December 13, 2025 • 11 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Michael Barry Show. Is it mister Foreman or pastor
Forman these days?
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Just don't call me too late for dinner?
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Or is it the father of five Georgia's. You know,
we have one son who we named Michael, and we're
gonna have another son. And I said, Uh, wouldn't it
be cool to name him Michael? And my wife said, hey,
I'm not necessarily against that. I said, hey, George Foreman
has five Georges, so if it's good enough for him,
it's good enough for me.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well, you you you haven't had to get hit on
the head by Joe Fraser, Mohammed Ali, Ken Norton, so
you'll have an easy time remembering names.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
You know what, I went back this morning and watched
your first fight with with Fraser. The hitting on the
head was you hitting Joe Fraser. It wasn't him hitting you.
You know, with with Joe Fraser passing, I know a
lot of people are reaching out to you. I went
back and watched that fight. It wasn't a very long fight.
But I'm curious, with all these years later, what you
(00:53):
remember of it, because I'll tell you, as I as
we talked about this morning, I was three years old
when that fight took place. But I've I've heard so
much about it, you know, the Sunshine Showdown or Rumble
and the Junk, all these fights that you had. But
to go back and watch it, you didn't dance around,
you didn't move. You just seemed cool. And in fact,
Coselle talks about repeatedly the fact that you're so calm.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Take me back to that fight where you got to
understand that you got to take you back to Joe Fraser.
Joe Fraser was not the bigger of any of us.
He was the smallest in statute for wait, but for
some reason, everyone was afraid of Joe Fraser. Not everybody
wanted to fight him. Even Mohammed Ali had lost because
Fraser would not stop coming. So I kept thinking I
(01:39):
wanted to be Champ of the world, but I was
wanting Fraser retired, I'll fight someone else. So when the
bell rang, I was like, what he in the first lace?
You know what am I doing in the ring with
smoking Joe Fraser?
Speaker 1 (01:51):
You our mutual friend Michael Harris was playing an audio
clip of yours. I'm not sure from when it was
and you were talking. It was from a few years ago, obviously,
but you were talking about the fact that you would
hit Fraser and he would go down. I think he went.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Down three times, six times, but.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Three times in the first round was yes, And you
talked about with Michael Harris. He just kept coming back, and.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
You know, I was thinking, I said, oh, he's going
to be mad now. That knocked him down again. I said, oh,
why did I do that?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
So you were worried that you knocked him down.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
I'm furious to go Fraser. He'd gone down before in
boxing matches, but the thing was he'd get up and
come and get you. And the first time I'd seen
him really go at it would bust to Mathis. He
was so much smaller, and everyone left out of the
arena afraid of small guys because Fraser was so vicious.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
You know you talked about I heard an audio clip
of an interview you gave about it kind of reminded
me of Donny McClurkin's song We Fall Down but We
Get Up. You were talking about Buster Mathis having beaten
Fraser early, and yet Matthis's hand was injured, and so
Fraser beats him in sixty four goes to the Olympics,
and as we know, the rest is history because that
sort of launched Joe Fraser. Could you tell that again?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, Joe Fraser really was not the choice. Bust Mathis
had beaten him in the Olympic trials, but he had
broken his hand, should have hit it. Fraser was the
alternate and going on to become an Olympic gold medalist.
So Bust Mathis had this confidence that I beat him once,
I even beat him twice. To fight for him, he thought, well, probably,
(03:30):
and so he got the shock and everybody in the
audience did as well when Joe Fraser knocked him out.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
When you heard the news, George Foreman is our guest,
when you heard the news that Fraser had passed, what
went through him?
Speaker 3 (03:42):
I was the first thought last night.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I was just for some reason, I got upset, if
you think about it, I just I didn't have enough
time to say everything I wanted to say to him,
those little things like I love you, how are you
doing this day? Those kind of things I got a
said because I intended to say so much more to him,
and then grief stepped in. And today I decided to
(04:06):
make as much as I can about letting everybody know
those small things about Joe Frasier.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
They had never known what's one of those What's one
of those things?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
That this man was kind? He never in all the
years I knowed him and scouted him, he never treated
anyone better than another. If you were rich, Joe Fraser
would give you a boogie boogie, and if you were poor,
he'd give you the same old handshake, boogie booget He's
the most consistent human being I've ever met.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
You know. I don't know if you've seen the documentary,
but ESPN did a documentary on Fraser Ali and it
gave it gave a very different perspective. It painted Fraser
as this decent, honest man of integrity, and it sort
of suggested that Ali took advantage of him and wasn't
respectful to him, and it really made Fraser look like,
(04:54):
I don't know, just such a solid stand up guy.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, you know, and sometimes you don't want to paint
a pitch that Mohammad took advantage of him, because no
matter what, Joe Fraser enjoyed being Joe Frazier, he was
so comfortable in his own skin that the only problem
he had with Mohammed Ali is that he loved him.
And the only problem Mohammad had with Joe is that
he loved Joe Frasier as well. It was a love
(05:19):
affair and it was like a family of boys that
just kept teasing one another. Mohammad would tease him and
he wanted to fight, and that's that really motivated Mohammed
to continue to tease him, because they loved each other,
just like any other family.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
When Fraser, you really shocked the world.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
What did he say to you, Joe Frazie? He was
strange because I told him from time to time that
I just and I knew I would Probably this was
my opportunity to get him because he had put so
much effort into beating Mohammad Ali. He put everything he had.
He wanted that victory more than anything in the world.
So when he fought me, there wasn't a much motivation.
(05:57):
If I had caught him earlier, no way I could
have beaten Fraser in that fashion.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Compare Joe Frasier and Muhammad Ali as fighters.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Well, it was one way and the other. Mohammad Ali
was the master of get out of the way and
punch you. Fraser was the master of here I come
and I'm gonna punch you. No one did it better
in each case than these two guys. Wonderful. You couldn't
have had Mohammad Ali without Joe Fraser. Joe Fraser never
(06:26):
could have achieved what he did as far as respectability
without Muhammad Ali.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
George Foreman is our guest. When when you made your comeback,
and you know, I was at an age then that
I could watch that, not not in the old time reels,
but I could actually watch that in real time and
it was very inspiring to a lot of people to
see you do that. What did Fraser say to you?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
You know, it's strange. I'm fighting the Vanda Holyfield in
Atlantic City, Atlantic City, New Jersey, and pre fight introduction
there is ladies and gentlemen, Joe Fraser, he walks up,
shakes my hand and evanders and walk out ladies and gentlemen.
Mohammed Ali and he walks out. I'm thinking maybe I
(07:10):
should walk out myself. That's when you realize you were
into another era or something that you shouldn't have been in.
I've gotten myself into a real fight. But Joe Frasier,
Muhammad Ali, especially Joe Fraser, he encouraged me. He said, man,
you can punch. Nobody can take that away from you.
Mohammad Ali. I told him I was coming back. He said,
you could probably do it.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
To watch that, Tyson, Well did you did you keep
up with Fraser over the last few year?
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah? We were a good friends. We as a matter
of fact, we became great friends. Whenever that was an event,
Fraser would always be my guests and vice versa. You know,
all you have to do is give me a call
and I would show up for him and his children
and I. We were good friends.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Did he cook on a George forman grin?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Joe Frazier had a George for mc grill. I made
certain of that because I sent him many of them.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Would I hope so much as they paid you, you
could send everybody in America one that still have made money.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
You know what? He appeared with me on the Monarchy
commercial way back to as the average Joe.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Oh yeah, yeah, yes, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
We had a wonderful, loving relationship. I'm proud of that.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
You know, you lived through and were a part of
a reason for absolutely the golden age of boxing. I'm
sad that I was just a child and that was
going on. But to look to go back this morning
and look and see how many of those old how
many people have posted those YouTube videos, and to get
to go back and see it's just an amazing.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Time, amazing, you know, and it's something that brings those
things to life again. Thank goodness YouTube and the video era.
You can see us. You can not only talk about it,
but everybody can see it.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
So if people ask, now, where is George Foreman, what
are you up to these days? What do you say?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
I lived a good life. You know. I've got ten
kids and I'm starting to accumulate grandkids now. My sixth
grand child should be any day now. So I found
myself at home. I'm still doing business. I always had
some success and with Madison Avenue, so I sit around
the house and fish, ride horses and still try to
sell things.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Well, you made it a long way from the Bloody
Fifth to the Annals of Boxing and beyond. You're an
amazing person and I'm a big fan. Thanks for being
with us, George.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
If you like the Michael Berry Show and podcast, please
tell one friend, and if you're so inclined, write a
nice review of our podcast, comments, suggestions, questions, and interest
in being a corporate sponsor and partner can be communicated
directly to the show at our email address, Michael at
(09:41):
Michael Berryshow dot com, or simply by clicking on our website,
Michael Berryshow dot com. The Michael Berry Show and Podcast
is produced by Ramon Roeblis, The King of Ding. Executive
producer is Chad Knakanishi. Jim Mudd is the creative director.
(10:05):
Voices Jingles, Tomfoolery, and Shenanigans are provided by Chance McLean.
Director of Research is Sandy Peterson. Emily Bull is our
assistant listener and superfan. Contributions are appreciated and often incorporated
into our production. Where possible, we give credit. Where not,
(10:28):
we take all the credit for ourselves. God bless the
memory of Rush Limbaugh. Long live Elvis, be a simple
man like Leonard Skinnard told you, and God bless America. Finally,
if you know a veteran suffering from PTSD, call Camp
Hope at eight seven seven seven one seven PTSD and
(10:53):
a combat veteran will answer the phone to provide free counseling.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Three
The Michael Barry Show. Is it mister Foreman or pastor
Forman these days?
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Just don't call me too late for dinner?
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Or is it the father of five Georgia's. You know,
we have one son who we named Michael, and we're
gonna have another son. And I said, Uh, wouldn't it
be cool to name him Michael? And my wife said, hey,
I'm not necessarily against that. I said, hey, George Foreman
has five Georges, so if it's good enough for him,
it's good enough for me.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well, you you you haven't had to get hit on
the head by Joe Fraser, Mohammed Ali, Ken Norton, so
you'll have an easy time remembering names.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
You know what, I went back this morning and watched
your first fight with with Fraser. The hitting on the
head was you hitting Joe Fraser. It wasn't him hitting you.
You know, with with Joe Fraser passing, I know a
lot of people are reaching out to you. I went
back and watched that fight. It wasn't a very long fight.
But I'm curious, with all these years later, what you
(00:53):
remember of it, because I'll tell you, as I as
we talked about this morning, I was three years old
when that fight took place. But I've I've heard so
much about it, you know, the Sunshine Showdown or Rumble
and the Junk, all these fights that you had. But
to go back and watch it, you didn't dance around,
you didn't move. You just seemed cool. And in fact,
Coselle talks about repeatedly the fact that you're so calm.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Take me back to that fight where you got to
understand that you got to take you back to Joe Fraser.
Joe Fraser was not the bigger of any of us.
He was the smallest in statute for wait, but for
some reason, everyone was afraid of Joe Fraser. Not everybody
wanted to fight him. Even Mohammed Ali had lost because
Fraser would not stop coming. So I kept thinking I
(01:39):
wanted to be Champ of the world, but I was
wanting Fraser retired, I'll fight someone else. So when the
bell rang, I was like, what he in the first lace?
You know what am I doing in the ring with
smoking Joe Fraser?
Speaker 1 (01:51):
You our mutual friend Michael Harris was playing an audio
clip of yours. I'm not sure from when it was
and you were talking. It was from a few years ago, obviously,
but you were talking about the fact that you would
hit Fraser and he would go down. I think he went.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Down three times, six times, but.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Three times in the first round was yes, And you
talked about with Michael Harris. He just kept coming back, and.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
You know, I was thinking, I said, oh, he's going
to be mad now. That knocked him down again. I said, oh,
why did I do that?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
So you were worried that you knocked him down.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
I'm furious to go Fraser. He'd gone down before in
boxing matches, but the thing was he'd get up and
come and get you. And the first time I'd seen
him really go at it would bust to Mathis. He
was so much smaller, and everyone left out of the
arena afraid of small guys because Fraser was so vicious.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
You know you talked about I heard an audio clip
of an interview you gave about it kind of reminded
me of Donny McClurkin's song We Fall Down but We
Get Up. You were talking about Buster Mathis having beaten
Fraser early, and yet Matthis's hand was injured, and so
Fraser beats him in sixty four goes to the Olympics,
and as we know, the rest is history because that
sort of launched Joe Fraser. Could you tell that again?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, Joe Fraser really was not the choice. Bust Mathis
had beaten him in the Olympic trials, but he had
broken his hand, should have hit it. Fraser was the
alternate and going on to become an Olympic gold medalist.
So Bust Mathis had this confidence that I beat him once,
I even beat him twice. To fight for him, he thought, well, probably,
(03:30):
and so he got the shock and everybody in the
audience did as well when Joe Fraser knocked him out.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
When you heard the news, George Foreman is our guest,
when you heard the news that Fraser had passed, what
went through him?
Speaker 3 (03:42):
I was the first thought last night.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I was just for some reason, I got upset, if
you think about it, I just I didn't have enough
time to say everything I wanted to say to him,
those little things like I love you, how are you
doing this day? Those kind of things I got a
said because I intended to say so much more to him,
and then grief stepped in. And today I decided to
(04:06):
make as much as I can about letting everybody know
those small things about Joe Frasier.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
They had never known what's one of those What's one
of those things?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
That this man was kind? He never in all the
years I knowed him and scouted him, he never treated
anyone better than another. If you were rich, Joe Fraser
would give you a boogie boogie, and if you were poor,
he'd give you the same old handshake, boogie booget He's
the most consistent human being I've ever met.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
You know. I don't know if you've seen the documentary,
but ESPN did a documentary on Fraser Ali and it
gave it gave a very different perspective. It painted Fraser
as this decent, honest man of integrity, and it sort
of suggested that Ali took advantage of him and wasn't
respectful to him, and it really made Fraser look like,
(04:54):
I don't know, just such a solid stand up guy.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, you know, and sometimes you don't want to paint
a pitch that Mohammad took advantage of him, because no
matter what, Joe Fraser enjoyed being Joe Frazier, he was
so comfortable in his own skin that the only problem
he had with Mohammed Ali is that he loved him.
And the only problem Mohammad had with Joe is that
he loved Joe Frasier as well. It was a love
(05:19):
affair and it was like a family of boys that
just kept teasing one another. Mohammad would tease him and
he wanted to fight, and that's that really motivated Mohammed
to continue to tease him, because they loved each other,
just like any other family.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
When Fraser, you really shocked the world.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
What did he say to you, Joe Frazie? He was
strange because I told him from time to time that
I just and I knew I would Probably this was
my opportunity to get him because he had put so
much effort into beating Mohammad Ali. He put everything he had.
He wanted that victory more than anything in the world.
So when he fought me, there wasn't a much motivation.
(05:57):
If I had caught him earlier, no way I could
have beaten Fraser in that fashion.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Compare Joe Frasier and Muhammad Ali as fighters.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Well, it was one way and the other. Mohammad Ali
was the master of get out of the way and
punch you. Fraser was the master of here I come
and I'm gonna punch you. No one did it better
in each case than these two guys. Wonderful. You couldn't
have had Mohammad Ali without Joe Fraser. Joe Fraser never
(06:26):
could have achieved what he did as far as respectability
without Muhammad Ali.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
George Foreman is our guest. When when you made your comeback,
and you know, I was at an age then that
I could watch that, not not in the old time reels,
but I could actually watch that in real time and
it was very inspiring to a lot of people to
see you do that. What did Fraser say to you?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
You know, it's strange. I'm fighting the Vanda Holyfield in
Atlantic City, Atlantic City, New Jersey, and pre fight introduction
there is ladies and gentlemen, Joe Fraser, he walks up,
shakes my hand and evanders and walk out ladies and gentlemen.
Mohammed Ali and he walks out. I'm thinking maybe I
(07:10):
should walk out myself. That's when you realize you were
into another era or something that you shouldn't have been in.
I've gotten myself into a real fight. But Joe Frasier,
Muhammad Ali, especially Joe Fraser, he encouraged me. He said, man,
you can punch. Nobody can take that away from you.
Mohammad Ali. I told him I was coming back. He said,
you could probably do it.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
To watch that, Tyson, Well did you did you keep
up with Fraser over the last few year?
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah? We were a good friends. We as a matter
of fact, we became great friends. Whenever that was an event,
Fraser would always be my guests and vice versa. You know,
all you have to do is give me a call
and I would show up for him and his children
and I. We were good friends.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Did he cook on a George forman grin?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Joe Frazier had a George for mc grill. I made
certain of that because I sent him many of them.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Would I hope so much as they paid you, you
could send everybody in America one that still have made money.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
You know what? He appeared with me on the Monarchy
commercial way back to as the average Joe.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Oh yeah, yeah, yes, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
We had a wonderful, loving relationship. I'm proud of that.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
You know, you lived through and were a part of
a reason for absolutely the golden age of boxing. I'm
sad that I was just a child and that was
going on. But to look to go back this morning
and look and see how many of those old how
many people have posted those YouTube videos, and to get
to go back and see it's just an amazing.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Time, amazing, you know, and it's something that brings those
things to life again. Thank goodness YouTube and the video era.
You can see us. You can not only talk about it,
but everybody can see it.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
So if people ask, now, where is George Foreman, what
are you up to these days? What do you say?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
I lived a good life. You know. I've got ten
kids and I'm starting to accumulate grandkids now. My sixth
grand child should be any day now. So I found
myself at home. I'm still doing business. I always had
some success and with Madison Avenue, so I sit around
the house and fish, ride horses and still try to
sell things.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Well, you made it a long way from the Bloody
Fifth to the Annals of Boxing and beyond. You're an
amazing person and I'm a big fan. Thanks for being
with us, George.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
If you like the Michael Berry Show and podcast, please
tell one friend, and if you're so inclined, write a
nice review of our podcast, comments, suggestions, questions, and interest
in being a corporate sponsor and partner can be communicated
directly to the show at our email address, Michael at
(09:41):
Michael Berryshow dot com, or simply by clicking on our website,
Michael Berryshow dot com. The Michael Berry Show and Podcast
is produced by Ramon Roeblis, The King of Ding. Executive
producer is Chad Knakanishi. Jim Mudd is the creative director.
(10:05):
Voices Jingles, Tomfoolery, and Shenanigans are provided by Chance McLean.
Director of Research is Sandy Peterson. Emily Bull is our
assistant listener and superfan. Contributions are appreciated and often incorporated
into our production. Where possible, we give credit. Where not,
(10:28):
we take all the credit for ourselves. God bless the
memory of Rush Limbaugh. Long live Elvis, be a simple
man like Leonard Skinnard told you, and God bless America. Finally,
if you know a veteran suffering from PTSD, call Camp
Hope at eight seven seven seven one seven PTSD and
(10:53):
a combat veteran will answer the phone to provide free counseling.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Three
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