The celebrations continue, as do the tributes, the nostalgia pieces, and the spoken, fabulous memories of those people who were there keep on coming. We are talking about the simply epic fight – or “Rumble” – between heavyweight Gods Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. Half a century on from that astonishing fight, result, and promotion in the heart of Africa, fight fans who may not have been born at the time are reading and hearing all about the historic fight that took place in Zaire in the early morning hours.
It’s hard to comprehend today how much of a threat Foreman was seen as, not only to Ali but to ANY heavyweight out there. Foreman, at 40-0(37), was seen as truly unbeatable. How could any fighter, least of all the aging Ali (yes, the age of 32 really was seen as old for a boxer, even a heavyweight, back in 1974), defeat Foreman? The man was gruesomely power-packed in both hands, and Foreman’s sheer physical strength was also frightening.
Added to this was the fact that the two men who had beaten Ali – Joe Frazier and Ken Norton – had been almost effortlessly wiped out by Foreman. No, not too many people were willing to give Ali a real chance of upsetting “Big George” and regaining his title. Instead, plenty of folks were actually worried about Ali’s health and his life.
But Ali’s career-long trainer (save his first pro fight), Angelo Dundee, believed in his guy. “Angie” was telling anyone who would listen before the fight that Ali would find a way to win. In the end, Dundee was proven right, even if Ali may not have won the fight the way anyone, Dundee included, had imagined. Staying on the ropes (“a beautiful thing for a heavyweight,” a victorious Ali said) and taking turns blocking, slipping, or at times soaking up Foreman’s lethal bombs, Ali let Foreman wear himself out, and then he came in for the kill, getting it in round eight.
Before he passed away in February of 2012, Angelo was kind enough to speak with me, over the phone, about Ali and his massive win over Foreman. And I learned how, as special as the Foreman win was, Dundee ranked another Ali win even higher.
“Oh, God, that [the win over Foreman] was one of his very best,” Dundee told me. “But the best win of all was the [first] win over Sonny Liston. He [Sonny] really was the baddest man on the planet, and nobody gave my kid a chance going in. That one was also special.”
And Angelo spoke again about the “he loosened the ropes” myth that absolutely refuses to go away.
“What happened was, I went to Kinshasa – we were 45 minutes away in Nsele, staying in a villa. I went to the arena that day at 4 PM, and I tried to tighten the ropes, Bobby Goodman and I. They were 24-foot ropes for a 20-foot ring. It wasn’t easy, but we tightened them, not figuring on the heat in Zaire. The fight wasn’t until 4 AM the next morning, and the heat loosened the ropes again. I never wanted Muhammad to lay on the ropes; as a matter of fact, I whacked him on his butt whenever he would lay on the ropes near the corner. That ring was six feet off the ground, and I was worried Foreman would hit him in the chest and knock him out of the ring. If that had happened, the fight would have been over.”
But so many myths surrounding this epic fight persist. You may well find yourself reading about some of them over the coming days. Ali’s greatest win – or his second-greatest win in Angelo’s opinion – will live forever. As will the fairytales accompanying it.
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