George Foreman

Thriller and griller

- SEAN GREGORY

GEORGE FOREMAN, THE HEAVYWEIGHT BOXING CHAMPION WHO died on March 21 at age 76, transformed himself from brooding American sports destroyer into beloved avuncular everyman like no other athlete on the planet. A former teenage petty thief who turned to boxing for salvation, Foreman won a gold medal for the U.S. at the 1968 Olympics, and in 1973 he took the heavyweight championship away from "Smokin'" Joe Frazier, on the strength of a right uppercut that was so ferocious that announcer Howard Cosell exclaimed three times, for the ages: "Down goes Frazier!" Muhammad