Bob Foster: Boxer who Muhammad Ali said had ‘the punch of a mule’ and was world light-heavyweight champion for six years

Bob Foster gave Muhammad Ali his first cut eye, was world champion for six years, worked as a lawman for nearly 25 years – and was possibly the very best boxer you have never heard of. He was the world light-heavyweight champion from 1968 to 1974, untouchable, unbeatable at the weight and unable to gain more than 13 pounds when forced to move to heavyweight to earn a few dollars to survive.

It was Foster’s misfortune to go in search of heavyweight glory when Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali were the two best fighters on the planet. Foster tried drinking beer, eating huge portions of soul food but still struggled to gain enough weight to truly trouble the two great heavyweights.

“Bob Foster had the punch of a mule,” said Ali after the pair shared a ring at a night club in Lake Tahoe in 1972. Ali won in the eighth round, dropping Foster seven times and picking up the cut, which later required five stitches.

“Ali couldn’t bust a grape,” said Foster. “It was his weight that had me down, but I wobbled him, I hurt him and I could have beaten him.” Ali was 41lb heavier, Foster a measly five pounds above the light-heavyweight limit. The veteran trainer and fight guru, Freddie Brown, who was Rocky Marciano’s cutsman, said of Foster: “With the light-heavies he was a killer; the heavyweights just took his punches like they was nothing.”

Foster always maintained that he should have been sent to the Rome Olympics in 1960 as America’s light-heavyweight and refused an offer of the middleweight slot, a ridiculous drop of 15lb. “I was 6ft 3in then and had no chance.”

Foster knocked out 89 of the 94 men he beat as an amateur and claimed to have lost just four times. A young kid called Cassius Clay, one of the men with whom Foster had sparred at the pre-Olympic camp, was sent to the Olympics at his weight and he won gold, turned professional and became Muhammad Ali.

In 1961 Foster followed Ali, earning as little as $25 for his early fights, but was soon on a list of avoided boxers. The light-heavyweight champion of the world at the time, Jose Torres, was once asked about fighting him and replied, “Sorry, I can’t hear you.” He was asked again several times and gave the same answer. It meant that Foster had to fight the best heavyweights to get work; he lost to Doug Jones, who a few months later took Ali 10 rounds, and Ernie Terrell, who eight months later won the world heavyweight title.

Foster was fearless and believed in his ability to knock out anybody. However, disillusioned with the lack of opportunities, he took a real job in 1966, fighting only once that year, and made bombs at a factory in Washington. Torres, by the way, made three defences and lost the title to Dick Tiger in 1966.

In 1968, after 29 wins at light-heavyweight and four defeats at heavyweight, Foster finally got his world championship chance in New York against the champion and activist Tiger, whose efforts to raise awareness of the crisis in Biafra had won him universal praise. The crowd was solidly behind Tiger at Madison Square Garden; Foster had been ignored too long for sentimentality to disturb his mission and Tiger was brutally knocked out in round four. It remains a shocking end, as chilling as Foster’s words later that night: “I had no butterflies – that means he was going to get knocked out. I knew.”

Foster then went on a world title rampage that lasted for six years, defending the championship 14 times, stopping 10 men and never failing to make it look both lethal and easy each time his looping left hook connected. “I was cocky, but damn, I was good,” he said. Cocky but not flash, which is an odd mix in the hurt business.

He beat Britain’s Chris Finnegan (Independent obituary, 23 October 2011) one night in 1972 at Wembley with a knock-out in the 14th round. It remains grisly viewing, painful for Finnegan, and it was voted fight of the year. Finnegan added to the glowing Foster testimonials: “When you’re in there with Foster it’s like having a loaded gun pointed at your head. One wrong move and the lights go out.” The fight with Ali followed the Finnegan knock-out.

In 1970 Foster made another of his hurtful excursions to the heavyweight division and this time, in Detroit, he had a world title fight. It was a savage brawl and Foster was stopped in the second round by Joe Frazier. A few months later Frazier beat Ali in the Fight of the Century.

Foster fought until 1978, winning 56 of his 65 fights, then retired to work as a sergeant in the Sheriff’s department in Bernalillo County, New Mexico. He left the department in 1994, working the odd day at the District court as security.

He was never deeply involved with boxing once he quit fighting. “Boxing is like wrestling now,” he said. “It’s a joke, with too many crooked judges and promoters.” Foster made sweet mockery of the men who tried to deny and control one of the true greats of the ring.

STEVE BUNCE

Bob Foster, boxer and lawman: born Borger, Texas 27 April 1938; married four times; died Albuquerque, New Mexico 21 November 2015.