George Foreman's famous grill wasn't always a knockout

When heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman signed a profit-sharing deal in 1994 on the kitchen appliance with which he would become synonymous, his expectations were modest. 

Foreman was already being courted by blue-chip companies, who paid money up front. The outlook didn't improve when the second royalty cheque for what would be named the George Foreman Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine, paid just $2,500 US — less than the first cheque.

"I just signed the contract so I could get 16 free grills for my homes, my training camp, my friends, my mom, cousins and other family members," he wrote in the 2009 book Knockout Entrepreneur, co-written with Ken Abrams. "That's all I really expected to get out of the grill deal."

In the same book, he admitted he had ignored the test product sent to his home. It was only after his wife Joan extolled its virtues that Foreman put pen to paper.

Just a few short years later, the CEO of Salton, the company that bought the grill, estimated that Foreman was earning more than $4 million in monthly royalties. The company bought him out in 1999 — wisely not severing Foreman's name or removing his ever-smiling image from the product — in a deal reported to have paid him about $160 million, mostly in cash. 

The total was at least three times more than his career boxing earnings — and Foreman earned more than the vast majority of fighters.

Rick Cesari, who worked on the grill's direct response marketing campaign, estimated that by 2011, the product was in some 15 per cent of American households.

For the second time, Foreman  — whose death at 76 was announced by his family on Friday night — wildly exceeded expectations.

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously mused about "second acts in American lives," and Foreman's reinvention was like few ever seen. 

Foreman grew up in Houston's hardscrabble Fifth Ward, but squandered a lot of good will after winning a gold medal at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. By the time he lost the heavyweight title in a stunning 1974 knockout to Muhammad Ali in Africa, Foreman rarely smiled, and was an intimidating presence who often sneered at reporter questions.

Foreman experienced what he characterized as a born-again experience in 1977 and retired, preaching on Houston streets before sermonizing at the Pentecostal Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Near poverty once again, he got back in the ring in 1987, in large part to earn money for the church and its youth community centre.

Few hardened boxing observers took his comeback seriously, but Foreman persevered, with a new, positive disposition.

"The old George Foreman smoked, drank, chewed and swore," wrote famed Los Angeles Times sportswriter Jim Murray in 1990. "The George Foreman we all know today is a Santa Claus in boxing trunks."

At nearly 46, Foreman stunned the much younger Michael Moorer to win a heavyweight belt nearly 20 years to the day he lost to Ali.