It was 4:30 in the morning when 32-year-old Muhammad Ali finally climbed through the ropes in the still-sweltering air of the 20th of May Stadium in Kinshasa, Zaire.
It was the final step in a seven-year odyssey to reclaim the heavyweight world championship having had his crown taken from him by forces outside the world of boxing. The monstrous George Foreman was now in possession of the belts and deemed the new king.
What is regarded as one of the best fights in history barely tells half the story. The journey to Rumble In The Jungle remains one of the most remarkable in boxing history and in a game where the line between sport and spectacle is so routinely blurred, it has still stood the test of time. 50 years on, its legacy is still felt.
looks back on how the fight represented something much more significant socially, culturally and politically, with former world champion Johnny Nelson recalling its impact on him and his own career as a Black British fighter in our exclusive interview.
The players
Ten years before events in Zaire – now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo – Ali ascended to the summit of heavyweight boxing, beating Sonny Liston inside six rounds to become world champion. Still known as Cassius Clay, that victory catapulted him into the stratosphere. Much more than a fighter, Ali was a voice for the oppressed, an irresistible entertainer and a true people’s champion.
But three years later, after nine title defences that took him across the US and twice to London, he was stripped of his world championship and banned from boxing for three years. Ali’s refusal to serve in the Vietnam War on religious grounds – a decision he was almost sent to jail for – derailed his career. He returned to the ring in 1971 but defeats to Joe Frazier and Ken Norton prompted questions whether his best days were behind him. But Ali avenged those losses and was back on track to reclaim the biggest prize again.
Amid all this, there was a new player in town. After winning gold in the 1968 Olympics, the gargantuan Foreman had set about knocking out everyone in his path with his formidable presence and destructive punching power redrawing the heavyweight division’s landscape. Frazier and Norton – the two men Ali lost to after his return to the sport – were both demolished by Foreman inside two rounds.
Between the two men was Don King. While he would become one of boxing’s most notorious and controversial figures, the small-time bookie turned promoter was relatively unknown at this stage. King, always a silver-tongued salesman, promised Ali and Foreman $5million each to get on board, sums that would see them eclipse the lifetime earnings of their contemporaries Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano. But there was one hitch in the plan; King did not have the money.
The setting
Instead, King found someone who did. That man was Mobutu Sese Seko, the despotic dictator who had seized power of Zaire nine years earlier in a bloody coup. Mobutu agreed to finance the fight, on the provision it took place in his country.
As expected, he kept a tight grip and his influence on proceedings was huge. Before christened the ‘The Rumble in the Jungle’, the fight was controversially billed as ‘From the Slave Ship to Championship’. The evocative and controversial sell was deemed to go too far after a public outcry. Unimpressed, Mobutu was said to have ordered all posters around the city to be torn down and destroyed.
Among the many verbal jabs Ali threw in the run up to the fight was a remark aimed at any reporters having the cheek to predict a win for Foreman. ’When you get to Africa, Mobutu’s people are gonna put you in a pot, cook you, and eat you’. Mobutu was not amused with the suggestion the locals were cannibals, not part of the modern image he had in mind for the nation.
Ali and Foreman were originally scheduled to fight on September 25 but five days before the opening bell, disaster struck when the champion was cut open by a stray elbow in a sparring session. The show was pushed back five weeks with both men ordered to remain in the country – blocked from leaving by Mobutu who feared if either man did head home, they would not return.
The fight
‘People thought Foreman would crucify Muhammad Ali. This was the young superstar who was destroying everyone around him. But Ali had already been the superstar. His skill made history that night.’
Back in the US, the fight was beamed into theatres across the country via closed-circuit television with its 4:30am start time in place to satisfy that American audience. Over the years, it has been claimed the television audience across the world was close to one billion – accounting for around a quarter of the world’s population at the time.
Ali was a wide outsider with the bookmakers; the ageing superstar up against a man in destructive form in Foreman. But Ali soaked up the best the beast had to offer and introduced perhaps boxing’s most infamous example of strategic improvisation to seize victory.
It was the night ‘rope-a-dope’ was born and unleashed to the world, with Ali parking himself on the ring ropes and sapping his rival’s energy before delivering a devastating counterattack in the eighth round. Floored with a vicious right hand and succumbing to fatigue, Foreman was flattened as Ali’s second world title coronation was completed on the home soil of his ancestors.
The legacy
Talk to any boxer from the last 50 years and invariably, the Rumble in the Jungle comes up. Be it through dusty old VHS tapes or YouTube clips, the fight has been dissected by generation after generation of fighters, each looking to glean something new or to soak up the sheer scale of it all over and over again.
Johnny Nelson counts himself among them. The former cruiserweight world champion was just seven years old at the time and as he began making his first trips down the gym in Sheffield to lace up a pair of gloves, it played a role in his own development as a fighter. But on a deeper level, it provided a glimpse of the enormous stage Black fighters could now make their own.
‘It made people like me want boxing to be my life,’ Nelson told ‘It put the sport on a completely different level and it inspired so many. Ask any fighter, regardless of where they were born, and he or she will be able to pull something from that fight that spoke to him or her. That is every single fighter out there.
‘To see two Black men in Zaire get the word’s attention like that was what dreams were made of.
‘Watching that as a young Black kid, you knew it could be done. “That is someone who looks like me. If they can do it, I can do it”. Before then, it wasn’t thought possible, to get to that level where the world stops and watches. But it was there in front of us. They showed there was a way. It was a precedent and for countless Black British fighters, this had a huge influence. The whole world was talking about it.’
Culturally, Rumble in the Jungle was a milestone. ‘History was being made and at the time we didn’t realise how much it was shaping our sport,’ Nelson continued. ‘Ali made boxing a worldwide sport and inspired generation after generation regarding how much they get paid and making them understand it is not about just being a good boxer but being a personality. Whether people like you or loathe you. Ali was the first to capture that.
‘Don King was at the heart of it. This razzle dazzle, this arrogance, trying to make it showbusiness. You were still fighting boxing snobbery and racism so for a Black promoter like King to come in and do such braggadocios things in such a politically sensitive country… it was scoffed at. The elites in the sport said it couldn’t be done. “Don’t trust this man”. There was a lot done to try and trip him up. Regardless of what you think of King, he set it up.’
Heavyweight boxing has remained the sport’s blue-riband division since those glory days. From the brilliant, absorbing chaos of the 90s led by Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis and its other ferocious contenders to Saudi Arabia’s modern-day quest to dominate the sport, there have been spectacular nights that have seen boxing become the only topic worth talking about.
But none have quite managed it like Rumble In the Jungle.
‘It is 50 years of influence,’ Nelson said. ‘They’ve made countless movies to try recreate what is was about. This bled through across society and culture across generations. There are certain things you remember and this is one of them. It was part of our history. And people don’t realise that until it’s gone.
‘Look at the big shows now. It is not just about putting bums on seats. It is about showbusiness. The story behind the show. There has got to be a reason for people to come and watch.
‘It doesn’t matter what your skill level is, you need that as part of it. There’s got to be something capturing the imagination. Today’s version of the sport has learned massive lessons. How to tell a story. We now know much money can be made. That has been the blueprint for everything since.’