It's the 50th Anniversary of the Rumble in the Jungle

[wpdavid]

Watching it at the time, I thought the same as everyone else. Ali has no chance and is probably going to be seriously hurt, and what on earth is he doing staying on the ropes like that? And then the knock-out punch in the 8th, accompanied by Harry Carpenter completely losing it as he realises what Ali has done. Probably the single most extraordinary sporting moment ever. Certainly the most extraordinary sporting moment that I have seen.

Anyone who hasn't watched 'When we were Kings' really should see it.

And it's 50 years now. How on earth did that happen?

 

[Coronis]

Watching it at the time, I thought the same as everyone else. Ali has no chance and is probably going to be seriously hurt, and what on earth is he doing staying on the ropes like that? And then the knock-out punch in the 8th, accompanied by Harry Carpenter completely losing it as he realises what Ali has done. Probably the single most extraordinary sporting moment ever. Certainly the most extraordinary sporting moment that I have seen.

Anyone who hasn't watched 'When we were Kings' really should see it.

And it's 50 years now. How on earth did that happen?

Got me feelin’ young

 

[sledger]

There's a great video on YouTube of Ali doing some (very) lighthearted sparring with some young Jamaican bloke on some chat show.

The whole time he's talking trash, and saying all this stuff that suggests he thinks this other bloke is absolutely third rate (e.g., "C'mon, try and hit me, try and block my jab, all the girls are watching, I'm embarrassing you" etc.)

Then at the end he turns to the interviewer and coyly smiles and says "nah he was actually pretty good". It's great.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

I've always wondered this: why was the fight in Zaire and why don't they have fights in places like central Africa any more?

 

[Coronis]

I've always wondered this: why was the fight in Zaire and why don't they have fights in places like central Africa any more?

iirc it was about their heritage and some propaganda for the new President too.

 

[Ali TT]

I've always wondered this: why was the fight in Zaire and why don't they have fights in places like central Africa any more?

They go to Saudi Arabia now

 

[Burgey]

Yeah Mbuto(sp?) wanted to promote Zaire as it then was and thought the fight would help a lot. Plus Don King got th e gig to promote it and he'd apparently promised the fighters the sort of dough which no one would stump up in the States. King is such a ****, but his story is insane - iirc he watched Ali-Frazier I in prison, and three years later was promoting the Rumble in the Jungle.

It's probably my favourite sporting moment of all time tbh. It's just legendary. I loved the takes on it in Thomas Hauser's bio of Ali when he talked to Dundee about it, with Angelo apparently berating Ali for being on the ropes all the time until after round 4 when Ali came back, sat down and Dundee says "I think he's getting tired, champ" and Ali's like "Yeah I'll get him in the next two or three rounds." Just insane ring craft and nous to know to do what he did against all reason.

Amazes me that people have the ability to think so clearly in situations where their adrenaline must be running so hard. Esdpecailyl in something as brutal as the boxing ring. Even sparring just drains you, let alone fighting for a title.

 

[wpdavid]

It's probably my favourite sporting moment of all time tbh. It's just legendary. I loved the takes on it in Thomas Hauser's bio of Ali when he talked to Dundee about it, with Angelo apparently berating Ali for being on the ropes all the time until after round 4 when Ali came back, sat down and Dundee says "I think he's getting tired, champ" and Ali's like "Yeah I'll get him in the next two or three rounds." Just insane ring craft and nous to know to do what he did against all reason.

Amazes me that people have the ability to think so clearly in situations where their adrenaline must be running so hard. Esdpecailyl in something as brutal as the boxing ring. Even sparring just drains you, let alone fighting for a title.

I love how Ali was taunting Foreman during the fight. 'Is that all you've got George?' would be extremely foolish coming from any other boxer you could name. Why on earth would you want to annoy Foreman? But Ali knew what he was doing. Reading about the fight the other day, I was reminded that Ali's Plan 'A' was actually to knock Foreman out in the first round with a series of right hooks; itself an extraordinary approach when conventional wisdom said that careful jabs were a much wiser tactic. After that didn't work, then he reverted to rope-a-dope. But even that may not have been Plan 'B'. I think he said that he didn't opt not to dance until he realised how hot it was, even at 4.00am But I may have remembered that wrong.

We were lucky enough to see lots of Ali interviews in the 1970s, either on 'Parkinson', or on one of the Saturday sports programmes. Obviously he talked about this fight a lot. My favourite line was after Foreman had apparently complained that he was worn out because the surface in the ring was too thick. Ali's response was that given how hard Foreman's head hit the ground, he should have been pleased that the surface was nice and soft.

 

[Burgey]

I heard an interview he did a few years later and he was asked why he didn’t throw an extra punch as foreman went down - you can see he has his hand ****ed ready to throw it but he doesn’t, and he just said “He’d had enough.”

What an incredible fighter and man he was. He had no right winning that bout after what foreman did to the two blokes who’d beaten Ali, but it was the ultimate exercise in styles making fights.

Im also a big believer a massive part of his greatness was that as he fought for and then defended his title, he was always fighting for more than himself.