just watched the movie Ali, in which Will Smith plays the legendary heavyweight boxer. It perpetuates the popular myth of the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle, in which Muhammed Ali defeated George Foreman, regaining the title. The myth is that Foreman had Ali backed up against the ropes and pounded him for eight rounds, until he was so exhausted that Ali was finally able to land punches and knock him out. What really happened is more complicated than that. Ive watched the actual fight on YouTube, and as fights go, it was phenomenal. Ali came out swinging in the first round and landed at least three hard right punches to Foremans head, taking him completely by surprise. This infuriated Foreman, and he went into a rage, throwing savage punches to the body as though Ali were a heavy bag in the gym. Foremans onslaught did have Ali pinned against the ropes for much of the fight, but what most accounts of the fight fail to mention is that Ali was counterpunching at every opportunity afforded by Foremans lack of defensive skill. These counterpunches came in the form of brief flurries of punches thrown so fast that if a spectator blinked, he might miss seeing one thrown. Throughout the fight, Foreman landed hundreds of punches to Alis body, but Ali landed dozens of punches to Foremans head. By the eighth round, Foreman was not only near exhaustion, but was beginning to stumble as though drunk, the cumulative effect of all the punches taken to the head. He was throwing wild punches that missed by a figurative mile. The final knockdown, the result of one of Alis counterpunching flurries expanding into a series of decisive blows, was the coup de grâce.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 04:44:35 +0000
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