Rumble In The Jungle

The 50th anniversary of this is coming up in 16 days. I thought I would go ahead and post it today. It brings back a lot of memories with my dad. We will get back to music and movies tomorrow. If you ever wondered where the phrase “rope-a-dope” got famous…this is it. This is one of the most iconic events of the 20th Century.

I was 7 years old when this took place but I remember my dad was super excited for this fight. I also remember him griping how it wasn’t on television. It was on closed-circuit TV in theaters back on October 30, 1974, in America. It was later played on television here a week later I believe on Wild World of Sports. I watched it with my dad and he was happy that Ali won so I was as well.

It was George Foreman against Muhammid Ali. Ali, written off by most, faced the seemingly unbeatable Foreman, who was younger, stronger, and terrifying. Foreman had thoroughly beaten Joe Frazier and Ken Norton…the two men who had given Ali serious trouble.

The event took place in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) Africa, a choice by promoter Don King. King promised both fighters $5 million each (a staggering amount for the time) and found a host in Zaire’s dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, who saw this as an opportunity to showcase his country to the world.

From the moment Ali landed in Zaire, it was clear… Ali was the people’s champion. He embraced the locals, chanting “Ali, bomaye!” (“Ali, kill him!”). Ali knew the power of spectacle, and he hyped the fight into a clash of good vs. evil—himself, the people’s hero, against the seemingly cold and invincible Foreman. Ali knew all about spectacles and how to create them. No one could hype an event like Ali could. Below this is what happened in the fight.

Foreman, by contrast, kept to himself. He was intense and silent, bringing his deadly reputation but lacking Ali’s charisma and showmanship. As Ali paraded through the streets of Kinshasa, the crowd adored him, feeding his ego and energizing his mission. Foreman? He just looked like a man on a mission to destroy Ali. Foreman threw a hell of a punch. If you got caught flat-footed with him…one punch is all it would take. Ali wasn’t the Cassius Clay a few years before…he was a little older and a little slower (still faster than Foreman)…but smarter.

Before writing this I sat down and watched the entire eight rounds. Ali was 32 years old but Foreman was 25 and the current Heavy Weight Champion of the World. You could still feel the electricity in the air now when you watch it. Ali came out swinging but in the second round Ali would lean against the ropes a cover…all the while Foreman would punch and punch…and punch. He got some hits in Ali’s side but Foreman could not land THAT punch. As this was going on…Ali’s mouth was running as usual…telling Foreman to punch him and punch again. He kept antagonizing him Foreman and it made him do exactly what Ali wanted… use up his energy.

I won’t go through every round but basically, Ali got Foreman to punch and use his energy up on useless punches. Ali knew that Foreman hadn’t gone over 4 rounds since 1971 plus George is a huge guy. By the 8th round, you could tell George was spent. He still was throwing punches but he wasn’t as focused and it cost him. Ali connected on 6 straight punches and the 7th punch knocked Foreman down and Ali was once again…the World’s Heavy Weight Champion. Ali said the famous phrase “rope-a-dope” as the way he beat Foreman…laying on the ropes while Foreman punched himself to a loss.

The local crowd was with Ali because of his hype and the professionals mostly picked Foreman in an easy win over the older Ali. George never got the rematch with Ali and that is a shame. In 1977 Foreman became a Christian Minister and retired and a much nicer guy. On November 5, 1994, at the age of 45 years old George Foreman beat Michael Moorer for the Heavy Weight Champion of the World. He was behind in point until George unloaded that lethal punch and that was it. Moorer was down and he lost the championship. I know it well because our band was playing in a sports bar and I got to announce it to the crowd there.

There is so much more to talk about with this fight but the post has gone on much longer than I had wanted. Hope you enjoyed it! The two ended up being National Treasures and some of that started with this fight.

One commenter named Beth brought up the documentary When We Were Kings about this….it’s worth a watch!

THE ENTIRE FIGHT

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

47 thoughts on “Rumble In The Jungle”

  2. We had just moved to Idaho Falls from Kalamazoo that summer & after my brother & I got back from our annual 2 month stay at our grandparents in Cincinnati that was the biggest thing going it seemed in the media…next to Richard Nixon resigning. My dad took me to the closed circuit viewing at a local theatre…what an event! I was 10. I’ll never forget it. Foreman was supposed to be unbeatable after embarrassing the great Joe Frazier the year before on ABC television to gain the title from Frazier.

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    1. I wished we would have gone to the theater like you guys did… it was such a historical event… rewatching it you can see Foreman wearing himself out as early as the second round…it was brilliant by Ali.

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      1. Oh absolutely Max…the lady that commented on your article about the movie ‘When We Were Kings’ was an awesome movie about the event. I remember all of the performers that were shown…especially James Brown & the Spinners who I was fortunate enough to see live at Disneyland on my 9th birthday the year before when we drove cross country to the ‘Worlds Fair’ & went the opposite way back to Kalamazoo. That fight & the event will always be a fond memory for me. As other Ali fights after that including the Ali/Frazier I was also before this one.

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      2. I’ve watched both Ali and Frazier fights… that was when boxing was king…no pun intended with Don.
        Oh geez…now that is a hell of a birthday! Brown AND the Spinners…really cool.

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      3. No…lol, the Spinners were playing Disneyland on July 16th, 1973…that would’ve been an awesome event if James Brown was there also. I can still see those powder blue frilly suits that they wore…they sang all of their hits up to that point. I think ‘One of a Kind’ was on the charts at that time.

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      4. Well ok…hey….The Spinners would have been good enough. They were hot around this time in the charts.

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      2. Yea it could have been but should have got the last one as well…maybe it underlined it and I didn’t pay attention I don’t know.

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  4. One of my favourite documentaries is ‘When We Were Kings’. I think we have spoken on more than one occasion about this monumental sporting feat. Seeing Foreman hit the bag at the gym in Zaire leaving concave fist imprints left many thinking that Ali might die in the ring.
    I also love ‘How Big George Foreman Took Back His Title’. 20 years later at 45 he came back and beat the best. That video is well worth seeing Max.

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    1. Oh I love when he won the title back. I was playing in a sports bar at the time and announced it after it happened. All it took for him was that one punch…it was lethal.

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  5. My father was a boxer. He distinguished between “boxers” and “fighters”. He respected the former and had no time for the latter. I grew up watching boxing on TV with him (though never saw a fight that you had to pay to see on TV).

    Dad saw Ali in the trials for the Pan Am Games in 1959 and became a fan. Ali didn’t invent trash-talking, but raised it to an art form…and he backed it up. Who knows how great he could have been had he not been stripped of his titles and banned from boxing for his opposition to the war in Viet Nam, during what would have been the peak of his career?

    Each time folks thought they had him pegged, he re-invented himself. Rope-a-dope was ingenious. Ali also took boxing worldwide, fighting for titles in Africa and the Philippines (the Thrilla in Manila) instead of Las Vegas casinos.

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    1. I was going to pick the Thrilla in Manila but since the 50 year mark was coming up….I thought I would cover this one.
      I also remember the fake computer fight…The Super Fight between Ali and Rocky Marciano. I didn’t see it though until the late seventies long after it happened.

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  6. I come from a pro boxing family (Grandfather and Great Uncle) and several boxers ( one a national champ that also fought for the British Light Middle belt) did some road work with my athletics club. So I was right into boxing as a youngster.
    I loved Ali!Who didn’t? The British public really took to him – even though he beat our own Henry Cooper (though ‘our ‘Enery’ was the first to put Ali (I think he was still Cassius Clay at that point) on the seat of his pants!

    I remember listening to lots of the big US based fights on late nigh radio and sure saw this one on TV – but maybe like you it was a delayed transmission. 🙂

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    1. I think around the world…it was on television but only in America did they have to pay and see it…you might have got the real time one.
      I loved boxing in the 70s and 80s. I lost interest after Tyson was done….it all changed.

      I’ll have to look Cooper up.

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  7. Yes, but could Ali devise an instrument to grill steaks and pork chops tastily in your own kitchen? LOL. They were larger than life back then, everyone knew who Muhammad Ali was and George Foreman wasn’t far down the list of best-known celebrities. Few in the world of sports have come close to that level of international fame since then. tiger Woods maybe at his career peak but even that’s doubtful. The local sports hall of fame has a whole section on Foreman, who’s from north Texas.

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    1. I should have mentioned the grills! I think everyone in America either had one (we had two) or have one now…we still do.
      These guys were huge back then…probably the last boxer to cross that line was Mike Tyson.
      This is a great match…I got caught up in it by watching last night…knowing full well what was going to happen.

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    1. It holds so many good memories for me and just the mention of Ali’s name brings back a lot. I saw the Foreman and Frazier fight (the first) not long ago. It was brutal. I can see why you thought that. Thanks CB

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      1. Forman was punching everyone out. Like the second coming of Liston. You can see worry in Ali’s face at the start but he saw and exposed a weakness really fast. I think he surprised himself. Talk about adapting and then executing. It was lightning in a bottle. Nap time for George.

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  10. It is rare when someone can say ‘I am the greatest’ and then actually back it up. And over time (time, the fighters worst enemy, stealing away the lightning reflexes minute by minute) adapt and still prove it.

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    1. The guy could back up everything and he had such charisma…who could get by with talking like he did? Even if they were great…they would get booed….but he had something about him. You could tell by the second round…what was going to happen.

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  11. Given I was 15 when this happened, even growing up in Canada this fight was a big deal. And Ali fighting George Chuvalo is something of legend. I was actually at a Canadian football game of all things and he appeared at half-time. It was a Parkinson’s awareness event back in 2002 but it was a thrill to seen him in person like that.

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    1. That is cool that you got a glimpse of him in the person. You were a perfect age for everything in the seventies. I started to really remember him from 1977 on…all of the interviews with Cosell and his later fights…which looking back I so wished he would have retired earlier.

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  13. Pingback: Rumble In The Jungle – MobsterTiger

  14. Good write-up, Max. I remember Ali much better than Foreman, other than the grill, later 😉 He was a hero to many people. I remember him coming here for festivals much later, when he was cognitively compromised, but he was still loved as if he were still The Champ. I saw When We Were Kings many moons ago and remember it as a quality film.

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    1. I wish I would have mentioned that film in this post. Beth said that in her comment…I saw it as well…I don’t know why I didn’t list it.

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