In 1974, the heavyweight boxing match in Zaire combined music, sports and culture to create a world event
“You think the world was shocked when Nixon resigned? Wait until I whup George Foreman’s behind.” — Muhammad Ali
Many events throughout history have captivated sports, but none garnered such worldwide attention as the heavyweight boxing championship bout between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman 50 years ago in Kinshasa, Zaire.
The spectacle on Oct. 30, 1974, oozed with symbolism and Black Power never seen before in sports. Not only were the combatants Black — and would make the biggest purse in boxing history at that time — but the face of the promotion was an ex-con named Don King, who would become one of the premier boxing promoters of the 20th century. The bout was also the first heavyweight championship fight in Africa, with a concert festival with musical legends in the lineup leading up to the fight.
While not the official title, the bout became known as The Rumble in the Jungle, created by Ali while he was training in front of reporters. The conclusion of the fight was the beginning of the end of Foreman’s first run as a fighter, and the victory helped cement Ali’s legacy as one of the greatest boxers of all time.
But staging the heavyweight title had its challenges, including a few glitches to overcome leading up to the fight.
In 1974, the same year President Richard Nixon resigned from office ahead of certain impeachment, Ali was seven years removed from the stripping of the world heavyweight title and the suspension of his boxing license after he refused to be inducted into the Vietnam War. In 1971, he had lost “The Fight of the Century” in a unanimous decision against Joe Frazier. Ali avenged his loss to Frazier and a loss to Ken Norton, leading up to his fight with Foreman.
Foreman won the heavyweight gold medal in the Olympics in 1968. He was 40-0 with 37 knockouts in 1974. Two fighters who defeated Ali were destroyed by Foreman – Frazier in January 1973 and Norton several months later in March.
Shortly before Foreman’s second-round TKO of Norton in Caracas, Venezuela, King convinced Foreman and Ali to sign contacts for a fight in the fall. King, hired by Hank Schwartz, owner of Video Techniques, a closed-circuit broadcast company, promised each fighter $5 million, double the amount Ali and Frazier each were paid in their fight in 1971.
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| A fight ticket for Ali vs. Foreman, originally scheduled for Sept. 25, 1974.CHRISTIE’S IMAGES |
Despite the promise, King and Schwartz didn’t initially have the money or a fight location. That changed when an introduction led them to dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire’s president, who fronted the money. He allowed the fight to take place in his country because he wanted to spread his and Zaire’s name around the world. This was the same Mobutu who, once backed by Belgium and the United States, ordered the arrest of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of Democratic Republic of the Congo, then known as the Republic of the Congo, and handed him over to Belgian and secessionist forces. Lumumba was murdered by those forces in 1961.
“Mobutu Sese Seko used money that he robbed from his country,” Bill Caplan, Foreman’s publicist, said. “The country was mineral-rich, and Mobutu had millions of dollars in a Swiss bank account.”
With contracts signed, the fight was scheduled for Sept. 25 at 3 a.m. (10 p.m. ET) to accommodate closed-circuit audiences in the United States. And it was announced that a three-day music festival, Zaire 74, would take place leading up to the fight. Conceived by record producer Stewart Levine and South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela, the concert featured 31 acts from Africa and the United States, such as James Brown, The Spinners, Sister Sledge, B.B. King, Bill Withers and The Crusaders.
“Stewart and Masekela partnered together and spent a lot of time understanding and recording African music,” Gary Stromberg, who was responsible for public relations for the festival, said. “When the fight was announced, it just felt like a natural thing to put on a music event to really make it a world event.”
Ali and Foreman arrived in Africa several weeks before their scheduled fight to train and to get acclimated to the climate. When Foreman arrived, he was greeted by a crowd yelling, “Welcome home, brother!” Ali received a similar reception. The crowd also sparked an idea. Jerry Izenberg, who covered the fight for the Newark Star-Ledger, said Ali had a question for his group.
“Ali wanted to know who the [Congolese] disliked, and he was told the Belgians because they had once colonized the country,” said Izenberg, author of Once There Were Giants: The Golden Age of Heavyweight Boxing. “So, Ali holds up his hands like the pope and everything gets quiet, and he says, ‘George Foreman is Belgian.’ The crowd immediately starts yelling, ‘Ali, bomaye’ [Ali, kill him].”
Unlike Foreman, the 4-1 underdog Ali embraced the culture and the moment. While Foreman stayed in seclusion, Ali attended news conferences and mingled with fans. Foreman struggled with the conditions of the country. Many residents were poor under Mobutu’s reign. People would overload public transportation vehicles by hanging on rooftops and outside of the vehicles.
“People would sit outside at night in a lit area where the light would attract these giant moths, and they’d snatch those moths out of the air and eat them,” Caplan said. “That was quite a sight.”
But there were times when Foreman was encouraged to make public appearances, especially when it came to dinner offered to both fight camps by Mobutu. Foreman probably wished he had stayed back at his hotel.
“We were served this strange dish,” Caplan said. “They called [the dish] the cousins. ‘You ate cousins tonight.’ They were monkeys. It was monkey meat. It reminded you of beef, but stringy.”
Since I ran, trained, and sparred with Ali, I was confident he’d win. George was big and strong, but I knew Ali would wait for him and counterpunch him. No matter what, I believed Ali would figure him out.”
— Larry Holmes
And if matters couldn’t get worse, Foreman suffered a cut above his right eye while sparring nine days before the fight, which forced a postponement. At the time, no one knew for how long. Until that was determined, Mobutu wouldn’t allow either fighter to leave the country because he feared no one would return. The bout was rescheduled for 4 a.m. on Oct. 30.
The concert dates, however, weren’t moved because many of the artists could not afford to stay for the additional weeks due to commitments back in the States. But the first day of the festival had a few second-guessing because of the sparse turnout.
“We were very disappointed, and we couldn’t understand why nobody came,” Stromberg said. “We learned that people lived in dire fear of Mobutu, and they weren’t aware if he had given his blessing to our concert. Without that, they wouldn’t dare show up. Once one of our representatives talked to him, he gave his blessings, and the stadium was packed for the next two days.”
And the packed stadium and music became an even bigger blessing for the musicians, especially for Nesbert “Stix” Hooper of The Crusaders.
“It was very emotional being in Africa for the first time and sharing the stage with so many great legendary artists,” Hooper said. “It was also special to meet Ali, an iconic figure, who appreciated the music and who represented the Black community with such respectability around the world.”
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| Defending world champion George Foreman (left) hits Muhammad Ali (right) with a left jab during the WBA/WBC championship bout in Kinshasa, Zaire, on Oct. 30, 1974. BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES |
Despite Foreman’s cut, Ali remained a decided underdog at 4-1. Many considered Ali an aging fighter at 32. Foreman, 25, destroyed two opponents who defeated Ali, and Foreman had one of the greatest knockout percentages in history. Broadcaster Howard Cosell, along with many of the reporters who attended the fight, picked Foreman to win convincingly. There were even doubts in Ali’s camp.
But Ali’s sparring partner Larry Holmes, who would become world heavyweight champion four years later in 1978, thought otherwise.
“Since I ran, trained, and sparred with Ali, I was confident he’d win,” Holmes said. “George was big and strong, but I knew Ali would wait for him and counterpunch him. No matter what, I believed Ali would figure him out.”
The fight was the world’s most-watched live television broadcast at the time, with a reported 1 billion viewers worldwide. NFL great Jim Brown, boxing legend Joe Frazier, and English journalist David Frost were commentators for the closed-circuit broadcast.
Shortly after Ali and Foreman entered the ring, and while the referee explained the rules (as Ali taunted Foreman), the bell rang for Round 1. And, surprisingly, after bragging about how he would dance against Foreman, Ali met him flat-footed in the center of the ring and connected with consecutive right leads, which is an insult to an opponent. It takes longer for a right-hand lead to reach its target, which should give a fighter time to move out of the way, but not Foreman. Thirty seconds into the round, Ali moved to the corner in a defensive posture. He blocked shots and avoided punches by leaning against the ropes. Ali fought like this for the next two rounds, flat-footed, and fighting off the ropes, despite cries from his corner to move.
It was much of the same in the third and fourth rounds, but this time Ali grabbed Foreman around the neck and pulled him down to tire him out, similar to what he did to Frazier in their first fight. The pattern was clear by the sixth round. Foreman started to tire himself out after consistently throwing wild punches. Ali conserved his energy until he picked his spots to pour it on. Ali’s “rope-a-dope” strategy was born.
Ali started to pour it on in the sixth round with three crisp jabs to Foreman’s head. He rested on the ropes in the middle of the round. He went back to the ropes in the seventh round and attacked Foreman in the later part of the round, ending with a right cross that knocked the sweat off Foreman’s head.
In the eighth round, a desperate Foreman came out swinging wild punches that mostly missed. With less than 30 seconds left in the round, Ali went to work. A left, right and a left knocked Foreman off balance. Ali stepped in with a shot to the head that sent Foreman spinning before he tumbled to the canvas. He was counted out, and Ali became the second fighter to regain the heavyweight title for the second time.
Shortly after the fight, Foreman talked about his water being drugged; the ropes being too loose, which helped Ali lean away from his punches; and a quick count by the referee. He changed his tune in the 1989 documentary Champions Forever.
“Everybody needs an excuse,” Foreman said in the documentary. “I couldn’t live with myself without an excuse. I blamed it on the ropes, I blamed it on everything. That [loss] devastated me.”
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| Challenger Muhammad Ali (right) raises his arms in victory after George Foreman (left) is counted out by referee Zack Clayton, ending the WBA/WBC championship bout in Kinshasa, Zaire, on Oct. 30, 1974. AP PHOTO, FILE |
It took some time, but Foreman recovered from the defeat. He fought four more years, until 1978, before retiring. After a 10-year layoff, he returned in 1988 and became the oldest heavyweight champion at 45, 20 years after losing the title to Ali.
The victory was a monumental lift for Ali and his legend. It happened 10 years after he won the title over Sonny Liston in 1964. Ali was a champion once again. And, 50 years later, his moment in history remains inspiring.
“Boxing had a lot of exciting moments, but this fight is what it did for the people,” Izenberg said. “It’s what Ali’s victory did for the guy who was supposed to get promoted to foreman at the shop, got appendicitis, missed out, but he recovered and came back. It’s what Ali’s victory did for the kid struggling in college, but he sticks it out, finishes and gets his degree. It was a fight for underdogs, and that’s when Ali was at his best.”
Several events will take place this week in Kinshasa to celebrate the Rumble in the Jungle. One includes Fight for Peace (Arts Envoy), a cultural project initiated by the U.S. Embassy, and a Rumble in the Jungle 8K Peace Run.
“Celebrating this event not only honors the memory of this iconic sporting and cultural moment, but it also reminds us of the city’s importance in global history, particularly in the context of the fight against racial segregation and the emancipation of Black people,” said David Midesso Scheby, a cultural operator and U.S. Embassy grantee. “It also serves to pass on these values to the new generations and strengthen national pride.”
- Branson Wright
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Branson Wright is a filmmaker and freelance multimedia sports reporter.
