© PA Andy Ruiz Jr, left, and Anthony Joshua, right, are set for a rematch in Saudi Arabia. It is nearly 45 years since the Rumble in the Jungle – and still the myth of that wild night lingers, dangerously ignored.
There is much to learn from deconstructing the most famous sporting event of the 20th century. When a fierce storm swept through Kinshasa shortly after Muhammad Ali had landed his perfect finisher on George Foreman in the eighth round, coming off the ropes to level the most feared
champion since Sonny Liston, it was not enough to cleanse Zaire of the stench of collusion and bad dealings.
A morally anaesthetised audience of 60,000 people had earlier gathered that 30 October 1974, in the Stade Tata Raphaël – once a place where dissidents were executed – as well as millions watching and listening elsewhere, all witnesses to the Great Deception.
Chief among the myths the world was asked to believe was that this was a dignified return by Ali and Foreman to their African roots, when the ogre was slain by the voodoo skills of a 32-year‑old opponent cloaked in magic. It was sold as a celebration, a wholesome metaphor for change in the wake of the moral vacuum created by the Vietnam war. It was only superficially so. And even the clichés stank.
There were African bands and their descendant heirs from America, jazzing it up for a film that would gather dust until 1996; smart writers from magazines expressed their views on the art and blood of fisticuffs. Hunter S Thompson got stoned back at the hotel and missed it all. It was of its time, an exercise in freewheeling cynicism. As the late Hugh McIlvanney wrote in these pages, it was a night when “ethnic pride and financial avarice became ardent bedmates”.
A morally anaesthetised audience of 60,000 people had earlier gathered that 30 October 1974, in the Stade Tata Raphaël – once a place where dissidents were executed – as well as millions watching and listening elsewhere, all witnesses to the Great Deception.
Chief among the myths the world was asked to believe was that this was a dignified return by Ali and Foreman to their African roots, when the ogre was slain by the voodoo skills of a 32-year‑old opponent cloaked in magic. It was sold as a celebration, a wholesome metaphor for change in the wake of the moral vacuum created by the Vietnam war. It was only superficially so. And even the clichés stank.
There were African bands and their descendant heirs from America, jazzing it up for a film that would gather dust until 1996; smart writers from magazines expressed their views on the art and blood of fisticuffs. Hunter S Thompson got stoned back at the hotel and missed it all. It was of its time, an exercise in freewheeling cynicism. As the late Hugh McIlvanney wrote in these pages, it was a night when “ethnic pride and financial avarice became ardent bedmates”.
When and if Anthony Joshua and Andy Ruiz Jr sign contracts for a heavyweight rematch that looks almost certain to take them to Saudi Arabia on 7 December, maybe they should recall the much bigger occasion that was the perfect template for looking the other way.
Comments