George Foreman's famous grill wasn't always a knockout

When heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman signed a profit-sharing deal in 1994 on the kitchen appliance with which he would become synonymous, his expectations were modest. 

Foreman was already being courted by blue-chip companies, who paid money up front. The outlook didn't improve when the second royalty cheque for what would be named the George Foreman Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine, paid just $2,500 US — less than the first cheque.

"I just signed the contract so I could get 16 free grills for my homes, my training camp, my friends, my mom, cousins and other family members," he wrote in the 2009 book Knockout Entrepreneur, co-written with Ken Abrams. "That's all I really expected to get out of the grill deal."

In the same book, he admitted he had ignored the test product sent to his home. It was only after his wife Joan extolled its virtues that Foreman put pen to paper.

Just a few short years later, the CEO of Salton, the company that bought the grill, estimated that Foreman was earning more than $4 million in monthly royalties. The company bought him out in 1999 — wisely not severing Foreman's name or removing his ever-smiling image from the product — in a deal reported to have paid him about $160 million, mostly in cash. 

The total was at least three times more than his career boxing earnings — and Foreman earned more than the vast majority of fighters.

Rick Cesari, who worked on the grill's direct response marketing campaign, estimated that by 2011, the product was in some 15 per cent of American households.

For the second time, Foreman  — whose death at 76 was announced by his family on Friday night — wildly exceeded expectations.

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously mused about "second acts in American