As one of the greatest trainers of all time, Emanuel Steward knows a thing or two about recognising talent.
After working with four-weight world champion Thomas ‘Hitman’ Hearns during the earlier stages of his career, Steward would go on to play a crucial role in the development of some of the sport’s greatest ever heavyweights.
He developed a strong working relationship with former undisputed heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis, before going on to guide Ukrainian icon Wladimir Klitschko for a number of years.
After being lucky enough to have witnessed an abundance of legendary heavyweights, Steward once revealed in an interview with Rummy’s Corner that two-time world champion George Foreman was the ‘most amazing’ heavyweight of his lifetime.
“George Foreman may be the most amazing, definitely heavyweight that I’ve ever saw in my lifetime. He had a whole career as one fighter with a personality and a style, and then ten years after a rest period so to say, a different fighter, he had a different mindset and a different style to some degree but the one thing that was really prevalent in both was a strong will-minded person and his unbelievable determination and mental strength as well.”
Foreman’s career is often described as being split into two parts – the first of which came during the 70’s when he became the world heavyweight champion with that famous victory over Joe Frazier, which was followed up with that memorable showdown with Muhammad Ali In 1974, more commonly known as the ‘Rumble In The Jungle’.
After making his return to the sport in 1977 after a ten-year hiatus, Foreman began the second act of his storied tenure which would see him go on to defeat Michael Moorer 1994 to become the oldest world heavyweight champion of all time.
