George Foreman: Necrology of the heavy large from Rumble in the jungle to the world champion at 45 years old

It is difficult to explain how iconic the “rhombus in the jungle” is. If there was a room of statues that represented the largest fights, it would be there in the center, together with the two fundamental attacks between Ali and Frazier.

It was a struggle that encapsulated all the boxing, and it is still. The sublime and the real dirt.

He was staged in the Zaire on 30 October 1974, financed by the brutal dictatorship in control there at the time.

Ali, a huge disadvantaged, had thrown herself like the good charismatic and the head of the brutal villain. It would be staged at 04:00 local time so that about 50 million people could tune in all over the world.

A suspicious 26 million people looked in the United Kingdom, on a population of 56 million.

Foreman was expected to crush Ali. Instead Ali produced a classic performance, absorbing the pressure for seven rounds. Debuting his style of “rope-a-dope” on the ropes, he slowly emptied the head of his powers.

In the eighth round, wings launched. He dropped Foreman, to whom he was not allowed to beat the count from the referee, thus bringing one of the greatest upheavals to the boxing of the world championship.

After his first defeat in 41 fights, Foreman took two years out of the ring.

“From pride to pity, it was devastating,” said Foreman of the loss.

Foreman complained that the ropes had been loosened, that his coach had even drugged him. He made a campaign for a revenge but he never understood it. But once Ali called time in his career, he and Foreman became close friends.

Foreman notoriously helped an Ali who was implicated on Parkinson’s to climb the steps to receive an Oscar for the documentary When We Was Was Kings in 1996, who told the story of their accounts 22 years earlier.

“Foreman was part of that Holy Trinity of Boxing of the Highweights, with Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier,” said Boxing Promoter Frank Warren.

“The big fights they had among them were special moments for boxing and world sport.

“These are events that have fallen not only in boxing, but significant moments in the world of sport.”