Boxing · 1974 · Kinshasa, Zaire
The Rumble in the Jungle
Written off almost everywhere at 32, a former champion takes back the heavyweight title by out-thinking an unbeaten knockout artist a decade younger.
Ali def. Foreman, KO round 8
Result
40-0
Foreman record entering
~60,000
Attendance
George Foreman came to Kinshasa unbeaten in 40 fights. Both of the men who had beaten Muhammad Ali earlier in the decade, Joe Frazier and Ken Norton, had been taken apart by Foreman inside three rounds apiece, and most of the writers at ringside were working out how long Ali would last rather than whether he would win.
Ali's answer was something he had never tried before and only named afterwards: the 'rope-a-dope'. Round after round he lay back into the ropes with his arms up, taking Foreman's heaviest shots on his forearms and gloves instead of his body, and let the humid Kinshasa night work on a younger man's stamina.
By the eighth round Foreman had nothing left, and Ali came off the ropes to drop him with a combination that finished the fight. The bout had started at four in the morning local time to suit American television, which is part of why so much of it was filmed and photographed. That footage later became the Oscar-winning documentary 'When We Were Kings'.
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