Upon learning Friday night George Foreman had died at 76, Muhammad Ali’s daughter Rasheda Ali-Walsh said she sent a text message to George Foreman Jr., the oldest son of the former heavyweight champion.
“Please know that we’re here for you, sending much love and support,’’ Rasheda Ali-Walsh told USA TODAY Sports she texted, followed by, “Your dad is sparring with my dad in heaven.’’
Probably wearing not only boxing gloves but smiles. Ali-Walsh agreed.
In one of the biggest upsets in boxing history, Ali and Foreman went from bitter rivals who clashed in “The Rumble in the Jungle’’ to something altogether different.
“He and my dad became really good friends, and if I’m not mistaken, (Foreman) inspired my dad into being a pastor and a spiritual advisor,” Ali-Walsh said.
Foreman attended Ali’s memorial and funeral service when Ali died in 2016. But the relationship got off to a rocky start in 1974 leading up to ‘The Rumble in the Jungle,” their fight in Zaire.
Foreman, then 40-0 and one of the hardest punchers in the sport, said multiple times he was going to kill Ali, a heavy underdog. Ali continuously mocked Foreman, such as when he told reporters, “George Foreman is nothing but a big mummy. I’ve officially named him, ‘The Mummy.’ ”
Ali walked like a Mummy, delighting the press but not Foreman. Then their fight sent shockwaves around the world, not the least because Ali sent Foreman crashing to the canvas with an eighth-round knockout.
“Daddy was always trying to get in his opponent’s head,’’ Ali-Walsh said. “And I think he got in George’s head.’’
George Foreman, Muhammad Ali form friendship
Three years after “The Rumble in the Jungle,’’ Foreman said, he was hit by something more powerful than Ali. He called it a religious experience that prompted him to quit boxing in 1977 at age 28.
Hana Ali, one of the boxer’s seven daughters, said years later her father gave her 60 hours of taped phone conversations. One of her favorites, she told USA TODAY Sports in 2014, is an hour-long talk her father had with Foreman in 1979. She said Foreman was preaching while Ali, then in his later 30s, still was fighting and, in retrospect, showing early signs of Parkinson’s disease.
‘George Foreman begins by warning my father not to do these boxing exhibitions that are going to lead him back to the ring,’ Hana Ali told USA TODAY Sports in 2014, ‘and he doesn’t want him there. He said, ‘I had a dream,’ and he’s telling him, ‘God doesn’t want you in the ring. You need to stop.’ My dad says, ‘It’s just a boxing exhibition.’ And he goes, ‘No, stop now because it’s going to lead apparently to something else.’ And then, of course, my father only follows his own mind.’
Yet Foreman, after a decade-long absence from boxing, returned in 1987 at age 38. In 1994, at 45, Foreman knocked out Michael Moorer, then 26, and became the oldest heavyweight champion in history.
In 2014, Foreman told USA TODAY Sports that he received a congratulatory letter from his old nemesis, the one who called him a mummy.
‘Can you imagine that?’ Foreman said. ‘Who would think almost 20 years later, there’s Muhammad, my conqueror, congratulating me in fighting for the championship of the world and winning it.’
George Foreman, Muhammad Ali inspire celebration
In 2012, Foreman was at Ali’s 70th birthday party at the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas. It was a fundraiser spurred by Ali, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease.
“They always was supportive of each other in their endeavors,’’ Rasheda Ali-Walsh said.
In an Instagram post Friday, Hana Ali said she used to FaceTime Foreman so her father could talk with him. ‘They’d reminisce, share laughs, and lovingly debate who had it better—George with his sons, or Daddy with his daughters,” Hana Ali wrote.
In December, Rasheda Ali-Walsh said, she and her six sisters gathered in Houston. It was near the home of Foreman, and they were there to celebrate the 50th anniversary of “The Rumble in the Jungle.’’
The daughters of Ali celebrated with some of Foreman’s children, Ali-Walsh said.
“It was like celebrating the lineage, legacy and the love between my dad and George Foreman,’’ she said. “There was, of course, the iconic fight. But just their relationship in general, how they had a deep love and respect for one another.’’
At the 50th celebration, according to d-mars.com, many of the children of both boxers gathered for a photo after which George Foreman Jr. said, ‘Our fathers spent so many years really talking about how much they cared for each other and loved each other. They passed that down to us. This was our first time as a group getting together for a picture and it was like we showed up to a family reunion with long-lost cousins. We didn’t skip a beat.’
Rasheda Ali-Walsh said her father’s old boxing rival-turned-friend was ailing then.
‘I got a chance to see George for the last time,” she said, ‘and thank him for the wonderful times that he spent with my dad and for his friendship, too.”