I’m the last British reporter alive who was at Rumble in the Jungle… it was the most bizarre 10 days of my life
TODAY is the 50th anniversary of the Rumble in the Jungle, when Muhammad Ali confirmed his immortality by knocking out George Foreman to regain the world heavyweight championship.
That fabulous, mind-blowing fight that took place before an African dawn broke over Kinshasa has been described as the greatest sporting event of the 20th Century.
Sadly, I’m the only British journalist who was at ringside that night who is still alive to tell the tale of what occurred before, during and after that epic battle where heroic Ali plotted his greatest triumph and Foreman met his Waterloo.
It may have happened half a century ago but it’s a fair bet if you should mention the Rumble in the Jungle from Angola to Zanzibar, most people will know what you are talking about.
Unquestionably it is the most written and talked about contest ever and the saga for me actually began nine months before in Caracas, when there was a press conference on the eve of Foreman’s title defence against Ken Norton.
It was chaired by a strange-looking and very loud American promoter, whose hair was standing straight up as if he’d been scared out of his wits at seeing a ghost. It was my first introduction to Don King.
King announced Foreman would be making his third defence against Ali in an open-air stadium in Kinshasa, Zaire — the first bell would sound at 4am and the two men would each be paid $5million.
He also explained that Zaire’s President Mobutu Sese Seko was putting up the money — the idea was to attract tourism to his country and for Ali and Foreman to return to their African roots.
I found it difficult not to laugh out loud at the absurdity of it. George took less than two rounds to dispose of Norton and, come the autumn, I was in Kinshasa about to experience the most bizarre ten days of my working life.
Mobutu was probably the most terrifying, murderous dictator who ever ruled a nation on the African continent — and with Uganda’s Idi Amin as a rival, that is saying something.
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His presence was all-pervading — giant photographs of him were on every street corner and, when the local TV station was turned on in the evening, the opening three hours were devoted to his speeches.
The Zairians were scared to death of him, with good reason. Soon after he came to power, he had the Prime Minister and three cabinet ministers publicly hanged in front of a 50,000 crowd.
When we were given a tour of the 20th of May Stadium where the fight took place, we came across a wall pock-marked by dozens of holes.
We asked Tishimpupu Wa Tishimpupu, the Minister of Publicity, how the holes came to be there and he told us matter-of-factly that was where Mobutu had dissidents and coup plotters executed by firing squad.
To say communications between Kinshasa and London were difficult is an under-statement. Nobody could get telephone calls to their offices and, during the build-up to the fight, stories had to be sent by telex.
The problem was many telex-operators used to disappear to have a sleep. The foreign press complained to Tishimpupu, who sent our displeasure on to Mobutu himself.
The President’s unequivocal edict to the workers was “the next telex operator who is found asleep when he should be on duty will be shot”.
They knew he meant it and it had the required effect. From that moment, they were beavering away non-stop.
Frustratingly, the trouble was many messages ended up at the wrong address. The Times correspondent, Neil Allen, sent a 2,000-word fight preview which was somehow found spewing out of a machine in a Cambridgeshire woodyard’s office.
Such was the magnitude of the Ali-Foreman clash around the globe, three of America’s literary giants — Norman Mailer, Budd Schulberg and George Plimpton — were there to cover it for various high-class publications in the States.
They were all extremely famous award-winning authors but just as enthusiastic fight fans as the regulars at York Hall — drinking with them most evenings in the casino bar and talking boxing was another unforgettable experience.
There couldn’t have been a greater contrast between Ali and Foreman — Beauty and the Beast perhaps sums them up best.
Ali, being his usual garrulous self, was adored wherever he went from the moment he set foot in Zaire. He was worshipped by the entire population.
His training camp was at N’Sele, 30 miles from Kinshasa, and thousands of men, women and children would come out of the bush to line the road and wait for hours just to get a glimpse of him as he was driven to the capital.
Foreman at 25 wasn’t the smiling carefree giant who resembles a benign Buddha that we see today. He was surly, extremely bad tempered and far from lovable.
Having won 37 of his 40 fights by knockout — his fists were like two wrecking balls and menace seemed to ooze from every pore — he made Sonny Liston look like a soft, cuddly teddy bear.
Ali at 32 was far from the first flush of youth. Hardened veterans who had been connected to boxing all their lives were among many who genuinely feared for his health and safety.
It was even seriously suggested The Greatest was likely to be bludgeoned into A&E or even worse by the time Foreman had finished his demolition job on him.
As they made the long walk from the dressing room to the ring the exotic setting was perfect for Ali, with throbbing tribal drums and 60,000 frenzied fans chanting “Ali, Boma ye” — Ali, kill him.
Having been close to the action and seen the film of the fight many times since, I still shake my head in disbelief that Ali allowed one of the most powerful men who ever laced on the gloves to punch himself out on his body.
Tactics that appeared suicidal and had his trainer Angelo Dundee going mental.
Medals are usually handed out on battlefields for that kind of calculated bravery.
The end came for the utterly exhausted and demoralised Foreman in the eighth round, when a five-punch combination sent him spinning to the canvas to be counted out.
Ali had defied logic by winning back the crown he first held ten years before. I had a gut-feeling Big George lacked stamina, which is why in SunSport I picked Ali to beat him in nine rounds.
My Fleet Street colleagues, who to a man had gone for Foreman, thought I’d taken leave of my senses.
As Foreman, bewildered and broken, was being led back to his corner, I shamefully behaved unprofessionally by leaping out of my seat and punched the air.
Like Ali, I was elated at being proved right against all the odds.
But I was quickly brought down to earth when I got a cable from my sports editor — the incomparable Frank Nicklin — which said “Why wrong round?”.
A heartbroken Foreman summed up his defeat, saying: “I felt totally empty. I hadn’t just lost the title, I’d lost what defined me as a man. I felt as if my core had evaporated.”
I know George well enough to realise he has never fully got over being humiliated by Ali, despite ending up friends with his rival.
And I wouldn’t be surprised when the 100th anniversary of the Rumble in the Jungle comes around that boxing fans will be just as eager to find out what went on at the sport’s most surreal and historic episode.