Former heavyweight champion and notorious celebrity grill impresario is the latest big name to join the team on NBC's boxing reality series "The Contender."

It's unclear what role exactly Foreman will play in the unscripted offering, but he joins a murders row that includes a fellow boxing legend (Sugar Ray Leonard), a fictional boxing legend ("Rocky" star Sylvester Stallone), a reality television legend ("Survivor" guru Mark Burnett) and DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg.

"We are thrilled to be able to include George in our show," Burnett says. "His passion for the sport is as enormous as his personality. As such a huge part of boxing history, I know how excited he is to now become involved in part of its future and to give back to the sport which has given him so much."

Like Leonard, Foreman was an Olympic gold medal boxer, taking the prize at the 1968 games in Mexico City. He won his first title with a knockout of Joe Frazier, but later lost the crown to Muhammad Ali in the famous "Rumble in the Jungle" fight.

Foreman briefly returned from boxing and became an ordained minister, but he returned to pugilism in the early 1990s and, in 1994, knocked out Michael Moorer to become the oldest fighter to win the heavyweight title.

Since then, college students and singletons have grown to love and admire Foreman for his fat-reducing line of grills.

"This has been a longtime dream to see boxing come back to primetime television and the chance to work with Mark Burnett, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Sylvester Stallone as well as two of the best living fighters makes it all the more special," says the show's producer Jeff Wald.

In "The Contender," 16 aspiring fighters will train and compete against each other for a chance at a professional boxing career.

Casting calls on "The Contender" will begin Friday, April 9 in Tulsa, Okla., and continue throughout April and May with stops in Tunica, Miss., Dallas, Miami, Washington, Boston, Detroit, New York, Seattle and Los Angeles. More information is available at NBC.com.