George Foreman was interviewed about his iconic 1974 boxing match against Muhammad Ali known as the "Rumble in the Jungle". Foreman was a heavy favorite as the undefeated heavyweight champion with massive punching power, but Ali shocked the world by knocking out Foreman in the 8th round. Foreman recalls being in total disbelief that he lost and still watches replays thinking he will win. Though disappointed, Foreman grew to greatly respect Ali and now considers him the greatest man he's ever met.

1. special featurespecial featureC6 C7
FIGHTING FACTS
The Rumble
Gulf News | Thursday, October 30, 2014 | gulfnews.comgulfnews.com | Thursday, October 30, 2014 | Gulf News
the most
amazing thing
I’ve ever seen”
foreman recalls how ‘durable’ Ali shocked him 40 years ago today
Abu Dhabi
F
orty years on from the
‘Rumble in the Jungle’,
and there remains a
nagging and profound
feeling of disbelief for
George Foreman that he lost
his iconic world heavyweight
boxing encounter with
Muhammad Ali.
Foreman was the most fear-
some heavyweight boxer of the
era — the then 25-year-old’s
sledgehammer-like punches
expected to add a 41st victim
in a 32-year-old Ali to his un-
beaten record, embellished by
an impressive 37 knockouts.
Yet the irrepressible Ali con-
founded the odds — he was re-
garded by some bookmakers to
be a 40-1 outsider to win as he
was a declining force — to re-
cord a stunning eighth-round
stoppage over the then reigning
champion in Kinshasa, Zaire
(now Democratic Republic of
the Congo).
Ahead of the 40th anniver-
sary of the fight today, Fore-
man told Gulf News in an exclu-
sive telephone interview: “I’ve
watched the [2001] movie Ali
and [the 1997 Oscar-winning
film documentary] When We
Were Kings, and I keep think-
ing I’m gonna win this time
[laughs]. And the strange thing
is I always lose.”
Memories of the historic fight
— it was the first time a major
sporting event had been held in
Africa — and the kaleidoscope
of emotions it provokes never
fade for Foreman.
“Sometimes it seems such a
long time ago and then all of a
sudden one night, all the mem-
ories flood again as though it
was yesterday,” the 65-year-
old said, exhilaration and pride
propelling his Texan drawl.
Awestruck
“There’s sadness and disap-
pointment at losing, but then I
think about how close Muham-
mad Ali and his children and I
are. And how Muhammad Ali
and I have become so close over
the years, and I feel such joy be-
cause it [the fight] bound us.”
It’s been labelled arguably
one of the greatest sporting
events of the 20th century, a
David and Goliath-esque tri-
umph for the underdog in Ali
against his younger and strong-
er opponent in Foreman.
But the ‘Rumble in the Jun-
gle’ was also a seminal occa-
sion that transcended sport;
here were two black Ameri-
cans fighting in Africa, which
came at the height of the Black
Power movement in the United
States.
Summing up the fight’s sig-
nificance, Foreman said: “I
overpowered Ali in the first few
rounds, but for some reason he
stayed the course. He survived
and he was able to get a victory
and it was all based on his skill
and experience. It’s just some-
thing you won’t see a lot.”
“It was a preview for many of
the world events and cups go-
ing on now,” added Foreman.
“The world did not exist until
that fight.”
Foreman recalls unalloyed
happiness from the people of
Africa, awestruck by the pros-
pect of two sporting superstars
gracing their continent.
While many fans voiced their
appreciation for the revered Ali,
shouting “Ali, boma ye!” (Ali,
kill him!), Foreman insists they
afforded him equal respect.
“The people in Africa could
not believe that such a world
event was taking place in their
country,” he said. “They treat-
ed us so fine and took good care
of me.”
It’s a surprise to learn from
Foreman that the two fighters
did not actually meet to publi-
cise the fight and only saw each
other as they entered the ring.
Without national television
in Africa, Foreman therefore
did not hear Ali employing his
famed mind games by char-
acterising his opponent as The
Mummy, a slow and lumber-
ing lump of a man, with no tal-
ent apart from his prodigious
punching power.
Setbacks
Foreman had suffered set-
backs in training — a cut to the
eye during sparring forcing the
postponement of the fight from
September 25 to October 30 —
and a suspicion that his water
had been doped somehow.
Yet he remained the over-
whelming favourite to beat
Ali due to his size, power and
dominance of the heavyweight
division.
Both men were 6ft 3ins, but
Foreman was the more heav-
ily muscled of the two, and the
reigning world heavyweight
champion.
The 1968 Olympic gold med-
allist was considered invinci-
ble, having annihilated the only
two men to have beaten Ali, Joe
Frazier and Ken Norton, both
inside two rounds.
As the legendary Scottish
sports writer, Hugh McIlvan-
ney, noted at the time: “There
seems only one way to beat
George Foreman: Shell him for
three days and then send the
infantry in.”
But just how powerful was
Foreman in his eyes?
Could he have beaten Mike
Tyson, widely considered to
have been the most savage
puncher ever in the heavy-
weight division, at their re-
spective peaks?
“I was as hard a puncher and
I was bigger [than him],” Fore-
man replies emphatically. “At
my peak and his peak, nah, he
couldn’t have withstood me
then. I was wild and fast.”
He was therefore brimming
with confidence ahead of his
showdown with Ali, saying: “I
figuredthatifIdidn’tknockhim
out in the second round, it was
because I’d knocked him out in
the first round. My only thought
was I’m going to knock him out
no matter which round.”
Yet Foreman’s animalis-
tic lust for a thunderous finish
were to prove his undoing, as
his relentless barrage of punch-
es and stalking of the elusive Ali
crucially sapped his energy.
He said: “About the end of
the third round, I started los-
ing all of my energy, and that
was the scary thing, because
I didn’t know how to run, nor
was I willing to back up or cov-
er up.
“And I had to keep fighting,
although I didn’t have any en-
ergy.”
Years later, regrets continue
to gnaw at Foreman’s mind as
he questions why he did not al-
ter his tactics.
He said: “I think: ‘Why didn’t
you just box?’ Use the pivot and
let him come to get you’. And it
always comes back to my mind
every three years: ’Why didn’t
you such and such? Why didn’t
you such and such?’”.
Nevertheless, despite be-
ing forever dogged by self-re-
proach, Foreman acknowledg-
es that the “genius” of Ali had
helped engineer his downfall.
Ali’s brilliance
He said: “Part of the charm
and brilliance and the genius of
Ali was to make you keep com-
ing. His genius made me con-
tinue to swing although I was
burnt out.” Ali’s preternatural
durability also astonished Fore-
man, who says his opponent
refused to buckle, despite “tak-
ing some of the best shots I’d
ever landed on anyone”.
“That’s the most amazing
thing I’ve ever seen in my life,”
said Foreman. “The only time I
didn’t knock someone out was
because I didn’t catch them with
a shot. I’ve never encountered
that will in a human being.”
Employing his famed ‘rope-
a-dope’ tactics — whereby he
would soak up Foreman’s pres-
sure and take a breather on the
ropes as the younger man tired
— was not the only wily machi-
nation Ali had up his sleeve.
Foreman recalled: “One time
I hit him really hard in the side.
And he held me and said: ‘Is
that all you got George?’. I can
remember it just like it was
yesterday. “That was frighten-
ing. I hurt him and I knew he
was hurting. But yet he contin-
ued to say things.”
By Euan Reedie
Chief Sports Writer
— Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi
G
eorge Foreman was
quoted in 1984 as saying
he “loved” Muhammad
Ali after becoming a Christian
minister following his boxing
retirement in 1977 (he made a
comeback 10 years later).
But in 1974, he was left a bit-
ter and broken man at the loss
of his title to Ali and the failure
to secure a rematch.
How does he explain such a
stunning transformation from
simmering hatred to hero wor-
ship, after seeking to pulverise
Ali in the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’?
Foreman, who has become
a successful entrepreneur with
a grill that has sold more than
100 million units, told Gulf
News: “I’d become a minister
and I had nothing but memo-
ries. The first time I remember
meeting Muhammad Ali, my
heart was beating fast. And he
came up as if he knew me and
said: ‘Hey George’. It made me
so happy. I’d not met anyone
else in my life who was that ex-
citing.”
But what was the key to Ali’s
singular greatness? Foreman
finds it hard to quantify it, yet
plucks an anecdote from his
endless reservoir of epiphanies
to eulogise Ali’s magnetic aura.
He said: “I was just turning
professional, I’d had a couple of
pro fights and I was in a hotel in
California. I’d invited two girls
to have dinner with me in the
hotel. One of them I was really
trying to impress. When I told
her I was a boxer, she was excit-
ed by that. She said: ‘I saw Mu-
hammad Ali. He was scream-
ing: ‘I’m pretty!’. ‘Look at me,
I’m beautiful!’. And she said:
‘Let me tell you he was beau-
tiful in his T-shirt and jeans’.
And I got offended. I thought:
‘Why is she sitting at the table
with me telling me something
like that?’.”
He continued: “About two
years later, I was in New York
City and there was a crowd
coming down to my hotel. Mu-
hammad Ali had just got his
[boxing] licence back from the
Supreme Court and they were
following him down and he saw
me and he started shadow box-
ing. ‘That’s George Foreman!
That’s George Foreman!’.
“Then I realised what that girl
meant. She wasn’t trying to put
me down. He was beautiful. It
wasn’t just something you feel
on the outside. I got mad be-
cause I thought she was trying
to say I wasn’t a handsome boy.
“But she wasn’t talking like
that. She was saying he was
beautiful. And how would I de-
scribe him? Simply beautiful.
He is the greatest man I’ve ever
met.”
Fighting spirit
But Foreman said his most
abidingrecollectionofAli—one
that epitomises his irresistible
charm and alluring arrogance
— will remain a trademark put-
down as they were walking into
the ring for ‘The Rumble in the
Jungle’ fight.
Ali looked at Foreman and
said: “George, you were just a
little boy in junior high when
I was fighting Sonny Liston for
the championship of the world
[in 1964]. You can’t get in the
ring with me.”
Ali’s unquenchable fighting
spirit had brutal consequences,
though, having been debili-
tated by the degenerative dis-
order of the brain, Parkinson’s
disease, since 1984.
Yet, despite such a devas-
tating decline — he can barely
speak and needs assistance to
walk — Foreman insists Ali’s
‘beauty’ remains radiant and
everlasting. He said: “Every
picture I see of him, he still
looks beautiful. He made Par-
kinson’s beautiful. I remem-
ber him sitting with him at the
Academy Awards [in 1997] and
his hand was trembling. And
I looked at him and thought:
‘This boy is still beautiful’.
Foreman last saw his neme-
sis-turned-idol two years ago at
Ali’s 70th birthday party — but
calls him from time to time.
He said: “His daughter will go
and visit him and wait until he
feels better and put him on the
phone just to say a little word.
Sometimesallhecansayis‘Hey’.
And that’s enough for me.”
‘Ali the greatest
man I’ve ever met’
Foreman says his 1974
conqueror remains
‘simply beautiful’,
despite effects of
Parkinson’s disease
By Euan Reedie
Chief Sports Writer
— Abu Dhabi
Ali might have wounded
him with a killer taunt, but his
punches did not hurt him, Fore-
man insisted. Yet in the eighth
round, Ali’s blurring hand speed
brought the fight to a sudden
and unexpected conclusion.
“He never hurt me, that’s
why I continued following him
around,” said Foreman. “Then
I missed him and turned away
from the ropes and then he pro-
duced a one-two combination
and the quickest right hand I’ve
ever seen. It was so fast. Pow!
And it knocked me down and
I tried to catch my balance be-
cause it wasn’t that hard.”
The referee, Zach Clay-
ton, would stop the fight with
two seconds remaining of the
round, despite Foreman getting
up at the count of nine.
A shattered Foreman did not
fight again for 15 months as he
recovered psychologically from
having his aura of invincibil-
ity obliterated by Ali’s grievous
blow. The mental scars remain
for Foreman, who insists he
could have won every round of
the fight if he had boxed more
cleverly.
“I could have won the fight
by points but I wanted to knock
him out,” he said. “And I regret
it, having that kind of attitude
way back when I was young. I
didn’t want to win on points, I
wanted a knockout. If it killed
me, I wanted to knock every-
body out.
“I vowed never again would I
go out and try and knock some-
one out in the first or second
round. If they wanted to box for
10 rounds, I’d get them in 10.”
However, even with a dif-
ferent approach, Foreman is
unsure if he would have beat-
en the more experienced and
skilled Ali. He said: “The man
had my number as he could
take the pain and continue. I
think if we’d fought twice, he’d
have beaten me twice.
Today, Foreman hopes to
speak to Ali. “We’re about the
two closest people in boxing alive
today,” he said. “We had a great
boxing match but our friendship
has been even better.”
If he is unable to contact his
old foe, he will stride down a
well-trodden memory lane.
He said: “I’ll probably go to
someone’s house and watch [a
replay of] the boxing match. I’ll
watch it until the eighth round
and then say ‘Let’s cut it off’.”
$5m
‘The Rumble’ signalled the
arrival of Don King as a
formidable promoter. He raised
$5m for each fighter, with
Joseph Mobutu, the
president and brutal dictator
of Zaire, coming up with $3.5m
alone.
2:58
The time in round eight when
referee Zach Clayton stopped
the fight, despite Foreman
getting up at the count of nine,
after Ali had landed a crashing
left hook followed by a solid
right cross that sent him to the
canvas.
1974
The year when the historic boxing
match dubbed the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’
took place in Kinshasa, Zaire (now
Democratic Republic of the Congo).
Muhammad Ali stunned the previously
unbeaten heavyweight champion
George Foreman with an eighth-round
stoppage 40 years ago today.
#7
The UK’s Channel 4
TV listed the fight at No. 7 on
its list of 100 Greatest
Sporting Moments in 2002.
British rower Steve
Redgrave’s record-breaking
fifth Olympic gold medal won
in 2000 topped the list.
TANZANIA
C E N T R A L A . R . S O U T H
S U D A N
C O N G O
DEMOCRATIC
REPUBLIC
OF CONGO
(formerly Zaire)
500 Km
N ANGOLA
ZAMBIA
©Gulf News
Kinshasa
Abu Dhabi
H
is legendary ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ defeat to Muham-
mad Ali in 1974 was not his toughest bout and proved to
be “a fight for my life”, according to George Foreman.
The former world heavyweight champion told Gulf News
that his heroic victory over Ron Lyle had proved more ardu-
ous because his opponent had hit harder than Ali.
Foreman survived two knockdowns in the fourth round
— in his career only Ali and Jimmy Young sent him to the
canvas — to win in the fifth.
“That was not only the toughest fight of my life, it was a
fight for my life,” Foreman said.
“When Ron Lyle hit me, he hit me much harder than Ali
did. He knocked me down and I wanted to stay down and
wait for the count but I thought ‘I’ll die first’.
He added: “I kept getting up and I remember saying: ‘It
would be worse than death to get counted out again’. I kept
getting up and he [Lyle] was not able to deal with that.
“I couldn’t explain what had happened in Africa [in the
Rumble in the Jungle] and I was not going to explain that it
was going to happen in [Las] Vegas. I’d made a pact to die
before being counted out again.”
— E.R.
Foreman says ‘Rumble’ defeat
to Ali was not his hardest fight
❝I figured that if I
didn’t knock [Ali]
out in the second
round, it was be-
cause I’d knocked
him out in the first
round. My only
thought was I’m
going to knock
him out...”
George Foreman
| Former boxer
AFP
Enter the champion
■■ A packed 20th of May Stadium greets George Foreman
on October 19, 1974 — 11 days before his historic fight
with Muhammad Ali.
AFP
Media scrum
■■ Muhammad Ali (centre, right) during his post-fight press
conference after beating George Foreman at the
20th of May Stadium in Kinshasa.
AFP
Maternal support
■■ Muhammad Ali with his mother Odetta Lee Clay during a
training session three days before his ‘Rumble in the Jungle’
encounter with George Foreman.
●
Foreman said his
most abiding rec-
ollection of Ali —
one that epitomises
his irresistible
charm and alluring
arrogance — will
remain a trade-
mark put-down
as they were
walking into
the ring.
Rex Features
Close bond
■■ Muhammad Ali and George Foreman at the Oscar awards
ceremony in 1997, at which When We Were Kings — a film
about their fight — won the Best Documentary Feature.
George Foreman | Former boxer
❝I could have won the fight by points but I wanted
to knock him out. And I regret it, having that kind
of attitude way back when I was young. I didn’t
want to win on points, I wanted a knockout.”
Iconic moment
■■ Muhammad Ali looks
down at George
Foreman after knocking
him down during the
eighth round of the
historic ‘Rumble in the
Jungle’ fight in Kinshasa
on October 30, 1974. The
fight was stopped before
Foreman could recover.
Rex Features
l The ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ pitted unbeaten world heavyweight
champion George Foreman, 25, against Muhammad Ali, 32.
l Foreman was heavily fancied to beat Ali, who had claimed the
world heavyweight title by beating Sonny Liston in 1964.
l The fight was given its title by the legendary promoter Don King.
l It was shown on television at about 450 locations in the
United States and Canada and was seen in roughly 100 countries
worldwide.
lA three-night-long music festival to hype the fight, Zaire ‘74,
took place on September 22—24 featuring performances by James
Brown, B.B. King, Miriam Makeba, The Spinners, Bill Withers, The
Crusaders and Manu Dibango.
l A documentary film about the fight, When We Were Kings, won an
Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1997.
l The biographical movie Ali (2001) depicts this fight as the film’s
climax.
Don King