The Foreman-Ali rumble that changed their careers, and Congo

Muhammad Ali won The Rumble in the Jungle in 1974 with a stunning knockout in the eighth round, after employing the “rope-a-dope” strategy of leaning on the ropes while the younger George Foreman exhausted himself with flailing punches. Foreman, who had been undefeated, was humbled, Ali’s business manager said. (Facebook via Sky Sports Boxing)

By John Eligon

The African nation of Zaire was elated. Its president, Mobutu Sese Seko, had struck a deal in 1974 for the country to host potentially the biggest boxing contest in history: Muhammad Ali, a legend seemingly on the decline, versus George Foreman, a ferocious, rising heavyweight world champion.

Mobutu, a brutal autocrat, saw a chance to introduce Zaire, now known as Congo, to the world as a stable nation of 22 million people on the path to becoming a developed powerhouse.

Then, early in the promotion of the fight, Ali, who turned bravado into an art, delivered a threat to journalists who doubted him. In Zaire, “we’re going to put you in a pot and cook you,” he said, according to Gene Kilroy, his business manager.

A short time later, Kilroy said, they got a call from one of Mobutu’s aides.

“We’re trying to promote tourism, not kill it,” Kilroy recalled the aide saying, pushing back on the trope of cannibalism in Africa.

Ali’s provocations, however, helped transform the fight into a global spectacle that had implications far beyond boxing, one that reshaped the career and life of Foreman, who died March 21 at 76.

Ali won with a stunning knockout in the eighth round, after employing the “rope-a-dope” strategy of leaning on the ropes while Foreman exhausted himself with flailing punches.

Foreman, who had been undefeated, was humbled, Kilroy said. His mean streak faded, and he became friendlier, which Kilroy said may have helped him develop the gregarious persona that allowed him to become a grilling magnate.

Ali and Foreman developed a close friendship in the years after the fight, Kilroy said.

Known as the Rumble in the Jungle (an early slogan, “From Slave Ship to Championship,” was quickly discarded), the event helped to demystify Africa for some Americans. It elevated the shared cultural bonds between African Americans and Africans. It put Zaire on the map, and united the country of more than 200 ethnic groups — yet failed to deliver the economic prosperity that Mobutu had promised.

“He was obsessed to be recognized in the world as a world leader,” Kikaya Bin Karubi, a Congolese politician and academic, said of Mobutu.

After Congo fell into years of violence after its independence from Belgium in 1960 — violence that Mobutu helped perpetuate, first by carrying out a coup and then through his brutal and deadly repression — Mobutu was determined to recast the war-torn image of the country, Kikaya said. The Ali-Foreman fight was a big part of that mission.

The president expected everyone to get on board with the nation-building project, said Kikaya, who recalled watching Ali’s upset victory on a big screen at a soccer field near his home in eastern Congo.

In the buildup to the fight, citizens were taught songs in school with lyrics praising Mobutu and Zaire’s natural riches, recalled Kikaya, who was 20 at the time. The government printed promotional clothing with images of the fighters and Mobutu and distributed them free of charge, he said.

“We were all proud to be Congolese,” Kikaya said.

The 38,000-seat national stadium was expanded to hold more than 100,000 people. All told, the government invested $12 million in the fight, and fell short of breaking even by $4 million, according to an article in The New York Times from that time.

About the same time, Mobutu was enacting a program that required many businesses to be owned by locals. That forced many foreign nationals to give up their businesses and hand them over to people without the experience to run them, Kikaya said.

That, he believes, contributed to the economy’s downfall in the subsequent years. Congo is among the world’s poorest countries, according to the World Bank, racked by inequality and a decades-long civil war that has killed millions.

But Kikaya said he saw a positive impact of the fight for Zaire about a decade later when he went to study in the United States.

“Whenever I would say that I’m from Zaire, people of a certain generation, the first thing they would ask me, ‘Oh, the Rumble in the Jungle!’” he said.

The promoters of the fight also staged a three-day music festival several weeks before the fight that attracted top artists of African descent from around the world, including James Brown, B.B. King and Miriam Makeba. That helped burnish the event as not just a fight, but also a cultural spectacle.

But, of course, it was Ali who generated unmatched hype.

When they landed in Zaire several months before the fight, Kilroy said that Ali asked him, “Who don’t they like here?”

“I guess white people,” Kilroy said he responded.

“No, I can’t say that,” Ali told him. “Who else?”

“The Belgians,” Kilroy said.

So when he addressed the throngs of Congolese greeting him when he arrived, Ali told them, “George Foreman’s a Belgian,” Kilroy recalled.

Then, he said, everyone started what became the defining chant of the whole event: “Ali, bomaye!” (“Ali, kill him!”).