The Night I Met Jesus Christ | Big George Foreman

The champion at that time was Muhammad Ali. He had to face me if I won this elimination bout. And I went 12 rounds. I was pretty content. Sad that I lost the decision, but I truly felt like I won. I went back to the dressing room to cool off, and that's where life changed. I walked back and forward. For the first time, trying to cool off, and thought, you don't have to worry about that boxing match. You're still George Foreman. You can go to your ranch. You got money. You got TV shows. You can go to your ranch and retire and die. And I never could lose that thought. You're going to die. And in the dirty old dressing room, when I had all these wonderful homes, I was about to die. And I heard a voice within me say, you believe in God? Why are you scared to die? And I was afraid. I was scared. I tried to walk back and forward, shake it off, but it wouldn't go off. And I realized it was God talking with me. I didn't believe in religion. You got to be a sissy. Everybody who had taken up religion in those days had lost a wife, a husband, a boxing match, and they were carrying their Bibles as a baby. And I wasn't going to go and take on religion, but I tried to make a deal in that dressing room. I said, I'm still George Foreman. Everyone's looking at me. Right within my thoughts, I can still box and give money to charity and for cancer. And I heard a voice say, I don't want your money. I want you. And I remember tears. First time I'd heard people, anyone turned down money, number one. So there I was. I'd lost the fight of my life. My leg gave out on me. And I looked around the room and told everybody, hey, y'all, I'm fixing, before I could say another word, I was out of this life in a big, big dog dump yard of nothingness. Over my head, under my feet, there was nothing. I got mad because everyone else had pets of dobermans. I had lions and tigers. I was tough. So I don't care if this is death. I still believe there's a God. When I said that, I was smashed out of nothingness, alive in the dressing room, blood flowing through my face. But then I saw blood flowing, coming down my forehead. And I hadn't been cut from the match and on my hand. And I started screaming. I haven't stopped to this day. Jesus Christ is coming alive in me. That's what happened to me in that dressing room. How did people respond when you started talking about Jesus? Most everybody, I was ashamed of it myself. I was champion of the world. And people are going to say, he must be scared to fight. He's coming up with an excuse. Even my parents thought I had lost my mind. And I thought I had lost my mind, too. But you never forget the smell of death. Yeah, of course. It's like a horrible smell. Even when I'm speaking with you, I don't want to think of that to be nothing. There was hopelessness. That's all I had in this dark place. I was given a chance to life, to live again. A lot of people thought I was crazy to walk away from boxing because I was at the height of my career. But I walked away because I didn't know what else to do. For 10 years, I didn't make a fist. I just preached. I was ordained in the 70s and went on to become a full-time preacher and stayed there until 87. Let's talk about that preaching career. Tell us how that's developed. Well, I'm an evangelist. And I know I'm an evangelist. And I know exactly what my calling is. And people ask me, what is your calling? I said, just to be myself. God gave me a second chance to live and to just to live and show people there's a life beyond fame and fortune. You can be the best human being there is. And it's impossible to be a good human being without God and injecting Jesus Christ into your life. You must have some kind of wife. I mean, she must be very special. Tell us about her. Oh, my wife. To give you the story, I was very successful with the George Foreman Grill. And I didn't want to be bothered with that because people were always offering me a product or something. I was already successful on Madison Avenue. And everyone said, George, are you going to do the grill? And I said, I don't know about these things. My wife said, it works, George. So she showed me how to fix a burger on that thing. It was still juicy. The grease went out. I said, it really works. She said, you should do that. Whatever you do, see if they'll give you a few. And I did an endorsement following my wife just to get 16 grills. And we ended up selling over 100 million of those things. But that's to tell you a lot about my wife. She's smart. Even when I wanted to box some more, I told her, you think those guys can beat me? You don't believe I still have it? I can still do this. She said, isn't that the way you want to leave the sport, feeling like you can do it, George? If you don't have a wife who's smart, you'll stay into boxing until you can't walk. What kind of trepidation when you made the comeback at 45? Well, I started coming back and most people, even my wife said, don't do it, they're going to kill you. And my children, I gathered them around and told them, look, I don't have any money. I got to find a way to make it for you guys. It's easy to say you have five kids, six kids, but the hard part is to take care of those kids. I truly wish I had been a golfer and gone back to golfing, but I didn't know how to use those clubs. I tried, but I couldn't get it. So I went back to boxing and everyone laughed at me. It was a big joke. It really was a joke. And I kept laughing too, because it truly is a joke, but a wonderful thing to have a profession that you can stay off 10 years and come back, regain yourself and be champion of the world. Then people started to jump on board and say, maybe he can do it, especially after you've done it. Give us your take on some of the famous boxers. What's their strengths? You know, I look back even in past days to the great Joe Lewis. Evidently he was the most well-trained athlete ever. He'd get in the ring and do the same thing over and over. He was champion of the world for over a decade. And Archie Moore was light heavyweight champion of the world. And that's one in this area here, Josh Avello. He didn't make it to be champion of the world, but he was the toughest chin I ever faced in my life. I was so afraid of him that I wouldn't win the match. And they stopped the fight and he was looking like, I had him and I was looking like, he had me. But it goes back to a lot of great champions I've faced. Joe Frazier, the great Muhammad Ali, probably one of the greatest human beings I've ever met in my life. Not the greatest boxer, but the greatest human being. How do you explain? I mean, you physically and mentally are so sharp and boxing, it's a tremendous toll that takes on the physical body. How do you explain it? I was just happy to have that sport. And I never looked on boxing as something to play with. And the years I dedicated myself to boxing, I didn't drink or smoke cigarettes or anything. I tried to eat right, but the occasional banana split didn't hurt anything. But basically my second time around, if I tell you I did anything, I'd be lying. God did it.