George Foreman

George Foreman won Olympic gold in 1968 and the world heavyweight championship in 1973, demolishing Joe Frazier to take the title. He was a feared, brooding puncher until Muhammad Ali outlasted him in the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle, and a 1977 loss to Jimmy Young, followed by a religious experience, pushed him out of boxing entirely.

For about a decade Foreman was a preacher, not a fighter. During that time much of the money he had earned in the ring disappeared into failed investments and tax problems, leaving the former champion in financial difficulty as he approached middle age.

In 1987 Foreman returned to boxing, overweight and well into his late thirties, but with a transformed public image: genial, funny, and self-deprecating, the opposite of his menacing younger self. The comeback culminated on November 5, 1994, when, at age 45, he knocked out Michael Moorer to become the oldest heavyweight champion in history.

The larger fortune, however, came from a kitchen appliance. The George Foreman Grill, which carried his name and persona, sold in enormous numbers, and in 1999 the manufacturer Salton paid him a reported $137 million to buy out his name rights, on top of years of royalties, a payday that dwarfed everything he had earned in the ring.