Ten reasons why the Rumble in the Jungle is still the greatest fight of all time
On October 30, 1974, the world stood still as two of the greatest heavyweights who walked on this planet faced off in the ultimate crossroads bout.
Rivers of ink have flown to describe this fight, and it has already been described a million times in a million ways. Muhammad Ali, the former champion attempting to return to his former glory after being stripped of his belt for refusing to go to the Vietnam War, going against George Foreman, the young unbeaten former Olympian knockout artist, and so many more storylines. The endless retelling of this tale of fall from grace and eternal redemption has been an essential chapter in sports folklore for half a century already, and very few stones have been left unturned in this endeavor.
Instead of attempting to reformulate the entire epic once again, I’ve decided to break down the highlights of this amazing championship clash in a handful of items that make Ali-Foreman one of the most memorable sporting events of all time.
How great was the Rumble in the Jungle? Let us run the countdown for you.
A King is born: Fresh out of jail, tired of the numbers racket, always looking for a new angle, and already a world-class practitioner of the “fake-it-till-you-make-it” American way of doing business. Don King was all that and more. Already involved in the concert production business, King asked singer Lloyd Price to set him up with Muhammad Ali with the excuse of producing a charity event in a bid to sink his teeth into the fight game.
Now, I hope this could be the part where we say “the rest is history,” but King’s history-making run as a boxing promoter was still so much in its infancy that no one could have predicted what was coming.
Determined to kick the door on the way in, King set out to make his first big foray into boxing a big one. After promising both Foreman and Ali a once-in-a-lifetime multi-million-dollar purse for a fight that would take two of the baddest and meanest African American fighters of all time back to the motherland in an unforgettable night with the world as their audience, King set out to get the financing to fulfill his promise until he found it deep in the pockets of Zaire (current Congo) dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.
And yes, the rest is history.
Muhammad Ali strolls with Congolese dictator Joseph Mobutu two days before upsetting George Foreman.
The buildup: Somber, circumspect, unable to elicit or even exhibit a small portion of the smiles that he would be known for years later during his run as a circus-tent preacher, sitcom star and electric grill salesperson, George Foreman was the antithesis of the brash and loud Ali, who was already showing decline in his boxing abilities but whose promotional game was in his absolute prime. When Foreman exited the plane in Zaire walking his two German shepherds (the same dogs used by the Belgians during the cruel colonization of the country) and Ali stood atop of the staircase of his own plane waving to raucous crowd right on the tarmac, the winner of the entire pre-fight contest was already clear.
And then, there was a catchphrase…
Ali bomayé: We will never know who started it. But knowing Ali as the master of deception and self-promotion that he was, it was probably him. If it was indeed a spontaneous chant that grew in scope and loudness as the pre-fight buildup progressed, then so be it, and my apologies to anyone involved for thinking otherwise. But my gut tells me Ali came up with the idea, asked someone to translate it, initiated the chant with his fist in the air whenever he was surrounded by more than four people and didn’t stop until everyone around him was screaming those two or three words from the top of their lungs. And it is now amongst us to stay. Forever.
And, yes, it means “Ali… kill him!” In case you didn’t know that already.
The concert that never was: James Brown, Celia Cruz and the Fania All Stars, South African icon Miriam Makeba, The Spinners, The Crusaders, Bill Withers, B.B. King, Manu Dibango and many others. In lieu of a long undercard filled with fights no one wanted to see, the event was designed to begin with a three-night-long music festival featuring the greatest artists available in the vast African diaspora across all continents and languages to create the tapestry that would serve as background for the triumphant arrival of the greatest prize of all sports to the land of their ancestors. And it did happen, but not as intended. When George Foreman suffered a cut during sparring and the fight was postponed to Oct. 30, the artists who had already landed in Zaire ended up playing the concert that was later depicted in a separate documentary called “Soul Power”.
Ali presented with The Ring Magazine championship belt after dethroning Foreman. Photo from The Ring archive
The rope-a-dope: Mountains are there to be climbed since the beginning of time. But they begin to exist only after someone names them. Only then they become a challenge to be met or imitated. The idea of a fighter leaning back on the ropes in a shell guard receiving or dodging punches and waiting for his foe to get tired in order to launch a counteroffensive was probably around forever. But just as the dinosaurs and Mount Everest and the American continent, it didn’t enter the history books until someone slapped a name on it. Ali did, and it belongs to him now. Everyone else is just following on his footsteps.
The timing and the weather: Day and night, come rain or come shine. Those seem to be the prevalent options according to both the science of meteorology and the great American songbook. The Rumble in the Jungle covered all four of them. Yes. The fight began promptly at 4 AM in the morning in order to be broadcasted in primetime in the US, when it was still dark in the outdoor stadium where the clash took place. As the fight progressed, the sun rose in a magnificent African dawn that was as poetic as the result of the bout. And just as its rays hit the ring in time for the post-fight celebration, a few clouds gathered around and found a way to participate in the festivities by conjuring a brief but copious precipitation on the stadium.
The knockout: After eight rounds of getting Foreman tired and frustrated, Ali moved in for the kill. He had already either landed or practiced that off-the-ropes counter to catch Foreman coming in and then launch a counterattack by spinning on his heels. But this time it was particularly effective. The punching sequence has been described and repeated to exhaustion, but it is the swirling punch-drunk dance that Foreman did as he was going down to the canvas what has lived on in the memory of boxing fans worldwide. Foreman’s blank stare as he twirls and falls as if trying to find a soft spot to land remain one of the ultimate knockout highlights of all time.
The reach: It is said that US soldiers fighting in the Vietnam war asked for a temporary cease fire to watch the Ali-Frazier I fight back in 1971. For poetic reasons, it would have been great to have them repeat their request for this fight as well. The Rumble that out-rumbled the war in another Jungle, perhaps. It probably didn’t happen, but that doesn’t matter. As many as a billion people are estimated to have watched the fight live, in what became the most-watched live television program of all time at that moment.
Ali finishes George Foreman in Zaire. (Photo by Tony Triolo /Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)
The inspiration: A documentary called “When we were kings” earned an Oscar after being assembled and edited with archived material some 20 years after the fight. Some of the articles written about this fights helped their writers earn Pulitzers and other awards. The writer Norman Mailer penned one of the most enduring masterpieces of boxing literature in his essential work called “The Fight,” one of only a handful of books devoted entirely to one single fight. Even Hunter Thompson’s story of how he failed to deliver a story on the fight by the deadline to the Rolling Stone magazine became part of the fight’s long list of stories that ended up getting a life of their own.
The legacy: From the name to the “bomayé” catchphrase to the referee’s shirt in black-and-white stripes, every aspect of this fight became part of popular culture and remained there for a long time. Almost every one of the characteristics that made this fight unique have been repeated, reused, plagiarized and rekindled in every way possible. From the unique location to the months-long hyperbolic buildup, to the “creative sources of financing” and the use of sports as a way to temporarily whitewash a regime’s spotty human rights record and much more, the Rumble in the Jungle is a brand in itself, a name that needs no quotation marks or requires no introduction.
Everyone suspected that they were witnessing history when in the presence of Ali’s best moments, but this one was special even by those standards. With his glove extended towards press row and his mouth agape and his eyes wide open, Ali made it his business to scream “I told you so!!” to whoever would believe it, whether it was after his first title bout against Sonny Liston or after his clash with Foreman or whenever he was given the chance.
We should have believed him.
Fifty years after the fact, we really have no other choice.
Diego M. Morilla has been writing for The Ring since 2013. He has also written for HBO.com, ESPN.com and many other magazines, websites, newspapers and outlets since 1993. He is a full member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and an elector for the International Boxing Hall of Fame. He has won two first-place awards in the BWAA’s annual writing contest, and he is the moderator of The Ring’s Women’s Ratings Panel. He served as copy editor for the second era of The Ring en Español (2018-2020) and is currently a writer and editor for RingTV.com.
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