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Yuri Foreman

(1980 - )

Yuri Foreman is an Israeli middleweight boxer. He was born August 5, 1980 in Gomel, Belarus. He began boxing at age 7 and continued to train after his family immigrated to Israel when he was 9. In Israel, he became an amateur boxer and won 3 national championships.

During his amateur career, Foreman won the 2001 New York Golden Gloves and compiled a 75-5 record. He went professional in 2002 and remained undefeated in his first 28 career fights. On November 14, 2009, Foreman defeated Daniel Santos to become the new WBA Super-Welterweight champion and Israel's second world boxing champion.

Foreman's first defeat came in June 2010 when he lost the fight, and his title, to Miguel Cotto at Yankee Stadium by TKO in the ninth round. The fight's outcome however was a controversial one. In the eighth round, Foreman's corner threw in the towel subsequent to Foreman injuring his right knee in the seventh round. In an unusual turn of events, referee Arthur Mercante Jr. threw the towel back out of the ring after Foreman acknowledged that he wished to continue.

In September 2007, he was ranked as the 8th-best welterweight (147 pounds) challenger by the WBA.

Foreman, who wears of Star of David on his boxing trunks, is also studying to become a rabbi. In the morning he studies the Talmud and Kabbalah, in the afternoon he trains for boxing and attends rabbinical classes twice a week at the IYYUN Institute, a Jewish educational center in Brooklyn, New York.


Sources: The Los Angeles Times, Wikipedia; Photo: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License. Author: Adam Ritter