{"id":30130,"date":"2025-03-22T10:07:24","date_gmt":"2025-03-22T15:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/?p=30130"},"modified":"2025-03-22T10:32:50","modified_gmt":"2025-03-22T15:32:50","slug":"obit-watch-march-22-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/?p=30130","title":{"rendered":"Obit watch: March 22, 2025."},"content":{"rendered":"

George Foreman<\/a>. ESPN<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Foreman\u2019s career spanned generations: He fought Chuck Wepner in the 1960s, Dwight Muhammad Qawi in the \u201980s and Evander Holyfield in the \u201990s.<\/a>
\nWith his fellow heavyweights Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali, Foreman embodied a golden era in the 1970s, when boxing was still a cultural force in America. The three great champions thrilled fans with one classic bout after another. Foreman was the last living member of the trio.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…<\/p>\n

Success came quickly in the amateur ranks; only a year and a half later he was Olympic heavyweight champion, defeating Ionas Chepulis of the Soviet Union by a second-round knockout in Mexico City in 1968.<\/a>
\nAfter the fight, Foreman, who was Black, waved a small American flag in the ring, days after the track athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised clenched fists during the national anthem to protest the country\u2019s treatment of Black people.<\/a>
\n\u201cI was just glad to be an American,\u201d Foreman said afterward. \u201cSome people have tried to make something of it, calling me an Uncle Tom, but I\u2019m not. I just believe people should live together in peace.\u201d<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…<\/p>\n

Foreman\u2019s affability helped him transcend boxing and cross over into the media world. In 1993-94, in the midst of his comeback, he starred in \u201cGeorge,\u201d a short-lived sitcom on ABC in which he played a retired boxer helping troubled youth, and he made guest appearances on several other shows over the years. He appeared in a Venus-flytrap costume on the reality competition show \u201cThe Masked Singer\u201d in 2022. (His performance of \u201cGet Ready\u201d by the Temptations was not enough to stave off elimination.)<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kitty Dukakis<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George Foreman. ESPN. Foreman\u2019s career spanned generations: He fought Chuck Wepner in the 1960s, Dwight Muhammad Qawi in the \u201980s and Evander Holyfield in the \u201990s. With his fellow heavyweights Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali, Foreman embodied a golden era in the 1970s, when boxing was still a cultural force in America. The three great […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,16,64,80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-obits","category-politics","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30130"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30133,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30130\/revisions\/30133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}