman retired from boxing shortly thereafter, and he became better remembered as a crucial part of that Ali legend, rather than a champion in his own right.39

“A Miracle of Reinvention” The swift end to Foreman’s first professional boxing career paralleled that of the

popular culture referents on which his success had been built—he quit the world of prize fighting as studios stopped churning out Blaxploitation films and Soul music gave way to Disco. Even if short-lived, however, Foreman’s early career had a lasting significance. With a new image influenced by Soul culture Foreman amassed enough popularity to break the stalemate between Frazier and Ali, who could not agree on terms for a rematch. His legal travails then pushed the impending bout with Frazier out of the country, marking the first of several transoceanic title fights between African-American heavyweights in the 1970s. After his unexpected victory Foreman continued to avoid lawsuits and injunctions by defending his title exclusively outside of the United States. Thus he propelled the series of mega-matches in exotic locales that outlasted his own reign but made this an iconic period for prize fighting.

Yet the limited scholarship that discusses Foreman in this period has only framed him as either the flag-waving super-patriot from Mexico City or the “catatonic menace” in Zaire. In some cases even those two most common snapshots of Foreman are lumped together in one monolithic, decade-long “Zaire era” used as a foil against Ali, or even himself a decade later when Foreman returned to boxing as a cheerful, middle-aged, overweight Everyman. However, Foreman’s brief attempt to mimic Ali before the 1968 Olympics, and his appro-priation of Soul culture between 1970 and 1974, should not be forgotten. They establish a clear history of “sculpting George Foreman” long before his dramatic reincarnation in the late 1980s; in fact, the current Foreman image has unquestionably been the most durable. He has been nothing short of, as sportswriter Richard Hoffer once called him, “a miracle of reinvention.” But just as the “fistic Santa Claus” saved an unpopular indoor kitchen grill from obscurity, Foreman’s bad mother/Soul Brother image resuscitated a sport that only



1 percent of the American public admitted to following in 1972 and played a crucial role in what is now remembered as a “golden age” of black heavyweights.40

1“Black Heavy Kings: Color Them Dramatic,” Ring, March 1972, p. 50 [QUOTATIONS]; Nat Fleischer, “Nat Fleischer Speaks Out,” Ring, August 1972, p. 5.

2George Foreman and Joel Engel, By George: The Autobiography of George Foreman (New York: Villard, 1995), 79-80. Foreman’s willingness to reform and recast his public image continued through his comeback in the 1980s and 1990s as well. For analyses of Foreman’s image reconstruction during his second career, see David Engen, “The Making of a People’s Champion: An Analysis of Media Representations of George Foreman,” Southern Communication Journal 60 (1995): 141-151; and Richard Hoffer, “Born Again and Again and Again,” Sports Illustrated, 1 December 2003, <http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1030732/index.htm> [27 September 2011].

3Gilbert Rogin, “George Has the Rhyme, Pappy Has the Reason,” Sports Illustrated, 7 October 1968, pp. 74-75, 74 [1ST QUOTATION]; “Olympic Boxing: It’s USA vs Russia for Gold Medals,” Chicago Defender, 22 October 1968, p. 24; Sam Lacy, “Ring Coach Undismayed by Low Regard for Team,” Baltimore Afro-American, 22 October 1968, p. 18; Foreman, By George, 56-60; George Girsch, “Foreman a Gentle Giant,” Ring, May 1973, p. 8; Paul Zimmerman, “Violent and Eloquent,” Sports Illustrated, 5 October 1981, pp. 41-42 [2ND QUOTATION]; Gary Smith, “After the Fall,” Sports Illustrated, 8 October 1984, pp.100-102.

4Girsch, “Foreman a Gentle Giant,” pp. 8, 42; Foreman, By George, 42-47, 54 [QUOTATIONS]; Rogin, “George Has the Rhyme,” pp. 74-75.

5Rogin, “George Has the Rhyme,” pp. 75-76; “Everyone’s Talking about George Foreman in Mexico,” Baltimore Afro-American, 15 October 1968, p. 14; “Foreman, Hall, Davenport Winners,” Chicago Defender, 17 October 1968, p. 37; “Gold Medal Boxer Joins ‘Anthem’ Sing in Mexico,” Baltimore Afro-American, 29 October 1968, p. 13; Bob Ottum, “Fresh, Fair and Golden,” Sports Illustrated, 4 November 1968, p. 27; “For the President’s Night Reading,” 28 October 1968, White House Central File, Name File, “Foreman, George,” Lyndon B. Johnson Library, University of Texas, Austin, Texas (hereafter WHCF); Foreman, By George, 51-52, 59.

6Jeffrey T. Sammons, Beyond the Ring: The Role of Boxing in American Society (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 217-218; Amy Bass, Not the Triumph But the Struggle: The 1968 Olympics and the Making of the Black Athlete (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002), 285, 295-297; Douglas Hartmann, Race, Culture, and the Revolt of the Black Athlete: The 1968 Olympic Protests and their Aftermath (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 59-60; Dave Zirin, What’s My Name Fool? Sports and Re-sistance in the United States (Chicago: Haymarket, 2005), 73-100; Shaun Powell, Souled Out: How Blacks Are Winning and Losing in Sports (Champaign, Ill.: Human Kinetics, 2008), x; Harry Edwards, Revolt of the Black Athlete (New York: Free Press, 1969), 4, 106-107; Ralph Ray, “Black Power Unleashed on the Sports Front,” Sporting News, 4 October 1969, p. 22; Brad Pye, “Olympics No Platform for Problems,” Los Angeles Sentinel, 24 October 1968, sec. B, p. 2; Booker Griffin, “Some Untold Tales of Mexico City,” Los Angeles Sentinel, 24 October 1968, sec. B, p. 5; A.S. Young, “The Week’s Wash,” Chicago Defender, 13 November 1968, p. 32; John Hall, “Foreman’s Fan Club,” Los Angeles Times, 6 November 1968, sec. H, p. 3; “Says Flag-Waving Wasn’t against Black Power,” Jet, 19 December 1968, p. 53; “Gold Medal Boxer Joins ‘Anthem.’”

7Dan Daniel, “Here Comes Foreman,” Ring, November 1970, pp. 6-7; Nat Loubet, “Foreman, 19, Aspires to Success as Pro Champ,” Ring, February 1969, pp. 10-12, 36.

8Daniel, “Here Comes Foreman,” pp. 6-7; “Foreman Debuts in Oakland,” Chicago Defender, 26 April 1969, p. 29; “Foreman Plans to Turn Pro Soon,” New York Times, 23 April 1969, p. 51. “Olympic Champ Turns to Pros,” Chicago Defender, 31 May 1969, p. 23; “Cus Covets U.S. Boxer,” Chicago Defender, 24 October 1968, p. 39; Howard Cosell, Cosell (Chicago: Playboy Press, 1973), 70; Loubet, “Foreman, 19,” pp. 12, 36; “Mexican Mixers,” Baltimore Afro-American, 22 October 1968, p. 18.

9There is no accounting for Dick and Sandy’s different spellings of their last name, and while they


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are occasionally referred to as brothers, they are most often described as cousins. See Aloys Kabanda, Ali/Foreman: Le Combat Du Siecle a Kinshasa, 29-30 Octobre 1974 (Sherbrooke, Que.: Namaan, 1977), found in Africana Collection, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois; “How Good Is Foreman?” Boxing Illustrated, November 1970, p. 60; Dave Newhouse, “Sadler, Famed Ring Trainer, Dies at 88,” Oakland Tribune, on-line edition, 5 June 2003, <http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-6955235.html> [8 Febru-ary 2009]; “Dick Sadler: The Amazing Man Behind Foreman,” Boxing Illustrated, June 1973, pp. 17-19.

10“Fighter’s Flag Waving at Olympics Integrates Plant,” Jet, 14 November 1968, p. 53; “For the President’s Night Reading”; Press release, “Job Corps’ First Award of Achievement Goes to Olympic Champ George Foreman,” 31 October 1968, WHCF, Subject File PU, box 3, LBJ Library; “Foreman to Make Pro Debut on Frazier-Quarry Program,” Chicago Defender, 10 June 1969, p. 26; “Foreman Turns Pro,” Chicago Defender, 12 June 1969, p. 5; “Frazier, Quarry Taper Off for Monday Battle,” Chicago Defender, 17 June 1969, p. 26; “Will George Foreman Steal NY Title Show,” Los Angeles Sentinel, 19 June 1969, sec. B, p. 3; photograph, Chicago Defender, 18 June 1969, p. 32; “Quarry Outclassed, Frazier Top Contender,” Ring, September 1969, p. 41.

11“Foreman Finishes Vernon Clay in 2D,” New York Times, 8 October 1969, p. 40; Deane McGowen, “Foreman Beats Davila for No.8,” New York Times, 1 November 1969, p. 43; Harlan Haas, “Liston Fat at 226, But Moore Goes Out in Third,” Ring, January 1970, p. 54; Nat Loubet, “Foreman-Davila Goes Eight,” Ring, February 1970, pp. 28, 57 [QUOTATIONS]; “Foreman Connects,” Pittsburgh Courier, 8 November 1969, p. 13; William Verigan, “Even Ref Went to Sleep Says Ali of All-Stars,” Baltimore Afro-American, 4 November 1969, p .13.

12Jersey Jones, “New York’s Month That Was,” Ring, May 1970, p. 48; Deane McGowen, “Fore-man Takes 16th in Row, Beating Peralta; Verdict Booed,” New York Times, 17 February 1970, p. 46; Les Matthews, “Heavyweight King Eyes Musical Tour,” New York Amsterdam News, 21 February 1970, p. 35; “Foreman Still Undefeated,” Chicago Defender, 21 February 1970, p. 38; Wilfrid Sheed, “TV Talk,” Sports Illustrated, 9 March 1970, p. 7; Deane McGowen, “Woody Is Stopped by Foreman in 3D,” New York Times, 18 April 1970, p. 35; “George Foreman Whips Woody for 18th Victory,” Atlanta Daily World, 29 April 1970, p. 8; “Boxing’s Young Lions—Who Are They?” Ring, April 1970, p. 23; Mays Andrews, “Does Foreman Compare with Joe?” Los Angeles Sentinel, 28 May 1970, sec. B, p. 3.

13Thomas Hauser, The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1986), 83 [QUOTATION]; “Foreman Rolls On; Joe Frazier a Long Way Off,” Atlanta Daily World, 2 August 1970, p. 10; Loubet, “Foreman-Davila Goes Eight,” p. 57; “Frazier Undisputed Champ,” Ring, May 1970, p. 9; “How Good Is Foreman?” pp. 15, 60-61.

14“The Last Round: Chuvalo vs. Ali,” dir. Joseph Blalioli, prod. Silva Basmajian, CBC Sports, Na-tional Film Board of Canada, 2003, 100 mins.; George Girsch, “Foreman KO Points Chuvalo to Exit,” Ring, November 1970, p. 36; “Foreman, Bonavena to Battle,” Chicago Defender, 21 June 1972, p. 29.

15Dan Daniel, “Here Comes Foreman,” Ring, November 1970, p. 7 [1ST QUOTATION]; Les Matthews, “Foreman Ready for Frazier,” New York Amsterdam News, 8 August 1970, p. 34; Martin Kane, “Salute the Grand Old Flag Raiser, George F.,” Sports Illustrated, 17 August 1970, pp. 56-57; Dave Anderson, “Assault to Head Shakes Canadian,” New York Times, 5 August 1970, p. 27 [2ND QUOTATION]; Robert Lipsyte, “George,” New York Times, 6 August 1970, p. 43; Girsch, “Foreman KO,” p. 36.

16Girsch, “Foreman KO,” p. 36; “Heavyweight Rankings,” Ring, October 1970, p. 20; Kane, “Salute,” p. 57; Daniel, “Here Comes Foreman,” pp. 6-7 [QUOTATION]; “How Good Is Foreman?” pp. 15, 60-61.

17Bob Goodman, “Dangerous Duo Elder, Matthews Vie for Shot at Heavy Crown,” Ring, October 1970, p. 36.

18Ted Carroll, “Take Charge Sadler Tells Foreman,” Ring, June 1971, p. 26 [2ND QUOTATION]; Hauser, Black Lights, 63 [1ST QUOTATION]; Barney Nagler, “Why They Avoid Sonny Liston,” Sport, February 1960, pp. 26-27, 74-77; Berry Stainback, “Sonny Liston’s Plans ‘If I Become Champ,’” Sport, July 1962, pp. 12, 62-64; David Remnick, King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero (New York: Vintage, 1998), 22. See also A.S. “Doc” Young, Sonny Liston: The Champ Nobody Wanted (Chicago: Johnson Publishing, 1963).

19“Garden Offers Live, TV Fights Nov. 18,” New York Times, 20 October 1970, p. 57; “TNT Slates



Boxing’s 1st Double Card,” Chicago Defender, 20 October 1970, p. 25; “Joe Frazier Set for First Title Defense Tonight,” Chicago Defender, 18 November 1970, p. 32.

20Brad Pye, “Frazier-Foster Fight for Brotherhood,” Los Angeles Sentinel, 12 November 1970, sec. B, p. 1; “Foreman Fights Kirkman Tonight,” New York Times, 18 November 1970, p. 57; “Hurley Picks Kirkman to KO Foreman,” Chicago Defender, 31 October 1970, p. 29; Nat Loubet, “Vaunted Kirkman Reduced to Myth by Foreman in 2,” Ring, February 1971, pp. 12-13 [2ND AND 3RD QUOTATIONS]; Jack D. Hopkins, “Jack Hurley—Last of the Old Breed,” Boxing Illustrated, June 1968, pp. 36-37; idem, “Look Out Frazier—Kirkman’s Back!” Boxing Illustrated, July 1970, p. 18; Nat Fleischer, “Nat Fleischer Speaks Out,” Ring, March 1971, p. 5 [1ST QUOTATION]; Dan Daniel, “Jack Hurley, 1897-1972,” Ring, February 1973, p. 25.

21It was later discovered that an up-and-coming young heavyweight, Charlie Boston, fought under the more well-known Phil Smith’s name. Bert Sugar, “The Two Sides of George Foreman: Is He Is or Is He Ain’t?” Boxing Illustrated, February 1973, pp. 10-13, 63; Carroll, “Take Charge,” p. 40; Jess Peters, “Jess’ Sports Chest,” Pittsburgh Courier, 28 November 1970, p. 14; Arthur Daley, “A Destructive Fighter,” New York Times, 20 November 1970, p. 68; “Foreman KO’s Mystery Opponent, Crowd Boos,” Chicago Defender, 11 February 1971, p. 38; Dan Daniel, “Is George Foreman Next Heavyweight Champ?” Ring, July 1971, p. 7; Les Matthews, “The Sports Whirl,” New York Amsterdam News, 24 April 1971, p. 33; “WBA Picks Foreman,” Chicago Defender, 13 February 1971, p. 30; John Ort, “Progress Award of the Year,” Ring, March 1971, p. 12; “Sadler’s Dawn and Dusk; George Foreman, Liston,” Chicago Defender, 30 October1969, p. 41; Thomas Hauser, Winks and Daggers: An Inside Look at Another Year in Boxing (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2011), 161; Lawrence Levine, Black Culture and Black Con-sciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 370-386, 413-420; Robert Ray, A Certain Tendency of the Hollywood Cinema, 1930-1980 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985), 59-68; William Van Deburg, Black Camelot: African American Culture Heroes in Their Times, 1960-1980 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 137-138.

22Edwin Keister, Jr., “The Walt Frazier Style,” Sport, March 1971, pp. 62-69; Walt Frazier and Ira Berkow, Rockin’ Steady: A Guide to Basketball and Cool (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1974), 11-20; Jerry Kirshenbaum, “And Still a Classic of Cool,” Sports Illustrated, 10 February 1975, pp. 22-25; Harvey Araton, When the Garden Was Eden: Clyde, the Captain, Dollar Bill, and the Glory Days of the New York Knicks (New York: HarperCollins, 2011), 223-239; Robin D.G. Kelley, Yo Mama’s Disfunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America (Boston: Beacon, 1997), 25-32; Foreman, By George, 79 [QUOTATION].

23Foreman, By George, 79, 100; Ed Guerrero, Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), 74-79; Keith Harris, Boys, Boyz, Bois: An Ethics of Black Masculinity in Film and Popular Media (New York: Routledge, 2006), x, 60; Novotny Lawrence, Blaxploitation Films of the 1970s: Blackness and Genre (New York: Routledge, 2008), 18-25, 38; “Baadassss Cinema—A Bold Look at 70’s Blaxploitation Films,” dir. Isaac Julien, 2002, Independent Film Channel, 58 mins. See also Arum Goudsouzian, Sidney Poitier: Man, Actor, Icon (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003); and Richard Majors and Janet Mancini Billson, Cool Pose: The Dilemma of Black Manhood in America (New York: Touchstone, 1992).

24“Fight Will Be Uptown,” New York Amsterdam News, 6 March 1971, pp. 1, 31; William Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 198; idem, Black Camelot, 74; “Foreman Pulls Modest Switch: Challenges Ali-Frazier Loser,” New York Times, 9 March 1971, p. 30; Robert E. Johnson, “World’s Biggest Event Brings Mixed Reactions,” Jet, 25 March 1971, p. 14.

25For the poem, see “Black Steel,” Special Collections, Northwestern University (hereafter NUSC). For the fight program, see “Professional Boxing Programs,” Joyce Sports Collection, Notre Dame University, South Bend, Indiana. Gwendolyn Brooks, Black Steel: Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali (Detroit: Broadside Press, 1971); Remnick, King of the World, 213, 305; Thomas Hauser, Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), 102; “Frazier Pays a Bill,” Chicago Defender 15 January 1972, p. 29; Lee Jenkins, “Frazier Choice to Whip Ali,” Chicago Defender, 8 March 1971, p. 25; Ronald Jackson, Scripting the Black Masculine Body: Identity, Discourse, and Racial Politics in the Popular Media (New York:


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State University of New York Press, 2006), 86; bell hooks, We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity (New York: Routledge, 2004), 14, 59, 156.

26Brad Pye, “Prying Pye,” Los Angeles Sentinel, 12 November 1970, sec. B, p. 1 [1ST QUOTATION]; Thomas Hauser, Boxing Is . . . Reflections on the Sweet Science (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2010), 88 [2ND QUOTATION]; Mel Ciociola “The Story behind the Commercial of the Century,” Boxing Illustrated, July 1971, pp. 26-27 [3RD QUOTATION].

27Dave Anderson, “Target Date Set for Feb. 15 or 22,” New York Times, 9 December 1970, p. 70; Les Matthews, “Champ Joe Frazier May Hang Up Gloves,” New York Amsterdam News, 13 March 1971, p. 35. Bryant Gumbel, “Is Joe Frazier a White Champion in a Black Skin?” Boxing Illustrated, October 1972, cover; Phil Pepe, Come Out Smokin’: Joe Frazier, the Champ Nobody Knew (New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1972), 130-134; Robert E. Johnson, “World’s Biggest Event Brings Mixed Reactions,” Jet, 25 March 1971, p. 12; “No. 1 Contender Downs Ali-Frazier Fight,” Jet, 29 April 1971, p. 50; George Foreman, “Frazier’s Ready to Be Taken,” Boxing Illustrated, June 1971, pp. 12-13. For a complete recounting of Super Fight, see Michael Arkush, The Fight of the Century: Ali vs. Frazier March 8, 1971 (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley, 2008).

28Craig Heath and Tim J. Dee, “Punch Lines,” Ring, September 1971, p. 30; Keoui Cassidy, “Punch Lines,” Ring; May 1972, p. 28; Jersey Joe Walcott, “Heavyweights,” Boxing Illustrated, March 1972, p. 19; Sam Taub, “Foreman Not Spectacular Stopping Pires in Four,” Ring, February 1972, p. 14; Murray Chass, “Foreman Stops Pires in Fourth,” New York Times, 30 October 1971, p. 37; Dave Anderson, “Boxing Dinner: 3 Get Awards, Foreman Gets a Fiscal Offer,” New York Times, 27 June 1971, sec. S, p. 5; “Foreman’s Pilot Manager of the Year,” Atlanta Daily World, 27 June 1971, p. 12; “Sports Briefs,” Chicago Defender, 1 June 1971, p. 27; George Blair, “Foreman Scores K.O. But . . . Who Was That Other Guy?” Boxing Illustrated, May 1971, p. 10; Les Matthews, “The Sports Whirl,” New York Amsterdam News, July 10 1971, sec. C, p. 10; Foreman, By George, 81.

29Les Matthews, “Foreman Is Star Material,” New York Amsterdam News, 13 November 1971, sec. D, p. 10; Floyd Patterson, “What Now, Heavyweights?” Boxing Illustrated, June 1971, p. 22 [1ST QUOTATION]; Dan Daniel, “Is George Foreman Next Champ?” Ring, July 1971, pp. 6-7, 39 [2ND AND 3RD QUOTATIONS]; Les Matthews, “Will Ali Befriend Jerry Quarry?” New York Amsterdam News, 31 July 1971, sec. C, p. 10 [4TH QUOTATION]; Will Grimsley, “Selling of a Heavyweight Champion,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, 10 March 1974, sec. C, p. 2; Frazier, Rockin’ Steady, 6-7 [5TH QUOTATION]; hooks, We Real Cool, 156; Mark Anthony Neal, What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture (New York: Routledge, 1999), 94-95; Baadassss Cinema.

30“Walt Frazier: His Sex Image and His Lifestyle,” Jet, 4 April 1974, p. 52; Keister, “The Walt Frazier Style,” 63, 65; Ozeil Fryer Woodcock, “Social Swirl,” Atlanta Daily World, 21 March 1971, p. 3; “Playboy Czar Hosts Feast and Fisticuffs,” Jet, 22 April 1971, p. 51; Foreman, By George, 78.

31“Jim Brown Fined $300 for Pushing Deputy,” Los Angeles Sentinel, 9 January 1969, sec. A, pp. 1, 8; Guerrero, Framing Blackness, 79; “Muhammad Ali, Bob Foster Win over Quarry Brothers,” Atlanta Daily World, 30 June 1972, p. 5; Brad Pye, “Muhammad Ali Is a Merciful Man,” Los Angeles Sentinel, 29 June 1972, sec. B, p. 5; “Ali Turns LA People On,” Los Angeles Sentinel, 29 June 1971, sec. B, p. 1; Mark Kram and Tex Maule, “Agony and Ecstasy,” Sports Illustrated, 10 July 1972, pp. 16-17; “Matthew Henry, “He Is a ‘Bad Mother *$%@!#’: ‘Shaft’ and Contemporary Black Masculinity,” African American History Review 38 (2004): 114-119; Kelley, Yo Mama’s Disfunktional, 24-25.

32Lester Bromberg, “Lester Bromberg Sez,” Boxing Illustrated, December 1971, pp. 18-20; Dan Dan-iel, “Madison Square Garden Hotly Interested in Matching George with Champion,” Ring, May 1972, pp. 8-9; “Insiders Say,” Sporting News, 30 May 1970, p. 4; “Frazier Tours Europe,” Chicago Defender 3 May 1971, p. 25; Sybil Leek, “Frazier-Ali,” Boxing Illustrated, June 1972, p. 19; Pepe, Come Out Smokin’, 130, 215-217; “Frazier Pays a Bill,” p. 29; Nat Fleischer, “Nat Fleischer Speaks Out,” Ring, May 1972, p. 5; Dan Daniel, “Is Foreman Ready for Frazier?” Ring, May 1972, pp. 8, 39 [2ND QUOTATION]; idem, “Foreman May Lay Career On Line against Frazier,” Ring, November 1972, pp. 6-7; idem, “Frazier-Clay Rancors Peril Second Meeting,” Ring, April 1972, p. 11; idem, “Ali-Patterson Fiasco Over, N.Y. Garden Studies Rich Vein of Frazier-Foreman,” Ring, December 1972, pp. 8-9 [1ST QUOTATION].



33Daniel, “Ali-Patterson Fiasco,” 8-9; “Frazier Gets $50,000 [sic] Offer from Foreman,” Atlanta Daily World, 27 July 1972, p. 8; “Frazier vs. Foreman?” Chicago Defender, 11 July 1972, p. 26; “Frazier Offered $500,000,” Pittsburgh Courier, 22 July 1972, p. 11; Steve Cady, “Personalities: Frazier May Box Foreman,” New York Times, 18 August 1972, p. 28; “Frazier-Foreman . . . Is Bushed,” Baltimore Sun, 6 September 1972, sec. C, p. 4; “750-G’s for Joe Frazier?” Chicago Defender, 4 October 1972, p. 30; “Frazier Offer Upped 50-grand,” Chicago Defender, 11 October 1972, p. 33; “Frazier Mulls $750,000 Offer to Fight Foreman,” Jet, 19 October 1972, p. 50; Dave Anderson, “State Tax Jeopardizes Garden Boxing,” New York Times, 29 March 1971, p. 43; Dan Daniel, “N.Y. Garden Paralyzed by Intolerable Tax,” Ring, December 1971, p. 6; Nat Fleischer, “Federal Income Bite of 30 Percent on Foreigners Adds to Promoters Woes,” Ring, February 1972, p. 17; idem, “NY Economy Drive Hits Dooley Staff,” Ring, April 1972, p. 35; Foreman, By George, 82.

34“Foreman Files Suit,” Chicago Defender, 21 October 1972, p. 32; “Foreman Sues for $11 Million,” New York Times, 18 October 1972, p. 33; “Suit Names Foreman,” Chicago Defender, 4 November 1972, p. 37; “Frazier, Foreman Told to Set a Date,” New York Times, 20 October 1972, p. 48; “Dave Anderson, “The Intrigue of the Jamaica Affair,” New York Times, 17 November 1972, p. 57; “January 22nd,” Atlanta Daily World, 8 December 1972, p. 4;“Frazier in ‘Sunshine Bout,’” Chicago Defender, 20 January 1973, p. 27; Dan Daniel, “Jamaica Chases American Frazier-Foreman Bidders Out of Battle for Title,” Ring, January 1973, pp. 6-7; Rebecca Tortello, “Frazier vs. Foreman,” Jamaica Gleaner, 13 January 2003, sec. A, p. 2; Red Smith, “A Moveable Feast,” New York Times, 22 January 1973, p. 23; “Move to Get World Title Fight Here,” Jamaica Daily Gleaner, 20 October 1972, p. 17; “Act 1 of Title Fight Completed,” Jamaica Daily Gleaner, 11 November 1972, p. 25; Raymond Sharpe, “Fight Money a Loan from Canadian Bank,” Jamaica Daily Gleaner 11 November 1972, p. 25; Christopher James Shelton, “Down Goes Frazier! The Sunshine Showdown,” <http://www.ringsideboxingshow.com/SheltonBLOG ForemanFrazier.html> [16 March 2010].

35Ronald E. Kisner, “Joe Frazier: Is His Boxing Title Doomed?” Jet, 18 January 1973, p. 49 [1ST AND 2ND QUOTATIONS]; “It’s Fantastic, Says George Foreman,” Los Angeles Sentinel, 28 December 1972, sec. B, p. 3; “Frazier Says He’ll Stop Foreman,” New York Times, 20 January 1973, p. 22 [3RD QUOTATION]; Edwin Shrake, “Set for a Wood Chopper’s Bowl,” Sports Illustrated, 15 January 1973, p. 35 [4TH QUOTATION].

36Kisner, “Joe Frazier,” p. 49; “Seaga Wants Title Fight Arrangements Probed,” Jamaica Daily Gleaner, 10 November 1972, pp. 1, 13; Raymond Sharpe, “Title Fight Has $3m. Potential,” Jamaica Daily Gleaner, 28 November 1972, p. 16; “TV Rights Awarded to Fight,” Baltimore Sun, 24 November 1972, sec. C, p. 7; Nat Loubet, “Foreman’s Kayo of Frazier One of Top Feats in Boxing History,” Ring, April 1973, p. 6; Ronald E. Kisner, “What’s Ahead for New Heavyweight Boxing Champion,” Jet, 15 February 1973, pp. 52-57 [QUOTATION]; “Bill Gallo, Frazier-Foreman: How They Shape Up,” Ring, February 1973, pp. 10-11, 40.

37Kisner, “What’s Ahead,” 52-57; George Plimpton, “You Better Believe It,” Sports Illustrated, 5 February 1973, p. 33; Tim Tyler, “George Foreman: The Great White Hope,” Sport, July 1973, p. 79-86; Shirley Norman, “With Foreman, It’s U.S.A. All the Way,” Ring, October 1973, pp. 7, 34-35; Foreman, By George, 94-95.

38George Girsch, “The Night They Lost Their Cool at the Waldorf,” Ring, September 1974, pp. 18, 32; Dave Anderson, “Broken Glasses at the Waldorf,” New York Times, 24 June 1974, p. 35; “Clothes Rip, Dishes Spill As Foreman, Ali Clash,” Baltimore Sun, 24 June 1974, sec. C, p. 10; “Foreman’s Day Spoiled, Ali Says He’s Sorry,” Chicago Defender, 25 June 1974, p. 24; Foreman, By George, 94.

39Nat Loubet, “As Nat Loubet Sees It,” Ring, July 1974, p. 5; Dan Daniel, “Foreman May Challenge Dempsey’s Power But Not Charisma,” Ring, July 1974, pp. 6, 40; “Everybody’s Talking About . . .,” Jet, 24 October 1974, p. 59; George Plimpton, Shadow Box: An Amateur in the Ring (New York: Lyons and Burford, 1993), 231, 239; Norman Mailer, The Fight (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1975), 44-48; Girsch, “Foreman a Gentle Giant,” p. 42. See also footage from When We Were Kings, 1996, prod. and dir. Leon Gast, Polygram Filmed Entertainment, 89 mins.; and Soul Power, 2008, prod. and dir. Jeff Levy-Hinte, Antidote Films, 92 mins.

40Hauser, Muhammad Ali, 259-280; Lewis A. Erenberg, “‘Rumble in the Jungle’: Muhammad Ali vs. George Foreman in the Age of Global Spectacle,” Journal of Sport History 39 (2012): 81-97; Grant Farred,


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“When Kings Were (Anti-?)Colonials: Black Athletes in Film,” Sport in Society 11 (2008): 240-252; Kisner, “What’s Ahead,” 53; Foreman, By George, 94; Ira Berkow, “Memorable, Forgettable, and Others,” New York Times, 1 January 1991, p. 55; Hoffer, “Born Again”; Hauser, A Beautiful Sickness: Reflections on the Sweet Science (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2001), 22; Bert Sugar, “Boxing Can Learn from Football,” Boxing Illustrated, May 1972, p. 6.

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