The Rumble in The Jungle
On this day October 30th, 1974, one of the most electrifying fights in history took place: The Rumble in the Jungle.
Muhammad Ali vs World Heavyweight Champion George Foreman
The stage was worldwide. Kinshasa, Zaire. Hot. Sweaty. Alive. The bout was presented (mostly by Don King) as an African-American, back to Africa vibe—with a brutal dictator running Zaire. The irony remains. An estimated one billion people tuned in.
The great George Foreman told me, in Facing Ali: “I figured I’m just gonna walk in and win this fight in maybe one, two, three rounds. Knock him out. The most confident I’d ever been in a boxing match.”
It’s hard to express how dominant George Foreman was at that time: 40-0 with 37 knockouts—and he'd destroyed Frazier and Norton inside of two rounds.
Ali was a 4-1 underdog and considered past his prime in his post-exile years, with a loss to Joe Frazier and an unknown Ken Norton.
The general public often describes the fight as Foreman pounding Ali for seven rounds and, having punched himself out, gets knocked out. This is inaccurate.
Yes, the Rope-a-Dope was amazing and shocking.
But Ali peppered George from the opening bell with insulting overhand rights, and staggered George in the fifth. Yes, Ali took some big shots, but was ahead on all three judging cards at the end: 68–66, 70–67, and 69–66.
I was nine years old and Ali was, in his own words and in my eyes, “the greatest.” This shocking victory elevated Ali’s aura to mythic proportions. Yes, he defeated Smokin’ Joe in Manila a year later, with courage, but this was Muhammad Ali’s last brilliant performance.
George told me: "[Muhammad] found something to fight for other than money and championship belts. And when that person finds something like that, you can't hardly beat them."
In a perfect world, Muhammad Ali would have walked away from the sport.
This is not a perfect world. And boxing is a brutal sport.
check out the novel Understanding Ken.
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