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The Rumble in the Jungle - 40 years ago today - Tribute Thread


Len Cnut

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40 years ago today the great Muhammad Ali defeated George Foreman in Kinshasa Zaire, the former Belgian Congo, Muhammad Ali became the second man only (after Floyd Patterson) to regain the heavyweight championship against a man who was considered to be likely to be heavyweight champion for eternity (being as how he shook off Joe Frazier like drippings off the end of his dick). NOBODY gave Ali a chance, thats nobody. Even his own peoples deep down, pundits like Howard Cossell who loved him deeply, people like Hunter S Thompson, who was sent to cover the fight by Rolling Stone Magazine but instead opted to stay in his hotel, depressed, drinking til he passed out on one of those inflatable thingies in the pool, afraid to go to the Kinshasa Stadium and watch the great Muhammad Ali get decimated in front of thousands of people. Only a man like Ali could bring great writers like Norman Mailer, George Plimpton and the good Doctor out to the fights.

Fight took place in Zaire and was a HUGE thing, watched across the world, considered like a homecoming of sorts by the sons of Africa, a bunch of musicians went too to put on a huge concert, BB King, The Detroit Spinners, James Brown and many more.

There was a catharsis to it, Ali, 10 years on from Sonny Liston, faces ANOTHER Sonny Liston, where NO ONE gives him a chance...and guess what happened :)

The fight is a footnote in history, the fight was the making of Don King who approached George Foreman and Ali and offered them 5 million a piece (a fucking fortune in 1974) when he was a broke street hustler....and then went on to secure 10 million dollars from President Mobutu Sese Seko to bring the fight to Africa...hows that for a fuckin' hustlers nerve? :lol:

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David Frost can be heard upon the knockout shouting 'OH MY GOD, HE'S WON THE TITLE BACK AT 32!!!!!'

For as long as there are men walking this earth this fight will be remembered. It's nothing short of one of the most magnificent human dramas i have ever seen played out before me. Just breathtaking.

P.S. BB King played a particularly heartfelt rendition of 'Sweet Sixteen' in Kinshasa that, i think is one of the greatest live recorded bits of music here. Indeed, the King himself Mr Ali stood up and applauded at the end. Here it is:

The world is a crazy place where so little is certain...except for the fact that we'll never live to see another man like Muhammad Ali. Thanks champ.

Edited by Lennie Godber
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Even though Ali was the underdog, and hindsight is always 20/20, if these two fought 10 times, Ali would take 8 of them IMO. Why? Because George was to dumb at this point in his life to fight any other way. He wouldn't learn from his mistakes. I give him 2 out of 10 based upon the fact he might get 2 lucky shots in and win. But the other 8, he'd get roped as a dope.

That's better than I'd give Liston though. If Ali and him fought 10 times, Ali takes all 10. I don't see any scenrio where Liston beats Ali, I just don't.

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I agree but apparently you couldn't convince no one at the time, people literally feared for his safety, men that loved him, like i mentioned before Cossell, Hunter Thompson, these guys worshipped Ali (or Thompson did at least, Howard had a great deal of affection for him too), people literally thought he would get killed, Gene Kilroy talks about working out which hospitals were the best for when Ali got flattened. People thought that with his heart and his guts he would not've stayed down and George was just gonna destroy him.

Norman Mailer tells the story of being back at Ali's dressing room, which was always a party, like his training camps were, always lively, always fun, always electric and this time it was sombre as a grave on the part of all except Ali, instead of them lifting Ali's spirits he was theirs :lol: At one point he turned around like 'what his the MATTER with all of you?!?' before getting a chant going with Bundini (one of my favorite characters in the Ali tale).

Gene Kilroy was sent from Ali's corner to watch Foremans hands being wrapped and was just scared to death, at which point Foreman sneered at him 'tell him in an hours time his kids are gonna be headed for the fuckin' orphanage'. Kilroy went back and relayed this message to Ali who just chuckled like 'I can't wait to get him!'

Edited by Lennie Godber
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http://store.lancasterltd.com/category_s/63.htm

Might be a little pricey for some, but some cool Ali shirts (among others). Just bought one of the Tyson tees myself. Trying to decide on one of the Ali shirts.

Adidas did a great one based on Ali's cornermens shirt? It's brilliant if you can find one, it's kinda like...i dunno, i ain't a fuckin' tailor but it feels like a towel, whatever that fuckin' matierials called, i can only find pics of it on Liam Gallagher so excuse the big sneering Manchunian ape, won't you ? :D

AdidasMuhammadAliLiamGallagerRare.jpg

AdidasMuhammadAliLiam3.jpg

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It's stunning how ruthlessly he struck when he finally decided the right opening was there. Foreman had no clue what hit him.

Not only that but the way he didn't like...Foreman fell quite spectacularly, he kinda almost circled Ali as he dropped and Ali had that hand cocked but it shows the sportsmanship and the fairness of the man, anyone else would've hit em 2 or 3 more times on the way down but he didn't, just let him spin and fall. He was asked after and he said something like 'he'd had enough'.

And it worked out beautifully because the asthetic quality of this gargantuan man falling was kind of preserved by Ali's just letting gravity do the work for him, it was really was majestic.

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Indeed, the whole fucking world really did stop to watch that fight, it was just massive. I think it was Thomas Hauser that said it was the one moment in the history of athletics where most of the fuckin' world was in on it. I remember watching an episode of Til Death Us Do Part (old English TV show) that was based around The Foreman Ali fight, the entire episode was them trying to avoid the news and radio so as to be able to catch the fight (cuz it was broadcast here after the fight happened).

The audience reactions themselves are astounding. There's a wonderful documentary about it thats also up on youtube that got a big theatrical release in 1997 called When We Were Kings, which is an amazing document of the time and the lead up to the fight etc.

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It's stunning how ruthlessly he struck when he finally decided the right opening was there. Foreman had no clue what hit him.

Not only that but the way he didn't like...Foreman fell quite spectacularly, he kinda almost circled Ali as he dropped and Ali had that hand cocked but it shows the sportsmanship and the fairness of the man, anyone else would've hit em 2 or 3 more times on the way down but he didn't, just let him spin and fall. He was asked after and he said something like 'he'd had enough'.

And it worked out beautifully because the asthetic quality of this gargantuan man falling was kind of preserved by Ali's just letting gravity do the work for him, it was really was majestic.

Have you seen the ESPN film on his prep for the Larry Holmes fight? It almost seemed like he was planning on exploding in that fight at some point, but he was just too old/slow to pull it off that last time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vjgs6LfewbM

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There's a story behind that too, apparently Ali was going through some weird shit at the time, like he had some Thyroid thing and he was on some pills that dehydrated him. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Ali was gonna pull an upset there but i do think there is some credence to that story. They say he wasn't sweating or something, like bone dry. And he did put up a better fight against Trevor Berbick a couple of years later. Who knows.

Larry, funnily enough, was Ali's sparring partner for the Foreman fight, he was deliberately chosen as such cuz he was a banger and a big guy, although not exactly lumbering like Foreman was. Ali would lay back on the ropes and let this fucker pound him, to the onlooking press folks it was like Ali was fucked even before the fight and probably looked like he was ready to get sunk but he was kinda training his body to recieve punishment...I guess?

People make a whole lot of Ali losing his legs and then developing this shit but the truth is he was developing it as early as before the whole draft bullshit, right the way back when he fought George Chuvalo, there are entire sections of that fight where he is revealing one side of his body to Chuvalo (one of your countrymen i believe :) Should be proud, very good guy) and opening his side up and Chuvalo was POUNDING the fuck out of him and Ali's just inviting him in, he was developing this shit very early on.

Chuvalo was wonderful, absolute tank of a man, totally undroppable, like a young Canadian Rocky Marciano, was being groomed for greatness at one point, Ali called him 'the washer woman'. Lived a rough life by all accounts, lost two sons to heroin then his wife committed suicide. Sad.

Edited by Lennie Godber
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Yes Len we love Chuvalo here. Fought him twice and lasted all the way to a decision both times. I don't think either was particularly close fights, but Ali whooped a lot more people a lot worse.

Good to hear, i really love George Chuvalo in every way, seems a total gentleman when he talks and he was a really solid hardcase stand up guy kinda fighter. There's a good documentary on that too if you ever feel like checking it out:

You couldn't drop Chuvalo with a fucking cannon, the man was all heart :)

That from 10 secs on is what I'm talking about, he's just opening his body up to Chuvalo and just inviting him to just pound him...on purpose. It's something he'd been cultivating for a while by the Foreman fight, his ability to take a dig, particularly to the body. You can actually see him there encouraging Chuvalo to lean into him. And Chuvalo was a pure banger.

Edited by Lennie Godber
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Past his prime suggests a lacking in performance, in an immediate physical sense certain attributes were gone but the rest he had was enough to tower over the boxing world or rather the heavyweight division so, i dunno, past his prime is kinda overstatement, id say after The Thrilla in Manilla he was past his prime but i do see what you mean.

His best was when he was fighting Cleveland Williams, Ernie Terrell, the first Floyd Patterson fight, Zora Foley, George Chuvalo the first time.

Ali vs Cleveland Williams was the most beautiful boxing performance I've ever seen. Insiders will tell you that Williams was a shot fighter (having actually been shot 18 months or so earlier) but dont you believe it, this kid went life and death with Sonny Liston, he weren't no kinda slouch.

I dunno about the rope-a-dope being copied either, who did that?

Edited by Lennie Godber
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Williams was shot though.

I rate the Terrell fight better. And the Liston one as well.

The Foreman fight, it just grates on me the amount of times its mentioned, books, docus etc, OK it was an epic fight, an excellent fight with great use of tactics, but fuck me they don't half go on about it

There were issues about Foremans stamina back then, it wasn't like it was some unknown thing. ali got the tactics spot on

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Wonder what fights in the last 20 years could be recalled as legendary in another 20.

Obviously you got Gatti vs Ward, Castillo vs Corrales, Pacquiao vs Marquez 1, 2 and 4, Bradley vs Provodnikov... not many of the 'significant' fights will make the grade for longevity imo but that's boxing, you can have barnburners where the only thing at stake is smashing the shit out of the slugger put infront of you, beauty of matchmaking. I thought the Super Six was a nice idea and there were some good match ups, Ward was always gonna win it though. Just imagining a 'league' system of boxing or some shit, I know you got the rise up the rankings to mandatory status but would it harm or hurt it. Boxing's doing alright but we're lacking something at the top, Mayweather will never entice the blood sweat n' tears interwoven in the sport's history, Pacman's coming to the end and ain't knocked anyone out for years, Cotto lacks the elite skill to dismantle anyone who needs knocking off, Klitschko is too dominant for the opponents to make anything, Golovkin and Kovalev have the goods... Canelo is supposedly the crossover star but he hasn't been in a true classic yet... De La Hoya was exciting, his fights against Vargas, Mosley and Trinidad were high quality but he didn't win enough of his big fights.


Mayweather, Klitschko, Ward, three clear pound for pounds but how will they be remembered? Froch will reach the Tyson pedestal imo, nowhere near as high but he'll be up there, might even surpass Calazaghe's spot despite two different sets of achievements.

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