Summary
- Big George Foreman deviates from the real-life story of George Foreman, making significant changes that affect the boxing legend's story in the film.
- The addition of the character Desmond Baker has major effects on the narrative and the management of George Foreman's money in the film.
- The biopic excludes George Foreman's other marriages and doesn't accurately portray his retirement from boxing after turning to religion.
Big George Foreman deviated from the real-life story of George Foreman in several key ways. Based on the life and career of boxer, minister, and entrepreneur George Foreman, the sports biopic Big George Foreman covers the titular athlete’s early life up to his legendary return to the ring after a 10-year hiatus. Despite remaining fairly true to George Foreman’s actual life, Big George Foreman still makes some significant changes.
Given the involvement of the real-life boxer, Big George Foreman doesn’t stray far from the true story of George Foreman’s life. However, given the large time frame that the movie covers, it’s inevitable that Big George Foreman would have to take some liberties with what's known about Foreman's past to streamline the narrative in a way that’s coherent. Though some differences are relatively benign and some are major, Big George Foreman’s changes all have an important effect on the boxing legend’s story in the film.
7 Big George Foreman’s Desmond Baker Isn’t A Real Person
One of the biggest changes can be seen in the character of Desmond Baker (John Magaro). In Big George Foreman, Desmond Baker is George’s bunkmate at the Job Corps who he later befriends and employs to manage his money (to disastrous results). Interestingly, Desmond Baker not only isn’t a real person from George Foreman’s real life, but also isn’t based on a real figure either. This makes Desmond Baker one of few featured characters in Big George Foreman that are completely original to the biopic.
At first, adding Desmond to Big George Foreman’s story might seem like a mostly benign change. In actuality, though, inserting Desmond’s character into Big George Foreman has major effects on how other events later in the movie play out, particularly in relation to the management of George’s money. Because of the snowball effect that Desmond Baker’s character has on the rest of Big George Foreman, the addition of his character is arguably the biggest change to the sports movie’s true story.
6 George Foreman Had Other Athletic Aspirations The Biopic Doesn’t Show
George Foreman’s life changes when he’s introduced to boxing early in Big George Foreman, but the boxing icon’s athletic beginnings occurred a little differently in real life. In the George Foreman biopic, Forest Whitaker’s Doc Broadus starts training Foreman as a boxer when he takes pity on Foreman and decides not to kick him out of the Job Corps. While this is more or less how Foreman became involved in boxing in real life as well, Big George Foreman presents the event as though boxing was Foreman’s first and only athletic interest, which isn’t completely true.
When Foreman first began his athletic training, he also aspired to be a football player, having idolized NFL star Jim Brown. However, when Foreman was introduced to boxing, he discarded his football dreams in order to focus all his time and attention on training to become a professional boxer. It makes sense why Big George Foreman chose not to portray this aspect of Foreman’s athletic beginnings, as focusing on boxing fits better with the overarching story.
5 Paula Wasn’t George Foreman’s First Wife In Real-Life
George Foreman’s first love interest in Big George Foreman is a woman named Paula, who goes on to become his first wife in the movie, but this isn’t actually what happened in real life. Big George Foreman presents Paula as an important figure in George Foreman’s early life, from her presence during his rise in the boxing world to how she factors into his redemption after he turns to faith. Unfortunately, despite being an interesting character and counterpoint to George’s personality, Paula is another movie-original character, and thus isn’t actually George’s first wife. George Foreman’s real first wife is named Adrienne, making this a strange change for the biopic.
4 George Foreman Had Other Marriages The Biopic Doesn’t Show
Big George Foreman doesn’t pull any punches in depicting the complications of the titular boxer’s marriages, but not all of Foreman’s marriages made it into the sports biopic. In real life, George Foreman was married a total of five times, to Adrienne Calhoun, Cynthia Lewis, Sharon Goodson, Andrea Skeete, and Mary Joan Martelly, respectively. However, Big George Foreman only depicts Foreman’s first marriage (to Paula in the movie) and last marriage to Mary Joan, thus completely excluding Foreman’s three other wives. This simplifies his personal life for the movie, of course, but it's not accurate to his past.
3 George Foreman Didn’t Truly Retire From Boxing After Turning To God
A major turning point for George Foreman both in real life and in Big George Foreman occurs when the boxer decides to abandon his athletic career to become an ordained minister, but this change happened a little differently in reality. After having what Foreman considers a “near-death experience,” the boxer became a born-again Christian and decided to devote his life to his faith. This decision led Foreman to retire from boxing for a decade in Big George Foreman slightly misinterprets what actually happened.
Though it’s true that George Foreman did take a 10-year break in the middle of his boxing career to become an ordained minister, he never formally retired as the movie implies. Rather, Foreman merely stopped fighting to devote his life to his religion, congregation, and family, which left the door open to his boxing comeback in the ‘80s at the age of 38. This detail is a small technicality that doesn’t majorly impact Big George Foreman’s story, but it is an important distinction from what actually happened in Foreman’s career.
2 George Foreman’s Important Encounter Before His Comeback Happened A Little Differently
George Foreman has an important encounter with a young man that precipitates his return to boxing in Big George Foreman, but this meeting happened slightly differently in Foreman’s real life. The sports biopic shows George meeting a grandmother and grandson at his church, and when the grandmother asks him to train her grandson as a boxer, George declines. Instead, George encourages the young man to pursue a Godly path, but this advice clearly didn’t resonate with him, as George later finds out that the young man is imprisoned for robbery. Like in real life, this inspires George to open his youth center, but the meeting itself didn’t happen this way.
In real life, the people who approached George Foreman for boxing lessons weren’t a grandmother and grandson, but a mother and son. Additionally, they didn’t meet Foreman in church, but at a church gym that Foreman’s brother Roy was working at. Roy was the one who told his famous brother what had happened to the young man, which inspired Foreman to create his youth center. Big George Foreman might have changed some details of this important meeting in George Foreman’s life, but it managed to get its important influence correct, thus opening the door to the boxer’s return to the ring.
1 George Foreman Lost His Money Differently In Real-Life
In both real life and Big George Foreman, the iconic athlete’s return to boxing came about after he didn’t have enough money to his youth center, but Foreman lost his money a bit differently in real life. Big George Foreman shows the boxing legend entrusting the management of his money with Desmond. After a series of bad investments, Desmond depletes George’s money without telling him, making it impossible for the youth center to remain open without a new flow of income.
Unlike in Big George Foreman, George Foreman didn’t lose his money to bad investments in real life. While the way the biopic shows Foreman’s financial woes is partially true, he had also funneled a great deal of his savings into beginning the youth center. Since Foreman wasn’t charging much money for dues, the investment wasn’t being recouped, so the center was running on a loss. The depletion of Foreman’s savings is what inspired his return to boxing in both Big George Foreman and in real life, transforming George Foreman into the legend he’s considered today.
