Marc Ramsay, the trainer of Artur Beterbiev, once told me that if boxing had a “draft” system like team sports have, and if he could pick one heavyweight in history, then George Foreman would have been his number one pick.

He reasoned that on any given night, Foreman had the power to knock out any heavyweight that ever lived. I’ve come to think of that as the best way to define his standing in the pantheon of heavyweight greats.

It’s not unthinkable that had he fought the great Muhammad Ali 10 times he may have beaten him on nine of those occasions. The other one of those 10, however, came in the Rumble in the Jungle in Zaire, in 1974.

Foreman, truly, was one of the greats, not only in what he achieved, but with how he achieved it. There has never been a greater comeback in the history of sport. What Foreman accomplished, after 10 years away will, for me, forever reign as the greatest comeback ever. Think about this for a moment. Olympic champion; heavyweight champion, retiring in 1977. Then 10 years later the comeback, and 17 years later, heavyweight champion of the world again. He achieved something that still seems impossible today.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Foreman deserves to be spoken about with the same reverence as Ali, Joe Louis, Jack Johnson and Larry Holmes. There are certain fighters – Holmes is one of them, and the more mobile Ali of 1967 – who’d have given him problems. Holmes, for example, was strong, and fast and had the style needed to succeed – and Foreman lost to some opponents, like Tommy Morrison, he shouldn’t have lost to. But, again, on any given night, Foreman could have beaten anybody.

In his physical prime – as the Olympian with the scowl – he was intent on destroying his opponents. He wanted to hurt his opponents with everything he had, and for the most part it worked. Beating Joe Frazier was once thing, but nobody expected him to bounce him off the canvas six times in two rounds. At that time Foreman was demolishing everybody – Ken Norton was another. Later, after he lost to Ali, he showed what a warrior he was by picking himself up off the canvas to beat Ron Lyle, in what is one of the greatest and without doubt most exciting heavyweight fights in history. Watching it on YouTube doesn’t do it the justice it deserves. I remember watching the fight live, not believing what my eyes were seeing, and my heart racing with excitement. 

When he came back from retirement he returned as a wiser, older man who had learned from the mistakes of his youth. He couldn’t risk fighting with the same recklessness that previously served him so well. At this stage of his life he became a more relaxed and more conservative heavyweight. With age he’d also developed an increased understanding of the business of boxing, of the strengths he had, and of his limitations, and he reinvented himself – which is something only the greats succeed in doing. Still being able to punch with a similar amount of power of course helped – he could pressure his opponents, and impose himself. 

Imagine being able to combine the wisdom, intelligence and experience of the Foreman of his comeback with the physical gifts of his first run as champion. That, surely, would be the greatest heavyweight who ever lived. 

Oleksandr Usyk is the greatest of the modern era, but he’d have found a Foreman who was relentless in his pursuit of looking to unleash the single, knockout punch. I firmly believe Usyk’s movement and southpaw stance would have unsettled Foreman greatly, and that he would have to unsettle him for 12 rounds to win, because the most destructive heavyweight who ever lived was coming at him

I admired Foreman, also, as a broadcaster. He was a straight shooter with a sound understanding of the realities of the ring, and a blue-collar approach to boxing. 

One of the robberies that makes me saddest of all was that he had to go out, on his last fight, off the back of a massively controversial defeat by Shannon Briggs in 1997. When you consider everything Foreman had achieved by then, not only for boxing but for the US as an Olympic gold medallist – one who conducted himself with such class – and then acknowledge that three judges, seemingly ignorant of his contributions, somehow disregarded the performance he put on that night and blatantly robbed him of his grande finale, it leaves an awful taste in the mouth.

I recently celebrated my 64th birthday. His death brought another reminder of our mortality, and of the need to enjoy life while you can. From afar it looked like he always seemed to. He was a powerful individual in the ring, and a compassionate human outside of it – I hope future generations remember that he left his mark on a world that desperately needed his goodness. 

Russ Anber is the founder/CEO of Rival Boxing, as well as a highly respected trainer (of both pros and amateurs), a gym owner, a cut-man, an entrepreneur, a broadcaster and one of the best hand wrappers in the boxing business. Vasiliy Lomachenko, Oleksandr Usyk, Callum Smith, Zhanibek Alimkhanuly and Bakhram Murtazaliev are among the many top boxers Russ works with.