George Foreman, a pastor and former heavyweight boxing champion, is talking openly about his near-death experience.
George Foreman
Big George Foreman, a faith-centered biopic about 74-year-old George Foreman, stars Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland) as Foreman’s trainer Doc Broadus and Space Jam: A New Legacy’s Khris Davis as Foreman. The film opens April 28 in theaters.
Foreman won the heavyweight title at the age of 24 and then again at the age of 45, becoming the oldest title holder in history. But, he says, it was a near-death incident in between those two titles that changed his life and prompted him to become a pastor.
That life-altering event occurred in 1977. He had already lost his first title (against Muhammad Ali in 1974) and was attempting to reclaim his place in another heavyweight championship bout.
Full of Pride
But he learned something the hard way.
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“I was in the dressing room … walking back and forward and saying, ‘I don’t care about this boxing match I lost. I’m still George Foreman.’ You know, I can win this [next match] and I got my movie career, I got my money in the bank. And I could go home and retire now and die. That sneaked into my conversation – ‘die.’ And I couldn’t get it out. All of a sudden I faced death, and I knew I was about to die,” Foreman told Christian Headlines. “So with that in mind, I heard a voice within me say, ‘You believe in God, why are you scared to die?’ And I was afraid – I really was. And I started fighting to keep my life in me. I eventually lost the fight.”
George claimed he died in the dressing room that night, but God revived him.
“I was gone out of this life. Above me, under me, all around me was nothing. The most sad thoughts that you can even come to mind – multiply it. I was in a dump yard of nothing and sorrowfulness. … I remember thinking there was no hope for me – like someone had dropped me out in a sea. There was no land.”
“I still believe there’s a God!”, he said when suddenly, “a hand reached in and pulled me out of nothing and death.”
George Foreman Comes Back to Life
“I was alive [and] breathing in that dressing room,” George said. “… [I] fought eight men to get into the shower. I started screaming, ‘Jesus Christ has come alive in me’ after I saw blood on my head and hands. … They couldn’t stop me. I started kissing everybody in the dressing room. I tried to make a break for the door. They said, ‘George, you don’t have clothes on.’ They had to hold me down. … I got a second chance to live.”
According to George, he wants the audience to be motivated by the film.
“The most important thing I’d like for the people who go to the movie to take out is that there is hope. … There’s a living God,” Foreman said. “And I’m proof of it. That’s all – forget about the boxing and the winning and the losing and all of that. Faith in God is what that movie is about,” he concluded.
Header image: George Foreman [biggeorgeforeman]. Instagram, 7 October 2019, https://www.instagram.com/p/B3UcN5MJqMQ/
Reference: Christian Headlines
