George Foreman Quotes

I really didn't have a great desire to be a professional boxer. I just wanted to make enough money to live and support my mother.

After I started boxing I realized I could hit so hard.

I'd read the critics and they'd say he's a slugger but he's not a boxer. Then I'd get mad at the critics, other boxers. I wanted to destroy everybody with my fists. I figure I am going to make a lot of money. I didn't care about nothing else but making a lot of money. I didn't care if people liked me.

I might be the fattest guy in the world, but I got the hardest punch!

I became heavyweight champion, the oldest man to do so. I felt so complete and I remember falling to my knees and thanking God.

You got to look nice. If you got 10 kids; they'll talk about you if you don't look nice.

I cut off all my hair and my mustache. I didn't want to be identified with the old guy. Then I'd get on the street corner and start preaching, and no one paid any attention to me. I was 315 pounds, unrecognizable, and I enjoyed it, but no one stopped to listen to me. Finally, I realized that I had to do something to make these people stop on their way to a bus, so I'd get out there and say, ‘Hey, this is George Foreman. I fought Muhammad All, Joe Frazer, and Kenny Norton.'

People stopped. And if they like me, they'd stay for an hour. So I learned to make people love me to get my message across.

I had been 10 years out of boxing, and in my second year out of boxing, I realized that all of the people who were calling themselves my sons really didn't look at me as if I were a real father to them. They really showed me their true colors, if you know what I mean. That was devastating for me. I'd call numbers and people who didn't want to talk to me would hang up or they'd put their secretary on and have me wait. That will wake you up.

When I had a chance to box again, I saw boxing not as a sport the second time around, but as pure business, which meant making meetings and trying to make myself attractive to Madison Avenue.

In time I learned the importance of selling.

That's when people started to say, ‘This guy can sell himself,'" he recalls. "‘Let's let him sell Doritos or Kentucky Fried or McDonald's.'

If you learn to sell, it's worth more than a degree. It's worth more than the heavyweight championship of the world. It's even more important than having a million dollars in the bank. Learn to sell and you'll never starve.

I love selling.

It started because I left boxing in 1977 and worked in evangelism at a church in Marshall. I was preaching on the street corner and I'd make people stop. They didn't know me, the old George with an afro and all that. So I realized I could stop these people, who are always headed somewhere, for a second and sell my message. That's what I learned to do on the street corner.

The greatest asset, even in this country, is not oil and gas. It's integrity. Everyone is searching for it, asking, ‘Who can I do business with that I can trust?'

A contract can easily break. I've found in business, everyone signs a contract to make a business deal, and they always leave a loophole so they can break them.

Now I understand you must preserve the quality of your name, your integrity. You don't want to lie about anything. And it's something that people will be happy about once they get to know you. Because people count on you.

There are a lot of guys who are successful, they make a lot of big money, I mean millions overnight with a contract, and they don't understand the evaporation. It evaporates. You're always back to square one. I found that out, so integrity is how I do business. That's my main asset.

I had the opportunity to go into the restaurant business. A chain of restaurants, the George Foreman restaurants. And it was an opportunity right out to make lots of money.

They said, ‘Well, this is what will make more profits. You can just donate them to charity.' I said, ‘No, I can't do that.' And my sons, who were in business with me, watching me put this deal together, they could not understand it. They just couldn't understand.

At least have something you believe in and you cannot be talked out of by dollars and cents. And that's what I try to pass on.

My grandfather used to go out hunting during the days of the Depression. The good shooters, the marksmen, shot with one shell. If you missed the squirrel, so to speak, you don't have anything but an excuse on the table.

If you buy these cheap shots, which are buckshots, they scatter. You come back in with a squirrel. Although you got a lot of buckshot in it, you got a decent meal on the table...I call it the old shotgun tactic.

Now I use the same thing, although you've got to be selective because you have a name to protect. You know you put out a lot of buckshot, you're going to strike one.

You've got to start out early in the morning and look at hundreds, literally hundreds of things. And it may take a year, it may take three or four years, but you're going to hit something so you have something to put on the table for your family.
And then we have the green cleaning products, which I've been working on for a couple years. We finally got it absolutely, totally biodegradable. This is going to be so good it's going to make the big companies jealous, and they're going to outdo me. And I still win. I still win. Because it makes the planet much better.
I told a reporter in 1977 when I made my re-entry into boxing - I stood next to the church, it's called the Church of Lord Jesus Christ. He asked me what I wanted in the future. I said, 20 years from today to be standing right there in front of that sign being the same human being I am today and you know what, I've been successful. 20 years from today I still want to be that same guy speaking to you, happy, proud of what happened to me. I don't have anything bad to say about anyone. I have great things to say about my country. I have a beautiful wife who has given me a wonderful family and wonderful kids, so we're all pretty good. George is fine.

I went back to boxing trying to sell the old George Foreman heavyweight champion of the world. Nobody wanted to buy it, though.

The bottom line is, you make a decision you'll be able to sleep with, wake up the next day, look in the mirror and feel good about yourself.

One of the biggest things is to fight. Just don't go absolutely for the buck.

That's my gift. I let that negativity roll off me like water off a duck's back. If it's not positive, I didn't hear it. If you can overcome that, fights are easy.