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October 30, 1974: "THE RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE"
Kinshasa, Zaire
The 1974 \"Rumble in the Jungle\" between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman is probably the most famous and most depicted of all heavyweight title bouts ever. One reason for this fascination might be that it was one of the most dramatic heavyweight bouts of all times. The features of the two opponents couldn't have been more different - on the one side the patriotic Foreman who had waved the Star Spangled Banner after winning the Olympics in 1968. On the other side the inconvenient black hero Ali, who had enraged the White establishment with his claim for conscientious objector status and his converting to Islam. The fight in Zaire and its surrounding occurences were even processed to a whole novel (\"The Fight\" by Norman Mailer, first published in 1975).
By mid-1974, Muhammad Ali had defeated all top-heavyweights (including rematches against Ken Norton and Joe Frazier) and was ready to snatch at the title again. In case of success, he would be the first boxer after Floyd Patterson to break the ancient rule of the heavyweight scene that says \"They never come back\".
The only requirement of Ali's manager Herbert Muhammad was a gross income of five million dollars for his boxer - a previously unheard-of sum. Ex-prisoner Don King, who had not promoted a bout before, promised to make the impossible possible and scare up the money.
With the help of Video Techniques, King convinced Mobutu Sese Seko, the dictator of Zaire, to provide most of the ten million (five million each for Ali and Foreman). A british company paid the rest.
Mobutu wanted to spread his country's name all over the world. Zaire had been called Belgian-Congo until 1960 when the Belgian occupiers left Africa. The former name of Kinshasa, inhabitated in 1974 by 1.5 million people, had been Leopoldsville. Mobutu was a stiff ruler. He had locked up three-hundred criminals in the basement of the stadium whereupon he ordered to kill fifty randomly selected and free the rest to spread news of the executions among the other criminals of Kinshasa. As a result, Zaire\'s crime rate was lower than ever.
Back to boxing. Foreman was the experts' favorite. He had won his last eight bouts unexceptionally by knockout in the first two rounds (amongst his deplorable foes had been Joe Frazier and Ken Norton whom Ali wasn't able to knock out or down in six bouts) and 37 of his 40 professional bouts. His strength was enormous and after he had punched the heavy bag for a couple of rounds, there was a huge bump in it - once he had even knocked it out of the affixture!
Ali prepared in his training camp in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania, and traveled to Africa two weeks before the fight to have enough time to acclimatize. He chose a house forty miles outside the centre of Kinshasa on a state property whereas Foreman and his entourage checked into the Inter-Continental in central Kinshasa. Foreman did not like having much people around (he even had German sheperd police dogs to keep uninvited visitors away). Ali, to the contrary, used every occasion to gain the Africans' sympathies. Wherever he went, there was a big crowd surrounding him.
Eight days prior to the bout, Foreman was cut above the eye and the fight had to be delayed. It was rescheduled for October 30. After initial perplexity and helplessness, Ali decided to stay in Zaire and so did Foreman. There were rumors that Mobutu had forbidden them to leave the country.
Foreman's cut healed and the two boxers entered the ring in the Stadium. The renovated stadium had originally been a present of Mobutu to his people. Ali weighed 216 pounds, five pounds lighter than his foe.
Before the first round begins, Ali conducts the audience that frenetically chants \"Ali, boma ye!\" which means \"Ali, kill him!\".
In the first round Ali lands some good combinations most of whom he starts with a right-hand lead, a strategy that a boxer normally uses in a later stage of a fight when the opponent is tired and not concentrated any more. However, the tactic works - Foreman gets hit. Additionally, Ali speaks to his foe during the entire fight - \"That didn't hurt\" or \"Is that all you can, sucker?\". Foreman delivers some blows to Ali's body.
In round two, Foreman chases Ali, cuts the ring skillfully and forces the contender into the corners. Ali decides to change his strategy completely. From now on, he stays at the ropes, leans way back and invites Foreman to punch his body again and again. In the last seconds of this round, however, Ali has a furious comeback and shakes the stunned Foreman with rapid blows.
Round three is Ali's who tucks away Foreman's heavy blows to the body to hit back with quick combinations. At the end of this round, Foreman staggers towards his corner.
After both boxers have used the fourth round to rest from the exertions of the first nine minutes, Foreman comes out to the fifth with the intention to knock Ali out. He searchs for an opening in Ali's defense while working on his belly and kidneys. In the last forty seconds, however, Ali is back again and brings the defenseless Foreman on the edge of a knockout. Rapid as lightning the straights hail into Foreman's face - the gong rescues him.
Rounds six and seven are slow again - Foreman tries to get through Ali's guard without success.
In the last minute of round eight, Ali gathers all his left strength and courage and launches the final attack. He hits Foreman with a right, leaves the ropes and Foreman wobbles around with his hands down. Ali recieves him with two rights and then places the decisive combination. A columnist wrote:
\"Then a big projectile exactly the size of a fist in a glove drove into the middle of Foreman's mind, the best punch of the startled night, the blow Ali saved for a career. Foreman's arms flew out to the side like a man with a parachute jumping out of a plane.\"
Foreman goes down and takes the count. The audience goes crazy. Muhammad Ali has become heavyweight champion of the world for the second time in an incredibly exciting manner!
Minutes after the fight, heaven opens its penstock. Long awaited torrential thunderstorms flood the ring. Would this have happened an hour earlier, the bout could not have taken place.
The strategy Ali used that night was the exact opposite to the one he had won the title with against Sonny Liston ten years before. Back then, it had been Ali's goal to prevent from being hit by moving all the time. In Kinshasa, from the second round on, Ali didn't show any footwork at all and intentionally took all the haymakers Foreman delivered with his savage strength. Ali leaned way back out of the ring, protecting his face with the gloves, his kidneys and belly with his arms and elbows. Foreman pounded on Ali\'s body as hard as he could. Ali didn't go down. He took the bombs like a living heavy bag and then, at the end of each round, made a furious comeback by hitting Foreman with stinging combinations that got the champion closer and closer to a knockout. In the last thirty seconds of the eighth round, Foreman was ready. Ali attacked with all the strength he had left and provided for Foreman's first career knockout.
Muhammad Ali was the first boxer after Floyd Patterson to break the rule "They never come back\" and win back the heavyweight title that had been taken from him seven years before.
Ali's next opponent was 35-year-old Chuck Wepner who held out against Ali's attacks for almost fifteen rounds until the fight was stopped. (Sylvester Stallone's Rocky movies are based on Wepner's courageous fighting.)
After Wepner, Ali defeated Ron Lyle in Las Vegas by knockout and seven weeks later Joe Bugner in Malaysia on points. There were people of Ali's camp who wanted him to quit but Ali could not yet give up the sport that had been the center of his life for more than twenty years.
Instead, the third fight against Joe Frazier was coming up. It was to be the third and last time the two rivals would face each other in the ring. This last fight was far more brutal and dramatic than the first two Frazier fights and is one of the three big fights of Muhammad Ali's career together with Liston I and the Rumble in the Jungle.
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