Sports Articles: Sporting Fairytales Part 4: The Rumble In The Jungle

Sporting Fairytales Part 4 - Rumble In The Jungle

It may seem odd now to realise that at one time Muhammad Ali was not always a national hero in the USA, at one time he was an extremely divisive person in his home nation. While now he is lauded as 'The Greatest', back in the 1960s and early 1970s he was seen as a traitor by a large portion of the population. Even amongst the rest his position as a prominent member of the Nation of Islam was seen as an issue and his stance on the Vietnam War divided opinion still further. But then came the 'Rumble in the Jungle' and changed everything.

Initially Ali, as Cassius Clay, won a gold medal at light-heavyweight in the Olympics for the USA, then went on to clinch the undisputed world heavyweight championship by beating the seemingly unstoppable powerhouse Sonny Liston. It was then that the charismatic Clay announced he was a member of the Nation of Islam, immediately turning most of white America against him, and took the name Muhammad Ali. He continued as champion, and undefeated, until 1967 when he was drafted by the US Army to fight in Vietnam. Ali rejected the call up: "My conscience won't let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor, hungry people in the mud for big, powerful America." He was arrested, sentenced to 5 years in jail for draft evasion and fined $10,000. On top of that Ali's world title was stripped and he was banned from boxing for 3 years.

He fought the conviction on the grounds of conscientious objection, eventually getting it overturned in the US Supreme Court in 1971. By then public opinion had mostly turned against the war in Vietnam and America's involvement and Ali had become more and more outspoken on civil rights and toured around college campuses giving talks on the hypocrisy of African-Americans being sent overseas to fight for American values such as freedom. Ali regained his boxing license in 1970 and immediately took on Jerry Quarry, rated number one by The Ring at the time, as his come back fight, then Oscar Bonavena, as he targeted a title fight against Joe Frazier, who was the undefeated champion in Ali's absence. In March 1971 Muhammad Ali challenged for his world title back, taking on Joe Frazier in what was called the "Fight of the Century", 42 days after he had knocked out Bonavena in the 15th round. At the end of the fight, just one man remained unbeaten, unfortunately for Ali that man was Frazier, who won via unanimous decision to remain undisputed world champions. Or, probably more correctly, to finally become undisputed world champion.

In the meantime, George Foreman was rising to prominence, winning the 1968 Olympics gold medal. Unlike Ali, Foreman was a more acceptable black face to white America, waving the Stars and Stripes following his win, while many of his fellow black athletes made Black Power protests at their medal ceremonies. After turning pro, Foreman quickly rose to the top of the world rankings with 37 straight victories, 33 of them by way of knockout! Frazier underestimated him and Foreman was given a shot at the title. It was what can only be termed an annihilation. He knocked Frazier down 6 times in just the first two rounds, leading to the fight being stopped.

Ali carried on fighting, but suffered another setback by losing to Ken Norton. He did get rematches with both Norton and Frazier, beating them both, but the aura of invincibility he possessed before his ban was truly gone. Foreman's aura was merely growing as he took on Norton and smashed him aside in two rounds. After knocking Norton out, Foreman looked down at Ali, who was ringside doing colour commentary, and told him: "I'm going to kill you."

It was the then unknown Don King who had arranged for the two to face each other, with some financial backing from Libya's dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Convicted criminal King, who had justifiable homicide and manslaughter on his rap sheet, was a former numbers runner whose only involvement in promoting a boxing match prior to this was a charity boxing match exhibition he had promoted. The only issue was that King did not have anything like the money necessary to put up purse, let alone all the other expenses involved. Along with music businessman Jerry Masucci, he gathered a consortium of backers, including the aforementioned Gaddafi, who wanted the fight to take place in Africa. With King lacking the money to put it together in the USA, Africa seemed a good idea to him and Zaire's dictator Mobutu Sese Seko was keen to raise the profile of his nation abroad. An approach was made to Seko, who was persuaded by his American advisor Fred Weymar that the publicity would help his regime.

With funding in place, and a venue to host the fight, King now just had to get the two boxers to agree to face each other. Ali readily agreed, not just was it a chance to regain 'his' title but the purse was a huge $5m, double what he had got when he first faced Frazier and he had a glitzy lifestyle to pay for. Big George Foreman was a different matter and, try as he might, King could not convince the Texan to take the fight. Unwilling to give up, King took to just turning up everywhere Foreman went and finally, in a car park in Livermore, California at midnight, he eventually managed to agree a deal with Foreman. There were just two provisos. Firstly he wanted to be paid more than Ali, so King agreed to pay him half a million dollars more on top of the $5m purse. But Foreman's main caveat was that the fight had to be kept under wraps until his divorce was finalised. King did as Foreman asked and the fight was on.

Initially King tagged it, 'From the Slave Ship to the Championship' until Seko found out. The dictator was not pleased with the tagline and had all the posters burnt. It was Ali himself that came up with the 'Rumble in the Jungle' name, he said that in one of his numerous press conferences promoting the fight and it became the name of the first heavyweight championship match to take place in Africa.

Both fighters moved out to Zaire early in 1974 to acclimatise to the tropical climate they would be fighting in and immediately Ali won the battle for the hearts and minds of the locals. Foreman got off the plane walking his two German Shepherds, dogs which the Belgians had used to brutal effect as the colonial masters of Zaire: "They said people feared the dog, and I said, 'My goodness, they've got hyenas and lions over there, and they're afraid of a German shepherd? It doesn't make sense." It may not have made sense to Foreman, but the dog was seen as a symbol of the hated Belgian occupiers, with the country only having gained its independence just 12 years previously, the memories of oppression were fresh in peoples' minds. Ali was different though, he won the people over quickly according to his business manager George Kilroy: "We're getting off the airplane and Ali said to me, 'Who don't they like here?' I said, 'I guess they don't like white people.' He said, 'I can't tell him Foreman's a white man. Who else?' I said, 'The Belgians.'" When they got off the plane, with the press corps and thousands of locals waiting on the tarmac, Ali put his fingers to his lips to quiet the chants of 'Ali, Ali!' Then he told the crowd: "George Foreman's a Belgium." That was when they started to chant "Ali, bomaye!" Ali boma ye translated to Ali, kill him.

While Foreman basically lived as a recluse, concentrating on his training and barely going out among the locals, Ali would spend his time off meeting and greeting the local people. Kilroy was as keen on the choices Ali made though: "He always had time for the poor and the powerless. That's what I remember best. I remember a lady came by our camp and said her son was sick. Ali said, 'We'll go visit him.' She took us to a leper colony. The staff would put the food down and walk away. Ali was soon lying down with the lepers, hugging them and talking to them. I took about 10 showers when we got back." Despite the training and meeting and greeting, Ali, who was on his second marriage, still had time to embark on an affair with 18-year-old poster girl Veronica Porche. Ali's camp were suspicious of her, believing her to be a spy for the Foreman camp, but Ali was besotted. Despite still being married to Khalilah Camacho-Ali, the pair were married in a secret ceremony just before the fight in his villa in Zaire. It was not until 1977 that Muhammad Ali got his divorce from Camacho-Ali and then legally wed (in the US) Porche shortly afterwards. She ended up divorcing him in 1986 due to his infidelities!

The fight was scheduled for the 25th September, but just 8 days before the fight was set to take place, Foreman was caught by an accidental elbow in sparring with Bill McMurray and was badly cut over his eye. Eleven stitches meant that the fight had to be pushed back 5 weeks, but first Foreman leveraged the cut to try and get hold of the extra $500,000 he had been promised: I told him if I didn't get my money, my half million dollars, there was not going to be a fight." King and government officials met up with him and told him his money could be picked up in London, so Foreman sent a cousin and his business manager to London with an empty briefcase. When he managed to get into cotact with them a few days later after they returned to the USA, the briefcase was still empty. Foreman actually had no intention of walking away, he thought he could ensure King paid up, as he would need him for the next fight after he beat Ali.

The difficult thing for most of us to understand right now looking back is just how Muhammad Ali was seen by people of the time. For those of us who lived through the Tyson-era, it is easy to understand how Foreman was seen, he was seen in the same way to peak-Tyson, a wrecking ball who would just smash aside anyone in his way. But Ali, we look back at him now as the greatest and is generally thought to be capable of beating anyone on his day. Referring back to Tyson, when asked recently if it would be him at his peak or Ali at his peak who would have won if they had fought, Tyson had no hesitation in dismissing his own chances of winning. In fact he found it laughable to be even compared to Muhammad Ali in his prime. At the time though, Ali was thought to be well past his prime, being 32, a fading force who had lost his greatness when he was sent to jail. His time away from the sport was thought to have ruined him. George Foreman, on the other hand, should have been just coming in to his peak, and he was already seen as an indestructible force.

Many thought Ali was crazy to take the fight and worried he could get hurt. Ali was not worried though and instead taunted Foreman, who he nicknamed 'The Mummy' for his style of walking forward constantly: "George telegraphs his punches, look out, here comes the left. Whomp! Here comes the right. Whomp! Get ready, here comes another left. Whomp! I'm not scared of George. George ain't all that tough." In fact Ali thought he had spotted a weakness when watching Foreman's demolition of Frazier according to Kilroy: "When Foreman knocked Joe down, Ali said, 'Run it back, run it back.' George had his hands on the ropes in the neutral corner. Ali said: 'No stamina. I got him. Wait till he hears round six, round seven, round eight.'" Ali's intention was, from the very start to wear Foreman down, but by using his tried and tested 'stick-and-move' tactics, where he would be constantly on the move drawing Foreman around the ring, however circumstances destroyed his well laid plans.

"I've wrestled with alligators,
I've tussled with a whale,
I done handcuffed lightning,
and throw thunder in jail.
You know I'm bad,
just last week I murdered a rock,
injured a stone,
hospitalised a brick.
I'm so mean, I make medicine sick." - Ali.

Just a few hours before the fight, Angelo Dundee, Ali's trainer, and his PR guru Bobby Goodman went to the 20th of May Stadium (now the Stade Tata Raphael) where the fight was to take place to check on the preparations and have a look at the ring. What they found shocked them as one side had sunk into the muddy pitch. The foam rubber padding had become softer and mushy due to the heat and humidity. Worse, the ropes had been made for a 24-foot square ring when the fight was to take place inside a 20-foot square ring. The pair of them set to work personally fixing it, placing concrete slabs under the corner posts to balance the ring and placed resin on the canvas to make it less slippery. Goodman said later: "To fix the ropes we took off the clamps, pulled the ropes through the turnbuckles, lined everything up, and cut off the slack. We took about a foot out of each rope and retightened the turnbuckles by hand so they could be tightened more just before the fight. Angelo even told the ring chief that, right before the first bout, he should tighten the ropes by turning the turnbuckle. And then, before the main event, they were supposed to tighten them again. That never happened. They just didn't do it, so by the time Ali got in the ring the ropes were slack, but there was nothing underhand in what Angelo did. In fact, Dick Sadler and Archie Moore, who were Foreman's corner men, saw us that afternoon in the ring, Angelo and I were sweating our butts off, cutting the ropes with a double-edged razor blade because nobody could find a knife. We were pulling them through, taping up the ends. And we said, 'come on! You know, you guys can help.' But it was hot and they wouldn't give us a hand."

Just before leaving for the fight, Ali phoned up Cus D'Amato for some advice. D'Amato was a mentor to Ali and would later take a young Tyson under his wing, and roof. D'Amato told Ali to make sure that his first punch connected with Foreman with "bad intentions", as Foreman was a bully and bullies can be made to question themselves. As challenger, Ali was the first to enter the ring and Foreman made him wait around 20 minutes before he and his team came into the arena, jogging all the way to the ring. The crowd were mostly sat around the edges of the stadium, far away from the action, as the locals could only afford the cheapest of seats. Only a very few of the more expensive seats were sold to rich foreigners, much to the disappointment of Seko. The temperature in the ring was 86 fahrenheit (around 30 celsius) and the humidity was around 90% as the two faced off for the referee's instructions. As the referee, Zack Clayton gave his instructions, Ali taunted Foreman, goading him, winding him up in an attempt to make him angry.

Round 1 began with Ali going on the attack, he was using a right hand lead, knowing that he was much quicker than Foreman. Foreman was initially caught by surprise and took a few punches to the head, but he was not hurt and, as the round went on he began to catch Ali with some punches of his own. Foreman was extremely skilled at cutting the ring and Ali was having to take two steps to every single one of Foreman's. With the floor being spongy, Ali realised there was no way his legs could hold up at the pace needed to avoid 'The Mummy' stalking him. According to George Plimpton in Sports Illustrated, Ali's team were not happy with him at the end of the round: "His men stormed at him as he sat on his stool.
'What you doin'?'
'Why don't you dance?'
'You got to dance!'
'Stay off the ropes....'
Ali, looking across the ring, told them to shut up. 'Don't talk. I know what I'm doing,' he said."

Ahead of round two Ali whipped the crowd up, then changed tactics to use what has become known as 'Rope-a-Dope'. The genius of Ali showing once more, in his skill in utilising what he learnt from other great fighters in history. He learnt to lean and slip punches from Jack Johnson, but this he took mostly from Sugar Ray Robinson, with a little smattering of one of Foreman's corner men Archie Moore. Moore would often fight against the ropes to conserve energy, but it was a fight the legendary Sugar Ray Robinson had with Jake LaMotta in 1951. Robinson was recovering from a hip injury which stopped him from moving around like he normally would and it was a fight Ali had watched many times. And so it began, Ali would lean on the ropes and cover up, moving his body around to take Foreman's booming punches on his arms and body, while using every chance he got to throw a straight punch to Foreman's face. Most of Foreman's punches were failing to score as they were missing or being caught by Ali's guard. When the pair clinched, Ali would out-wrestle Foreman, leaning on the bigger man so that Foreman was supporting his weight and holding down Foreman's head by pushing down on his neck. Ali also continued to taunt and goad Foreman while they clinched, making Foreman throw more and more wild punches. Angelo Dundee was not so keen on the tactical shift: "I won't kid you, when he went into the ropes, I felt sick."

In the third round Foreman's left eye began to puff up. At the start of the 4th Ali hit Foreman with a combination which staggered him, but he continued in his relentless attempts to batter Ali on the ropes, constantly marching forward and throwing. His right eye was now also puffing up. The fight continued into the 5th, the first time anyone had managed to survive against Foreman past the 4th in over 3 years. Foreman still continued to march forward, he was still throwing punches but he was looking tired, increasingly so as the round wore on. Ali was still goading him saying, "They told me you could punch, George!" and "They told me you could punch as hard as Joe Louis." Ali even took the time to look over at Joe Frazier, who was at ringside commentating, and winked at him.

At the end of the 5th round officials tried to tighten up the ropes, suffering the wrath of Angelo Dundee in the process. Ali changed tack a little going into the 6th, he came out firing hard, single punches at Foreman in the early parts of the round. He made sure to stick to single shots, not taking the risk of punching himself out, resting between shots. As the round went on, Ali went back to the ropes and taunted Foreman some more. Ali went into the 7th once more whipping the crowd up and Foreman was gasping for breath, clearly struggling but he still believed he could knock Ali out going into the round: "I thought he was just one more knockout victim until, about the seventh round, I hit him hard to the jaw and he held me and whispered in my ear: 'That all you got, George?' I realised that this ain't what I thought it was." The belief was visibly draining out of Foreman during the round and his punches had lost power.

Round 8 began with Foreman attempting to pin Ali once more on the ropes, but his punches were completely out of power and his defence was wide open. Ali landed a series of right hooks over Foreman's jab, followed it up with a 5-punch combination which ended in a left hook which brought Foreman's head up for a hard right to the face that put Foreman down. He got back onto one knee but the referee waved an end to the fight with just 2 seconds to go in the round. Ali was ahead on all three scorecards. It was just the second time in history that a dethroned champion had regained his belt, the first being Floyd Patterson, who had regained his belt in an immediate rematch straight after losing his title.

Foreman, like so many other beaten fighters, refused to accept the defeat and made numerous allegations questioning the legitimacy of the result. First, he claimed Angelo Dundee had loosened the ropes to aid Ali's tactics. Then he claimed that his water had been drugged, that it tasted like medicine and made him dizzy and drowsy throughout the fight. Then he followed up on a mistake from lead broadcaster Bob Sheridan: "When Foreman went down, I couldn't hear the guy who counts for the knockdowns and what number he was on." Because of that, Sheridan had only reached 8 when Clayton was waving the fight's end. It was later proved that Foreman had been on the canvas for around 11 seconds.

After the fight, British broadcaster David Frost was the first to reach Ali's dressing room. Ali was busy looking in the mirror, checking with pride how little damage his face had taken and says to Frost: "Am I the greatest of all times?" Frost responds: "Muhammad, you told me in Deer Lake that you were the greatest of all times and I think everybody out there watching now will say you proved it." Ali then looks straight into the camera and says: "Everybody stop talking now. I told you, all of my critics, when I beat Sonny Liston that I was the greatest of all times. I told you today, I am still the greatest of all times. Never again defeat me, never again say that I am going to be defeated, never again make me the underdog until I'm about 50 years old, then you might get me."

This fight showcased Ali as being more than just someone who could slip, move and counterpunch. This showed his tactical ability, his ability to take a punch, with Ali absorbing many shots, hundreds in total, while many were blocked, he also took some vicious shots to the head with no noticeable effect. Ali had prepared himself well for the encounter, spending an hour each morning strengthening his abdominal muscles, getting them ready for the beating they would take. Ali's image changed after this fight, as he gained respect for doing the impossible and beating the fearsome Foreman. He went on to become a national hero.

Foreman took a long time to recover from the defeat, spending a lot of time chasing a rematch before his retirement in 1977 after a defeat to Jimmy Young. He did come back to boxing and in 1994 earned his own record by regaining a world title at the age of 45 by beating Michael Moorer. The 20-year gap between winning his two titles is the longest gap in boxing history.

"Muhammad amazed me, I'll admit it. He out-thought me. He out-fought me. That night, he was just the better man in the ring." - Foreman

To read the previous article in the Sporting Fairytales series, Part 3: Escape to Victory...of Sorts, click here.

Written by Tris Burke January 15 2024 12:38:53