George Foreman wasn’t just a big name in boxing, he completed the greatest comeback of all time. 

When he died the image of the young Foreman – scowling, and mean – who fought Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali was revisited by some, but my generation remember the happy-go-lucky, fun person he became. The oldest heavyweight champion in history, and the commentator for HBO. 

The Ali-Frazier-Foreman era was incredible for boxing. The sport was not only at its most popular, it had some tremendous heavyweights. But Foreman’s comeback came during another great era – the late 80s and early 90s. He won world championships in both, which he couldn’t have done without being a quality fighter and without the determination and commitment he had to succeed.

Heavyweights may mature a little later than other fighters, but even by the standards of heavyweights, Foreman – 45 years old when he defeated Michael Moorer to win the title again in 1994 – was old. When his comeback first started, after almost 10 years out in 1987, he wasn’t being taken seriously. 

But by then he was a different person. He knew how to deal with the media; he didn’t take any of it personally. Even Foreman came across like he wasn’t taking himself seriously, but under the surface and the smile always on his face he was – he was working very hard to get himself into the condition he needed to be in. Psychologically he’d evolved – he knew how to play those around him and he made himself a fan’s favourite as a consequence.

When a fighter ages they have to start training differently. Younger fighters learn that training as hard as they can gets the most out of their minds and bodies, and their younger psyches and bodies can resist the stress of a tough training camp. Older bodies can’t handle the same demands; they attempt it, but they get injuries. 

To succeed as an older fighter requires making adjustments. Fighters have to train smarter, not harder, but training smarter looks different for different fighters – whatever that meant for Foreman, he figured that out. 

But that’s just the training and preparation. The older fighter then has to share the ring with a younger fighter who can carry a pace beyond the older one; the opponent’s energy levels, speed, explosiveness and conditioning will surpass theirs, so the older fighter has to try to make their experience and savvy compensate. In 1991 Evander Holyfield gave Foreman a particularly tough fight for those reasons when inflicting one of his defeats, but ultimately Foreman succeeded when doing that, too 

Older fighters are also more aware of the risks involved in and dangers of fighting. They can’t unlearn what they learn, so they lose the fearlessness and recklessness that can define their youth, and also have to find a way to make their maturing minds work for them. Foreman was reckless against Ali in the Rumble in the Jungle in 1974 – that recklessness was a lot of the reason he lost. But against Moorer he was anything but reckless – he didn’t get frustrated when the momentum was against him; he remained cautious and confident and picked his moment to knock out the younger, busier fighter. 

His tremendous power never left him. In 1997 Shannon Briggs became his final opponent – Briggs, who also fought Lennox Lewis and Vitali Klitschko, maintains that Foreman was the physically strongest and heaviest-handed opponent he ever encountered. 

As a teenager I couldn’t understand the magnitude of the achievement of him winning the title second time around – I was too young. But as a retired fighter I consider it the greatest comeback of them all. There were 20 years between the end of his first title reign and the start of his second – that will never be done again. It’s comparable with Joe DiMaggio’s Major League Baseball streak.

In retirement, like Foreman, I’ve worked as a commentator, and in the same way I believe that he was once the complete fighter, I also consider him a very good commentator. Sometimes the things he said might have gone over the audience’s heads, because he spoke like he was speaking to other fighters. But his days as a commentator came during the glory days of HBO Boxing – alongside Jim Lampley and Larry Merchant. I consistently appreciated Foreman’s takes, and found his arguments with Merchant comical. 

His position as a commentator meant that I met him in 2006, when I fought Miguel Cotto. By then, when he saw someone was nervous he’d lighten the mood by making a joke; he was very nice, an expert at breaking the ice; a gentle giant and a big teddy bear, and though he knew when people met him they considered themselves to be meeting someone special, he wanted them to be comfortable around him. I liked that about him.

He said a lot of positive things about me that night, which meant a lot to me, and is something I’ve thought about since learning about his death. 

If he was seen to have underachieved during his first reign as champion, when he wasn’t expected to lose to Ali, the second time around he overachieved, and he never appeared to take any of it for granted. I liked that about him, too.