The history of the Heavyweight Championship - 1974

It was a year of quite ridiculous extremes in fights for the heavyweight championship of the world – there were exotic stops in Venezuela and Zaire – and the world watched a very special fight in late October, one that nobody will ever forget.

The Rumble in the Jungle is boxing’s most famous fight.

George Foreman was the heavyweight champion at the start of 1974 – scary and unbeaten. Men in the boxing business marvelled at his power, his brute strength. Big George carried fear, expected his opponents to fall … and he was right, they did.

Foreman summed it up perfectly: “Even when I look bad, I am hurting people, even when I, miss they suffer.” In 1973 he had not missed too often and had dropped and beaten Joe Frazier to win the title – Frazier was knocked down six times and once was actually lifted off his feet. It is a disturbing image, iron-jawed Smokin’ Joe being bounced all over the ring.

There was a genuine feeling that nobody could beat Foreman at that time… that he was some type of new giant of the sport. Everybody then – and still now – talks about Big George…Big George like he is some type of monster. Oddly, Foreman’s dimensions are, by modern standards of the heavyweight division, not that impressive: He was 6.3 and weighed just 15.7 when he beat Frazier.

Sure, that’s taller than Mike Tyson, two inches shorter than Lennox Lewis and over two stone lighter than Anthony Joshua.

Mark Kram, the American writer and author, did see a bit of caution in the destruction:

“George had a fatal love affair with his strength and punch.” It was an understandable obsession – and a flaw.

In March, Foreman made his second defence of the heavyweight title when he travelled to Caracas, Venezuela, to fight Kenny Norton. In 1973 Norton had beaten and then lost to Ali – both fights ending in tight, split decisions.

Muhammad Ali was in Caracas, ringside and baiting everybody. Ali and Foreman already had a deal in place to fight that September in Zaire for the title. Ali announced it before the live broadcast of the fight started, dropped it in a few seconds before the first bell. The fight in Zaire would be called The Rumble in the Jungle…but, first …Foreman had to beat Norton and that was, according to Ali, not simple:

“People still don’t recognise George,” said Ali at ringside. “I predict an upset – Kenny Norton winning by late knockout. He will whup this chump.”

It was not the universal view. Hughie McIlvanney of the Observer had taken a long, detailed and hard look at the two fighters in Caracas before making his considered observations – McIlvanney’s microscope was not taken lightly:

“One sudden, demolishing intervention by Foreman, one clubbing swing of a right arm so powerful it is almost obscene, may consign Norton’s skills, strategies and dreams to oblivion.”

Norton knew how dangerous his Caracas job was – he was not a fool:

“If one of his big punches even half-catches you, you are in trouble.”

But Norton also had sound reasoning – he was not there as a sacrifice:

“I fought Muhammad Ali twice, broke his jaw and I think I won both fights. How can Foreman psyche me?”

Norton also had a plan if Foreman tried to push him and shove him – Foreman had dismissed Frazier, moved him about the ring like that father, the one you suspect is secretly a bully, playing with a small child.

Norton wanted respect: If not …“I will hit him in the testicles.” It was all part of a fantasy, a crazy delusional mistake.

The first round is terrific. Foreman does land and Norton takes the shots. Norton catches Foreman. It is explosive.

It is all over in round two – and it is a blur, a confusing blur of violence. Norton is clipped, by a right and left hook and right uppercut and bounces into the ropes and as he comes back upright, Foreman whacks him again. It was not illegal, just instinctive. The referee gives an eight count – you see, if the ropes had not been there… then Norton would have been on his back.

Norton is running out of time. He is dropped into the ropes again, same thing, but the ref does not count. He just breaks the pair up. Norton had no idea where he was at that moment, but he tries to stand and land his own punches. Foreman connects with four punches – all clean and sickening – the last, a left hook – down goes Norton heavily. They are the punches that boxing fools think they can avoid.

Norton beats the count – just… stumbles in his own corner as his trainers get up and call it off. Foreman has left the neutral corner to hover less than two-feet from Norton. Is he there to continue hitting Norton or to offer comfort? It’s hard to tell.

The fight is over at exactly two mins of round two.

Foreman was beaming: “I think I am just blessed. I hit a guy and it is magic. You see him crumbling to the floor. God has given me these gifts.”

Foreman had knocked out Joe Frazier in two rounds and Kenny Norton in two rounds – Foreman had beaten the two men who beat Ali. He didn’t just beat them – he destroyed them.

Nobody is laughing at the prospect of Ali fighting Foreman.

McIlvanney, again… this time in the aftermath of Norton’s awful defeat:

“The vast arms often brush contemptuously through efforts at parrying defence. That ability to destroy from a distance will be an immediate threat to Ali.”

Before the first bell sounds in Zaire for the Rumble in the Jungle, the obits for Ali’s boxing career – and even his life – are everywhere: Big Hughie might have just set the ball rolling.

However, on that brief and exhilarating night in Caracas, Ali takes a second and has his say:

“Sure, Foreman is a killer if you stand and let him beat you to death. But who is crazy enough to think Muhammad will do that?”

The problem is, Norton was not standing there – he was moving, moving well, covering up, connecting with good punches and still… well, Foreman cut him down like an axe chopping through a watermelon.

The Rumble in the Jungle was officially announced the next day. Five million dollars each, the deal had been put together by Don King. The clock was ticking.

The original date for the fight was September 25th, but eight days before that, Foreman was cut above his right eye in sparring. The fight was not off – but Foreman and Ali wanted to leave Zaire’s capital, Kinshasa – the fight was simply put back until October 30th.

Everybody in the Ali camp knew that if Foreman left… he was not coming back. Africa was taking a toll on both of them and it had been a long, long journey even before the delay.

In New York before leaving, Ali had threatened journalists with the cooking pot in Africa if they continued to doubt him. The Zairean president, Mobutu Sese Seko, was not happy and had one of his lackeys call up Ali and tell him: “We are not cannibals.” It was all part of the Rumble story.

Then in Africa, there was another slip from Ali when he said that he was not impressed with the African woman, apparently they were too dark – another apology was issued. However, there was no shortage of female drama for Ali in Zaire during his nearly sixty days there. Ali and women, the stories are hard to invent.

His wife Belinda attacked him one afternoon, scratching his face. She was very upset at the presence of teenage Veronica Porche, part of the publicity team. Porche was fast enough to scarper when Belinda went for Ali. Belinda was then seen in the African city with a Foreman badge on her blouse. Foreman, meanwhile, had vowed to be celibate for 75 days.

When Ali arrived in Africa he told the hundreds at the airport that Big George was a Belgian. It was Gene Kilroy’s idea. The Belgians had ruled in the Congo until Zaire’s independence. When Foreman arrived he came off the plane with his German shepherd, Daggo. The Belgians had used the same dogs as a weapon of oppression. Ali owned Africa long before the night of the fight.

As the reconvened fight approached, the fear for Ali’s safety intensified:

“Sooner or later the champion will land one of his sledgehammer punches, and for the first time in his career, Muhammad Ali will be counted out. That could happen in the very first round.” Dave Anderson, New York Times.

“He doesn’t fight you, he mugs you. His fights are as one-sided as a shark bite. Whatever he hits, clots.” Jim Murray, Los Angeles Times.

“George is the first I been with in the ring I know can kill you.” Eddie Bossman Jones, former Foreman sparring partner and poached to work with Ali for the fight.

“I was praying, in great sincerity, that George wouldn’t kill Ali. I really felt that was a possibility.” Archie Moore, one of Foreman’s trainers.

On the night, Kilroy, who was Ali’s great facilitator and friend, went to Foreman’s changing room to watch the champion’s bandages being applied. Kilroy went back to Ali, trying to be upbeat, but knowing his face would reveal the fear that even he felt. His heart, Gene, would tell me was heavy.

Ali asked him what had they had been saying. Kilroy said that Archie Moore was repeating …. “I smell death in the air…” Ali took that in for a second…. and then jumped up, throwing punches. He put together a shuffle or two. His eyes alive again, the men at his side, men that had been there through the hell, through the exile, through the terrible conflicts and through the pain of the Frazier defeat – men both loyal and committed to Ali – started to come alive, to believe. They started to forget their fears. “Rumble young man, rumble” … Bundini Brown hollered. The room had been transformed… the dream was back on, the miracle was there. And the call to walk came. Ali with the men that loved him all walked to their destiny. To a fight that the world will never forget on a night of drama the world will never see again.

Ali had said:

“Only a man who knows what it is to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.”

Ali was about to travel to the very bottom of his soul.

“Ali, bomaye.” The crowd of 66,000 chanted. It meant – Ali, kill him.

The crowd cheered each Ali jab, you can hear it. Ali was on his toes, as expected, for a round… but then went to the ropes. Angelo Dundee and the team in the corner screamed for him to move off the ropes. Some in the team were crying. “I felt sick when he went to the ropes,” admitted Dundee. It was certainly not part of the plan.

Ali explained how it happened later and insisted that he had not entered that ring on that momentous night with a plan to sit on the ropes and block punches:

“I couldn’t dance all night – I decided between rounds what I had to do.”

It was dubbed… rope-a-dope. But it was in reality the biggest risk any fighter could ever take against a man with Foreman’s power.

But, by the end of round six – the fight was poised – Foreman was slowing down, walking through treacle in the 80-degrees of an African dawn. Ali kept throwing the stiff jab, Foreman kept standing right in front of him and whacking away at body, head, arms… Ali kept on talking and taunting. By the start of round eight… a miracle was in the air. It had been ten years since Ali had pulled off his first boxing miracle when he had beat Sonny Liston to win the world heavyweight championship. Ten long and often lonely years, but he had transformed the sport – he was sport’s biggest attraction. And, here in the African night, he would show the world why he was The Greatest.

With about 18 seconds left in round eight … Muhammad Ali did the impossible, the unimaginable and knocked out the invincible George Foreman.

Foreman was caught and reeled, and started to fall… resisting the end like the proud man he was … and Ali swivelled like a ballerina as Foreman twisted, lost his feet, stumbled and started to drop in hefty, resigned, beaten instalments – Ali had his right hand ready to land one more punch at any time if Foreman somehow defied gravity and remained on his feet. Foreman hits the canvas with eleven seconds left in round eight. He struggles up, just failing to beat the count of ten. The fight is over – Ali is the new heavyweight champion of the world and has won the Rumble in the Jungle and is the greatest boxer of all time.

There is pandemonium in the ring. Ali feints, sits down but is soon up and leading the crowd in one final, triumphant rendition of “Ali, bomaye.”

Poor Foreman slips away under the cover of Ali’s celebrations. He is broken and will use excuses for over ten years… claiming he was drugged, the ropes were slack, the count was fast … it takes a long time for his pride to allow him to admit… he lost. Amazingly, in 1994 Foreman, wearing the same red shorts, regains the world heavyweight title.

Ali took the rest of the year off – the rivals, the contenders, the dreamers circled his throne.

Foreman would not fight again until 1976.

Muhammad Ali had taken care of some other business in the ring in January of 1974 – nine months before the Rumble in the Jungle and it is a fight that is always, always forgotten. It was Ali and Frazier Two, the one where the pair had a fight – a rolling-on-the-floor-in-the-studio-fight – just FIVE days before the first bell at Madison Square Garden.

The unofficial referee for the studio lunacy was Howard Cosell – the TV broadcast icon and a man with a divided audience. Ali called Frazier ignorant and off to the sides, Ali’s brother, Rahman, had been relentlessly goading poor Joe. It proved too much and Ali and Frazier got to grappling. Frazier was not bothered, Ali looked shaken up – Frazier had been in some far darker places than Ali. He had lived a life on the streets of Philadelphia, perhaps not as nasty as Foreman’s history, but Frazier knew about having to fight. There was a great joke before the Rumble in the Jungle when somebody in the press pack asks Foreman if he minds fighting at 3 in the morning. Foreman laughs and tells the man: “Most of my fights have been at 3 in the morning.” He was telling the truth.

Frazier and Ali both receive a whooping five thousand dollar fine from the New York Commission. It was not pantomime.

The rematch between Frazier and Ali is not quite the Fight of the Century two, but it is a good fight. Ali wins on points over twelve rounds – he wins by a few rounds, but his tactic of holding infuriates Frazier’s trainer Eddie Futch, who has taken over full-time duties in the corner and the gym because Yank Durham had died suddenly the previous summer. It is just one of the things on Joe’s mind in the fight.

Futch pleads with the referee, Tony Perez, between rounds about Ali’s holding: “You gotta stop it.” Futch compiles a detailed dossier of the 133 “holds” that Ali uses in the 12-round fight. Their score is now one-one, but a third fight will happen in late 1975: it will be called the Thrilla’ in Manila and will be the greatest fight ever.

Frazier has one other fight in 1974, a repeat win over Jerry Quarry back at Madison Sqaure Garden in June. The pair had been in The Ring magazine fight of the year in 1969. Frazier won the second fight in round five.

Joe Bugner won five times, including over ten rounds against former world champion Jimmy Ellis at the Empire Pool, Wembley. Bugner would get a world title fight against Ali in 1975.

Norton had a win to end his dreadful year and would get another world title fight and a third crack at Ali in 1976.

Ron Lyle, the convicted killer from Denver, had four good wins in 1974 and would get Ali for the world title in 1975.

The invisible man, Jimmy Young, knocked out Yorkshire scaffolder, Richard Dunn, at a plush hotel in London in February and drew with Earnie Shavers over ten rounds in November. Young would finally get his world title fight in 1976.

Young Larry Holmes had been part of Ali’s sparring squad in Zaire, but had returned to Easton, Pennsylvania, when the fight was delayed: Larry was given 500 dollars for his work. In 1974 he had three fights, all wins and finished the year ten and zero.

A man called Chuck Wepner – he once lost a blood-bath of a fight to Sonny Liston – finished 1974 with a foul-filled fight against another heavyweight tough guy: Wepner lost four points for butting, hitting low and biting, but won in the 11th round. Chuck was picked for Ali’s first defence of the world heavyweight championship in early March – it was odd and it gave the world Rocky.

What a time to be in the world of boxing.

Ali – Ali – Ali and men that made him great. Foreman was one of those men and he knew before the Rumble in the Jungle what all the best heavyweights have since discovered:

“I can beat Ali and knock him out in the first or second round, but it doesn’t mean that people are going to follow me with the same enthusiasm they did him.”

So, so true. Everybody is second. It had been some year.