No Way but to Fight : George Foreman and the Business of Boxing

## Crossroads "This isn't artistic," Howard Cosell told viewers who tuned into ABC's broadcast of George Foreman versus Ron Lyle on January 24, 1976, "but it is slugging." As Cosell described these heavyweights trading blows, it escaped him that the artistry was not in the fight but in its production. Two of the hardest hitters in the sport stood toe to toe, landing punches and scoring knockdowns, right inside Caesars Palace. "The way the public wants it," Cosell added with a hint of derision, but he was right-and it wasn't a coincidence. This was a carefully planned, made-for-television event designed to provide the "public" with what it wanted and sow the seeds for the future of prizefighting. Foreman straddled the sport's past and future. Many believed that his best days were behind him, but few could point to a better successor should the current heavyweight champion, Muhammad Ali, follow through on his threats to retire. Foreman had originally signed on to fight Pedro Lovell-who made a bigger imprint on the sport as an actor playing the club fighter "Spider" Rico in the Rocky saga than he did as a prizefighter-at the Las Vegas Convention Center, a nod to Foreman's early career, when he traveled around “[A] fascinating, colorful new biography . . . [Smith] writes of a boxer who ultimately triumphed in the most unvirtuous of sports.” —Texas Observer Olympic gold medalist. Two-time world heavyweight champion. Hall of Famer. Infomercial and reality TV star. George Foreman’s fighting ability is matched only by his acumen for selling. Yet the complete story of Foreman’s rise from urban poverty to global celebrity has never been told until now. Raised in Houston’s “Bloody Fifth” Ward, battling against scarcity in housing and food, young Foreman fought sometimes for survival and other times just for fun. But when a government program rescued him from poverty and introduced him to the sport of boxing, his life changed forever. In No Way but to Fight, Andrew R. M. Smith traces Foreman’s life and career from the Great Migration to the Great Society, through the Cold War and culture wars, out of urban Houston and onto the world stage where he discovered that fame brought new challenges. Drawing on new interviews with George Foreman and declassified government documents, as well as more than fifty domestic and international newspapers and magazines, Smith brings to life the exhilarating story of a true American icon. No Way but to Fight is an epic worthy of a champion. “An insightful life study . . . Smith’s captivating narrative suggests that Mr. Foreman is much more than the outsize roles he has played.” —The Wall Street Journal “While Foreman’s life has been dissected before, Smith’s account, which includes fresh interviews with the man himself as well as extracts from recently declassified government documents, rates as perhaps the best.” —Bristol Post The first biography of the heavyweight boxing champion, preacher, and celebrity pitchman who fought his way out of urban poverty and through the venal world of prizefighting to make it in America.