When We Were Kings (1996)

1. Yeah, I'm in Africa. Yeah, Africa's my home.

2. Damn America and what America thinks.

3. Yeah, I live in America, but Africa's the home of the black man.

4. I was a slave 400 years ago,

5. and I'm going back home to fight among my brothers.

6. Yeah!

7. For these two African Americans to come home

8. was of great, great significance.

9. Because of Hollywood and TV,

10. a lot of us had been taught to hate Africa.

11. There was a time

12. if you called a black person "African," they'd be ready to fight.

13. When I get to Africa,

14. we gonna get it on because we don't get along!

15. I'm gonna eat him up!

16. Too much speed for him!

17. Too fast! Too fast! That's right!

18. I'm gonna retire the heavyweight champion of the world!

19. I'm gonna retire the heavyweight champion of the world!

20. September 25, the world will be stunned!

21. - Tell 'em, Ali! - That's right.

22. If you think the world was surprised when Nixon resigned,

23. wait till I kick Foreman's behind!

24. An 18-year-old amateur boxing champion with a charming smile

25. took a physical examination for his first professional fight.

26. It won't be an easy fight, but my plan of attack on a fighter like Alex Miteff

27. would be two fast left jabs,

28. a rapid right cross and a left hook.

29. But in the Belgian Congo, freedom was followed by rioting

30. and army mutiny.

31. For months, the political pattern kept changing with kaleidoscopic speed

32. until pro-Red Premier Lumumba was seized

33. by the forces of strongman Colonel Mobutu.

34. After watching Mike DeJohn and Eddie Machen the other night,

35. I would rate myself number two now.

36. I'm out to break Floyd Patterson's record,

37. and by this being my 20th birthday, today, January 17,

38. that leaves me exactly one year to reach my goal.

39. People do say I'm cocky. Some say I need a good whuppin'.

40. Some say I talk too much.

41. But anything that I say, I'm willing to back up.

42. The other night I predicted that I would knock out this Banks

43. in four rounds, and I did.

44. I knocked out Don Warner in four rounds,

45. and I just annihilated George Logan in four rounds.

46. Let me see you close your mouth and just keep it closed.

47. - You know that's impossible. - No, keep it closed.

48. You know that's impossible. I'm the greatest.

49. I'm knocking out all bums. And if you get too smart, I'll knock you out.

50. - You'd take him on before the fight? - Beat him like I'm his daddy.

51. I saw Sonny Liston a few days ago, Cassius...

52. Ain't he ugly?

53. I'm young, I'm handsome,

54. I'm fast, I'm pretty, and can't possibly be beat.

55. Cassius Clay goes into the record book

56. with Corbett, Tunney and Braddock

57. as another who brought off one of the great upsets

58. in the heavyweight history.

59. It is befitting that I leave the game just like I came in...

60. beating a big, bad monster

61. who knocks out everybody and no one can whup him.

62. That's when that little Cassius Clay from Louisville, Kentucky,

63. came up and stopped Sonny Liston,

64. the man who annihilated Floyd Patterson twice.

65. He was gonna kill me!

66. But he hit harder than George.

67. His reach was longer than George. He's a better boxer than George.

68. And I'm better now than I was when you saw

69. that 22-year-old undeveloped kid running from Sonny Liston.

70. I'm experienced now, professional.

71. Jaw's been broke, been knocked down a couple times.

72. I'm bad!

73. Been chopping trees. I done something new for this fight.

74. I done rassled with an alligator.

75. That's right. I have rassled with an alligator!

76. I done tussled with a whale.

77. I done handcuffed lightning, throwed thunder in jail.

78. That's bad! Only last week, I murdered a rock!

79. Injured a stone! Hospitalized a brick!

80. - I'm so mean I make medicine sick. - Bad dude!

81. - Bad. Fast. - Ain't no doubt.

82. Fast! Fast!

83. Last night, I cut the light off in my bedroom,

84. hit the switch, was in the bed before the room was dark.

85. - Incredible. Incredible. - Fast.

86. And you, George Foreman, all you chumps are gonna bow when I whup him!

87. All of you! I know you got him. I know you got him picked.

88. But the man's in trouble. I'm gonna show you how great I am!

89. Hell, I think Ali was scared. I think he was scared even then.

90. He knew he was gonna be very scared as he got closer to the fight.

91. You know the way George fights. George comes out...

92. I named him the Mummy!

93. With his ego, he could keep telling himself he would dominate Foreman,

94. that he would beat him, that he would dance, make a fool of him,

95. that he would show him superior boxing,

96. that Foreman would never lay a glove on him.

97. But in fact, in his sleep or wherever his private moment came,

98. he had to know that he had not done nearly as well

99. against two fighters particularly: Joe Frazier and Ken Norton,

100. whom Foreman had demolished.

101. Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!

102. The heavyweight champion is taking the mandatory eight count,

103. and Foreman is as poised as can be!

104. Foreman is going about his job!

105. He had an overpowering intensity when he punched.

106. Foreman had won his championship by knocking Joe Frazier out,

107. and knocked him down something like seven times.

108. Then he destroyed Ken Norton in two rounds.

109. The word "murderous" does not quite apply.

110. Foreman was awesome.

111. This chump has got everybody scared.

112. Scared of what?

113. Nothing to be scared of.

114. Scared of what?

115. How many fellas in here now picks George? Be truthful. Be men.

116. Tell the truth.

117. John, raise your hand.

118. Got George?

119. You got George? Tell the truth.

120. - You. You, fella. Yeah. - Me?

121. - No pick. - No pick?

122. I just wanna know. You got George.

123. The time may have come

124. to say good-bye to Muhammad Ali,

125. because very honestly,

126. I don't think he can beat George Foreman.

127. Howard Cosell, you told everybody I don't have a chance.

128. You told 'em I don't have nothing but a prayer.

129. Well, chump, all I need is a prayer,

130. because if that prayer reach the right man,

131. not only will George Foreman fall but mountains will fall.

132. Maybe he can pull off a miracle.

133. But against George Foreman?

134. So young, so strong, so fearless?

135. Against George Foreman,

136. who does away with his opponents one after another

137. in less than three rounds?

138. It's hard for me to conjure with that.

139. You're always talking about, "Muhammad, you're not the same man

140. you were ten years ago."

141. I asked your wife, and she told me

142. you're not the same man you was two years ago!

143. After this fight, I suspect Ali will retire.

144. And through all of the years,

145. my own memories of him will be as a fighter

146. and as the strange and curious and gregarious

147. and engaging and sometimes cruel

148. and sometimes family man that he is.

149. I'm gonna let everybody know

150. that that thing you got on your head is a phony,

151. and it comes from the tail of a pony.

152. A stolen bicycle.

153. He had a bicycle, and he went to Columbia Gym.

154. There was something going on up there, and he left his bike parked outside.

155. So when he came out, someone had stole it,

156. and he went inside, and he was crying,

157. and he told the policeman there, his name was Joe Martin,

158. that someone stole his bike.

159. And Joe Martin, he would also teach

160. the little boys how to box in the evening.

161. So he asked him, would he be interested in learning how to box?

162. And he told him yes,

163. because if he ever found out who stole his bike,

164. he wanted to know how to fight so he could beat them up.

165. An overhand right sends Sonny to the canvas!

166. Referee Jersey Joe Walcott trying to get Ali to a neutral corner.

167. Ali yelling at Liston to get up and fight!

168. The anchor punch.

169. - Which punch? - Anchor. I call it the anchor punch.

170. - The one Stepin Fetchit helped you with? - Yeah, man.

171. And people couldn't see it. It was so fast...

172. Sports Illustrated clocked it. They got a slow-motion camera.

173. They clocked the punch, and the punch flew at 4/100 of a second.

174. You can break a second down to a hundred pieces.

175. You know how people win a ski race, they say, "He won in 16/100,

176. he won in 32/100 of a second."

177. So you break a second down to 100 pieces. So, you know, yeah, it's quick.

178. So 4/100... They got a machine that goes, like, br-r-r-t, real quick.

179. Br-r-r-t. And it counts real quick. You know, br-r-r-t. Real quick.

180. And by the time that thing hit four, that's how quick...

181. From the time the punch started to where it landed,

182. it was 4/100 of a second, which is an eye blink.

183. Like a camera flash. That's 4/100 of a second.

184. Now, the minute I hit Sonny Liston,

185. all those people blinked at that moment, and that's why they didn't see the punch.

186. I swear.

187. If you watch the film close... You gotta hold your eyes real close...

188. Keep looking.

189. All right, I'm getting ready to hit him. You can't just...

190. You got to hold your eyes and wait or you won't see it, man!

191. They have this beautiful, you know, specimen, a fighting machine,

192. that was handsome, he was articulate,

193. he was funny,

194. charismatic...

195. and was whuppin' ass too.

196. Deposed heavyweight champion Cassius Clay,

197. at a federal court in Houston, is found guilty

198. of violating the US Selective Service laws by refusing to be inducted.

199. He is sentenced to five years in prison and fined $10,000.

200. The way he fused politics and sports...

201. Very few black athletes had ever talked the way Muhammad Ali talked

202. without fear of something happening to them in their career.

203. status as a Black Muslim minister made him exempt from the draft.

204. He was already very unpopular with mainstream Americans

205. because he had joined an organization known as the Nation of Islam,

206. which was perceived as a radical black separatist group.

207. And then on top of that, when he was called for induction

208. and refused to take the step forward,

209. he absolutely infuriated America.

210. Muhammad Ali said, "No Viet Cong ever called me nigger."

211. The king is going home to get his throne.

212. From the root to the fruit. That's where everything started at.

213. This is God's act, and you a part of it.

214. This is no Hollywood set. This is real.

215. Hollywood come in and take these kind of scenes and set 'em up,

216. have somebody in the movies playing his life.

217. This is real. We don't pick up a script. We get up in the morning feeling tired.

218. Sometimes we feel good, sometimes bad.

219. - But we go through it with feeling. - Time!

220. Muhammad Ali were born to do it.

221. He's a prophet. He gonna be a fisherman for Elijah Muhammad.

222. This is only a stop, look and listen sign he's doing, fighting.

223. We've been fightin' ever since we even met.

224. We beat Uncle Sam. Three and a half years.

225. Come out of the garage and beat number two.

226. First man ever did it. The rest of 'em they put out of the country.

227. This is God's act. We just actors in it.

228. If Jesus was here, everybody would want his autograph,

229. and if films was around when he was around, they'd be filming him.

230. The only thing, this is a sport. That's why you walking, talk to him.

231. I think Muhammad is a prophet. How you gonna beat God's son?

232. Anybody who loves poor people and little people gotta be a prophet.

233. He was champion of the world, had a long table full of food.

234. Had a house for his mother, one for him, and he told 'em to take it and shove it.

235. If he couldn't love his god, what do you think he is... mister?

236. Get it together!

237. Get it together! Get it together!

238. Ali trained for the fight with Foreman

239. at Deer Lake, Pennsylvania.

240. He trained very hard for that fight...

241. - One more. - ... and had very good sparring partners.

242. Larry Holmes was one of his sparring partners.

243. I was struck with how well, uh, he handled...

244. he'd actually handled Ali in their sparring sessions.

245. He'd dominated Ali. That wasn't uncommon.

246. Ali very often would not show his best stuff with his sparring partners,

247. but in fact would work on his weaknesses.

248. He'd go against the ropes, and he'd let people pummel him.

249. Heavy hitters who were sort of clumsy, he'd let them bang away at him.

250. It was as if he wanted to train his body to receive these messages of punishment

251. and absorb them faster than other fighters could absorb them.

252. True significance of why this fight's being fought in Africa

253. is because they came up with $10 million.

254. Five million dollars for George Foreman, five million dollars for me.

255. London, England, was trying to get it.

256. A promoter said America were trying to get it.

257. But none of them could surpass the $5 million mark.

258. The dream is now becoming a reality.

259. Don King went to George Foreman

260. and got Foreman to sign an option agreement

261. saying that if King could deliver $5 million,

262. Foreman would fight Ali.

263. Then King went to Ali and made the same deal with him.

264. So Don King now had both fighters,

265. their signatures on a piece of paper.

266. What he didn't have was $10 million.

267. a festival that will complement this great sporting event,

268. the greatest sporting event in the history of the world.

269. - Greatest of all time! - Of all time, as the champ says.

270. - The greatest event of all time! - With some...

271. Bigger than Evel Knievel and the Kentucky Derby on the same day.

272. The president of Zaire was willing to put $10 million

273. of his country's own very scarce,

274. hard-earned currency on the line,

275. not for any short-term economic reason

276. but because he felt that the fight would be good

277. in terms of promoting Zaire and also in terms of promoting himself.

278. And as Ali said at the time,

279. countries go to war to get their names on the map,

280. and wars cost a lot more than $10 million.

281. Some of the most dynamic performers from Afro-America

282. will be appearing down there at the stadium in Kinshasa

283. on the 20th, the 21st and the 22nd,

284. along with the world, and with its theatrical release.

285. It will be James Brown, who is soul brother number one,

286. - one of our top, leading black artists. - Is he coming?

287. Yes, James Brown will be there performing.

288. We will have BB King, the Spinners...

289. This is the first assembly in the history of all America

290. where all the top-notch blacks of America

291. and the people of Africa had something together,

292. all on the world level.

293. We're all meeting each other and learning more about each other.

294. It's the first assembly among American black men

295. and Africans like us in the history of the world.

296. And it's a big honor to be part of that. Plus I gotta whup George!

297. Got to whup George!

298. We're gonna rumble in the jungle!

299. Come on. Come on. Come on.

300. Speak to 'em. Go ahead.

301. Good boy. Get down.

302. - Back. You're good. - George?

303. Is this fight against Ali will be the toughest of your career, you think?

304. Could be. Could be. I doubt it.

305. This is Muhammad Ali,

306. September 10, at New York City Airport

307. en route to Zaire to reclaim the heavyweight title of the world.

308. Champ, what would you like to say to the children of the world?

309. I'd like to tell the children of the world,

310. mainly right here where they speak and understand English in America,

311. to live a clean life.

312. Stay off of dope. It's tearing the country up.

313. Also, if they want to be like me, I'm getting ready to whup George Foreman,

314. and by the time they see this, I will have beaten him.

315. Tell them to quit eating so much candy.

316. I have three rotten teeth. They're bad, and I had to have one of 'em pulled.

317. I can't chew my food like I should.

318. Eat natural foods because we must whup Mr. Tooth Decay.

319. I got one right there and one right here.

320. Yesterday Ali told us that he's going to use part of his money

321. for the building of a hospital.

322. Do you intend yourself to use part of your money for something?

323. Have you got a project?

324. He may think he may have to be in the hospital.

325. I want the man!

326. Yeah, when I get to Africa,

327. we gonna get it on because we don't get along!

328. I don't like him. He talks too much.

329. Beg your pardon?

330. You would continue boxing even if you would lose over there?

331. I beg your pardon?

332. You don't think about losing?

333. No. Thank you. Nice talking with you.

334. Flying over the Sahara Desert

335. on an African airline with all African stewardesses,

336. all African pilots.

337. Boy, this is the first free feeling I've had in a long time.

338. Ain't this something, flying in an airplane with all black pilots?

339. - All black crew? - Crazy!

340. This is strange to the American Negro. We never dreamed of this.

341. And every time we watch television,

342. they show us Tarzan and the natives and the jungles.

343. They never told us that the Africans were more intelligent than we are.

344. They speak English... They speak English, French and African.

345. We can't even speak English good.

346. Ain't this beautiful? I'm free!

347. Fantastic!

348. I'm free.

349. Now, I want everybody to repeat after me.

350. If you don't know who you are and where your place in life is,

351. - just say to yourself, I am! - I am!

352. - Somebody! - Somebody!

353. - I am! - I am!

354. - Somebody! - Somebody!

355. - I may be poor. - I may be poor.

356. - But I am. - But I am.

357. Somebody.

358. It was a great joy to see that the championship

359. was going to happen in Africa.

360. People were so happy.

361. At last, the world was paying attention to our continent.

362. Yes, we knew Muhammad Ali as a boxer,

363. but more importantly for his political stance.

364. When we saw that America was at war

365. in a third-world country, Vietnam...

366. and that one of the children of the United States said, "Me?

367. You want me to go and fight against the Viet Cong?

368. Why should I fight against them? They haven't done anything against me."

369. And for us, it was extraordinary

370. to see that in the America of that time, someone could take such a position.

371. He may have lost his title, he may have lost millions of dollars,

372. but that's where he gained the esteem of millions of Africans.

373. Ali! Ali! Ali!

374. Ali! Ali! Ali! Ali! Ali!

375. What is... What is your population?

376. - Twenty-two million. - Twenty-two million?

377. - Twenty-two million. - How many George Foreman fans here?

378. We don't know, we don't know.

379. - How many Muhammad Ali? - There are so many we cannot count them.

380. George Foreman? We didn't know who he was.

381. We had heard that he was a world champion.

382. We thought he was white.

383. Then we realized he was black, like Muhammad Ali.

384. But still, for us, Foreman represented America.

385. He arrived with a dog, a German shepherd,

386. which immediately offended Africans,

387. since the Belgians had used shepherds as police dogs.

388. Ali said that he's the hometown fighter

389. and you're the out-of-towner here.

390. Africa is the cradle of civilization. Everybody's home is Africa.

391. Okay, fine. So they're leaving tomorrow.

392. Typhoid. How do you spell "typhoid"?

393. Is that all that we're giving?

394. Who do you want to be your beneficiary in case of anything.

395. And then sign it.

396. You need an actual airline ticket to get on this plane.

397. Let me see some hands of the 51 who don't have tickets.

398. Who doesn't have an airline ticket?

399. Hi!

400. You know who we are, don't you?

401. I'm Lola Love, and I'm one of the dancers with the James Brown show... revue.

402. "Zai-ere," or "Zare," or whatever you... you know.

403. Yeah, man. When are gonna get to Zee-air?

404. - To who? - Mobutu land.

405. To Zee-air?

406. We're gonna fly in zee-air till we get to Zaire.

407. That's right!

408. The plane is not coming in at 6:00. It's now coming between 10:00 and 11:00.

409. So you don't have to have those trucks out to the airport that early.

410. They told me James Brown's gonna be here.

411. - James Brown is on his way. - BB King's gonna be here.

412. And I showed up, and they ain't nowhere around.

413. Sixth, fifth and fourth are done. Elevators are working.

414. Can we... But there's no air conditioning up there at all?

415. 80% of it's out.

416. It's all in, but it doesn't work. The breakers are out.

417. What do you mean, 80% of it? On what floors though?

418. I have sixth, fifth and fourth.

419. I understand that, but what about, um...

420. It's individual air conditioning controls, and they have circuit breakers...

421. So what apartments have air conditioning working?

422. How many beds can we move people into tonight?

423. - Uh, four. Four rooms. - Just eight people?

424. Yeah.

425. Hello, Bubba!

426. You ready to dance?

427. I got ants in my pants. I gotta dance.

428. Of course, the fight was held in Zaire, the former Belgian Congo.

429. Kinshasa was the capital, on the banks of the Congo.

430. It was just before the rainy season when this fight took place.

431. Off to the north you could see the flickering of storms,

432. uh, coming closer and closer, and it was important to the promoters

433. that this fight get in before the storms occurred,

434. because once the rainy season comes, you can't do anything.

435. I always thought the Congo had such a wonderful name...

436. Conradian and all that.

437. Somehow to call it Zaire didn't have quite the majesty.

438. But there it was, the Congo.

439. Mobutu was everywhere.

440. He was the equivalent in Africa of Joseph Stalin.

441. You saw his picture everywhere.

442. And of course, part of the vanity of dictators, they almost always...

443. With the possible exception of Mussolini, who was half ugly and half attractive,

444. most dictators are unbelievably ugly or plain.

445. Franco, Hitler.

446. Mobutu looked the archetype. He was the epitome of a closet sadist.

447. Sort of guy, if you meet him in a bar, you think, "Oh, my God.

448. Who are the poor women who are associated with this fella?"

449. And since Mobutu was an extraordinarily practical man for his country,

450. down under the stadium, which seated 100,000 people,

451. were detention pens and rooms and chambers

452. where you could imprison as many as a couple thousand people at once.

453. Before the fight came,

454. the criminal rate in Zaire began to go up,

455. and a few white foreigners had been killed driving their cars.

456. And Mobutu decided that this was going to be a disaster in terms of publicity,

457. so on a given day, he had a thousand

458. of the leading criminals in Kinshasa

459. rounded up and put in this stadium,

460. down in the detention pens.

461. And then, the legend has it,

462. and I suspect the legend may even be true,

463. that he had a hundred of them taken at random and killed them.

464. And the reason was a particularly simple one from Mobutu's point of view:

465. Criminals who make a life out of it have connections

466. that protect them when they're in trouble,

467. and by making this kill of a hundred out of a thousand arbitrarily,

468. what Mobutu was saying is, "Your connections are worth nothing.

469. I am Jehovah.

470. I am going to blast you out of existence if you fool around with me."

471. And he made his point. Kinshasa was one of the safest cities

472. not only in all of Africa but probably in all of the world

473. while the foreign press was there for the fight.

474. To me, the drum has been the communicator

475. since the beginning of time.

476. I'm sure it was the first message ever sent.

477. When I think of the beat today and I think of the beats centuries ago,

478. it's the only thing that kept us together.

479. We had this thing, when we hurt, we sung for trial and tribulation,

480. we sung for relief, we sung songs of God,

481. and this music that you hear today

482. is the same songs that have been made popular throughout the world

483. without anybody's intentions or volition.

484. Oh!

485. So I would say that anybody who knows anything

486. about the rhythm and the blues, as they're so-called today,

487. should know about Africa.

488. The music I'm listening to now,

489. if I went to your house or most white people's places,

490. I don't hear this kind of music, because your culture wouldn't...

491. Your woman didn't leave you.

492. Your woman didn't go out, slip off on you like our women,

493. because you didn't have no money.

494. You had money to keep your woman. Your songs are like...

495. Whatever it is, that's a different cul... Chinese like their music.

496. I don't want to hear that, and he understands that.

497. Everybody's got their culture.

498. So we're not saying that we hate you or we want to be more divided

499. and we're never talking to you again or doing business... We don't do that.

500. But what we're saying is that we want to be independent now.

501. Oh!

502. The great place to visit in Kinshasa was a compound

503. about 20 miles up the Congo River,

504. a place called Nsele, which was a presidential palace.

505. That was where we saw Foreman, who seemed incredible.

506. I'd seen him fight before. I saw him destroy Frazier.

507. I'd never seen destruction like that, and the thing I always remembered was that

508. the beaten fighter, even a man as powerful and big as Frazier...

509. and he was very much favored to win that...

510. suddenly becomes about the size of a Pygmy.

511. They just diminish in size.

512. And Foreman suddenly became this gigantic figure.

513. And he had a trainer, Dick Sadler, tiny by comparison to Foreman,

514. and Sadler would hang on to the heavy bag.

515. But Foreman would hit this... this bag...

516. Sadler would just literally be picked off his feet.

517. Foreman hitting the heavy bag

518. is one of the more prodigious sights I've had in my life.

519. It seems to me that of all the people I've seen hitting heavy bags,

520. including Sonny Liston, no one ever hit it the way Foreman did.

521. At the end of 15 minutes of pounding the heavy bag,

522. there'd be a hole in the heavy bag... not a hole, but a huge dent

523. the size of half a small watermelon in that tremendous heavy bag,

524. and Foreman used to use the biggest heavy bag around.

525. What would be interesting is Ali, who would train after Foreman,

526. would often pass by this large hall where the training took place,

527. and he never looked at Foreman hitting the heavy bag.

528. He just walked right by as if Foreman did not exist.

529. And it was significant because if you were gonna fight the man,

530. you did not want to see him hitting that heavy bag.

531. I'm a speed demon! I'm a brain fighter!

532. I'm scientific! I'm artistic! I plan my strategy!

533. He's the bull! I'm the matador!

534. He's scared to death.

535. He's scared to death!

536. He wish he could get out of the whole thing!

537. He wish he could get out of the whole thing when I look at him.

538. The man is frightened!

539. He's meetin' his master, his teacher, his idol!

540. - Time! - Is that all?

541. When I talk and work, I'm in shape. It's all I do.

542. Ali had announced he was gonna dance.

543. He spoke about it all the time.

544. You couldn't do an interview with Ali during that period where he would say,

545. "How is Foreman going to get near to me?

546. I'm going to dance. I'm going to dance and dance.

547. That man will look foolish trying to find me.

548. And as he gropes his way forward

549. in this storm of blindness that's the speed of my dancing,

550. I will strike him with my jab.

551. Poo! Poo! Poo!" he would go, and so forth.

552. We heard this over and over and over, and Foreman heard it too.

553. Foreman was working now on what's called cutting off the ring.

554. Now, cutting off the ring essentially just means

555. cornering your opponent against the ropes or in a corner.

556. And it's an art. It's a balletic art.

557. You have to have very good footwork. Foreman's footwork...

558. He was a big, powerful man, but his footwork was better than anyone expected.

559. He worked with very fast fighters, smaller than himself,

560. who certainly could dance, and he worked on cornering them.

561. And he was very good. And we'd watch this.

562. And the combination of hitting the heavy bag

563. and watching Foreman cut off the ring

564. made most of the fight writers, myself included,

565. terribly pessimistic about Ali's chances.

566. Yeah, Lord. Now you're working.

567. The guy threw up his elbows to protect himself from Foreman,

568. and Foreman walked into his elbow.

569. And he got cut... That's how he got cut in the eye?

570. What else can happen that hasn't happened yet?

571. I saw the man's cut, and this man cannot fight.

572. This man cannot fight for the world championship.

573. - You are not a doctor. - I don't give a damn.

574. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.

575. The Zaireans kicked us out, and they did not want us around.

576. And they want the fight to go on. That's all there is to it.

577. - That's the problem. - He won't fight with that eye.

578. - He's not that dumb. - He's not that dumb.

579. That's all you want is a fight. That's all you want.

580. Excuse me, gentlemen. That's all you want is a fight. I know.

581. I respectfully ask, are the fighters remaining here

582. because they want to remain here,

583. or has the government requested they remain?

584. Uh, Mr. Sadler told me to convey to the press

585. that it's nothing but an accident.

586. It's not serious.

587. They will be getting in touch with the promoters of the fight,

588. and it's possible that we may have to delay the fight,

589. and he will let the press know as soon as possible.

590. Did they have to stitch Foreman?

591. They had to stitch him.

592. Holy shit, man. So how long is the delay, man?

593. It'll take another day or two to give any intelligence.

594. This just happened yesterday.

595. Then after, we can make a decision.

596. How does George feel about it?

597. Well, like anybody else. He's only human. How would any individual feel?

598. Does he want to go ahead, or does he want it postponed?

599. Who? Why should he?

600. - Why should he go ahead with it, or... - Why should he make any decision?

601. Who would know what another man thinks?

602. How could I truthfully tell you what you would think

603. or what I would think, or how...

604. A man may have mixed emotions, I don't know. I couldn't speak for George.

605. I can only speak for Dick Sadler, not for somebody else.

606. It would be hard. I'm not that intelligent.

607. I don't have that knowledge, that ability to speak what's in another man's mind.

608. He never discussed it to me, what his thoughts are.

609. And a person's mind change from time to time.

610. - But the decision is yours to make? - The decision is mine to make.

611. And right now I haven't made any...

612. I don't have any decisions to make.

613. Okay, let's get the show on the road.

614. This meeting is now called to order. Hear, hear.

615. The delay won't have any, uh... any effect on the fight at all.

616. There hasn't been... There will not be a delay.

617. The fight will be rescheduled,

618. but when it happens, it'll be actually intended for that time.

619. Fate intended it for another time. There is no delay.

620. How does Ali feel about it?

621. And if there ever has been any disappointments in sports,

622. any setbacks or rainy days that stopped a ball game,

623. anything, this is the worst of all time.

624. Initially, Muhammad went through a pretty bad couple of hours,

625. and he first wanted to move the whole fight back to the United States,

626. and when he was told that wouldn't work, he said,

627. "Well, then let's bring Joe Frazier over here, and I'll fight him again,

628. and instead of each of us getting $5 million,

629. I'll take 3 million and Joe can take 1 million."

630. But after a while he calmed down,

631. and he realized that there was nothing that could be done about it

632. except stay in Zaire an extra six weeks and make the best of it.

633. Now I gotta wait. He's gonna get his whuppin', but I just have to wait.

634. Boy, I was ready! I was gonna upset the world again!

635. The whole world was gonna crawl and bow the next morning!

636. I was gonna defeat that big, indestructible George Foreman!

637. Gonna rip him up!

638. I was gonna get him for a sparring partner.

639. My dream's all messed up for six more weeks.

640. The man's in trouble! The man is scared!

641. He's in my country to start with!

642. He's in my country. You wanna see? Want me to show you this is my country?

643. Ali, bomaye!

644. Ali, bomaye! Ali, bomaye!

645. Can you picture 100,000? Can you picture 100,000?

646. How you say it? Ali, bomaye!

647. Ali, bomaye! Ali, bomaye!

648. Boy, when I hear them brothers hollerin' like that...

649. Whoo! I'm gonna get my soul and my spirit,

650. 100,000 African brothers hollering "Ali, bomaye!"

651. And I'm gonna... Ooh!

652. I'm tired. I can't take it no more. Let me get out of here.

653. I gotta get out of here. I wanna... We gonna...

654. I'm going up to my room. I'll talk to y'all later.

655. I said I'm gone!

656. The black acts in America have not learned

657. that once their records is off the charts, they're finished.

658. I mean, they haven't... they haven't learned that.

659. It's so true. I heard a speech by Jesse Jackson,

660. saying we must recognize that we're only useful as long as we're necessary.

661. As long as you're necessary.

662. When we're not necessary, we're no longer useful,

663. So they don't realize that your strength comes from your community.

664. And you have to deal from your strength.

665. You have to, because in dealing from your strength, you've got somebody.

666. So if somebody grabs James Brown or want to hurt James Brown,

667. somebody gonna raise their voice and say, "Why are you bothering my brother?"

668. Because he's got some soldiers around, somebody that's concerned, that cares.

669. But when you're dealing as an individual, no matter how big you get,

670. as a black individual, you still a nigger.

671. You don't care how much money you get. You are still a nigger.

672. When you start that by yourself, you are all alone when you become unnecessary.

673. Can I get the drummer some?

674. Can I get the drummer a little taste?

675. Do unto others as you would have them to do unto you.

676. Would you have somebody burn you up and lynch you

677. and tell you where to go and how to look, and then refuse to pay you?

678. Would you have somebody take advantage of your woman, Jack,

679. and you can't even speak to his?

680. Would you like to pay taxes for something that you never received?

681. Do unto others as you would have somebody do unto you.

682. And I don't have to use the word "FM" backwards.

683. We left Africa in shackles and fetters and chains.

684. We're coming back in an aura of splendor and scintillating glory.

685. The champions are here. So we try to get the champions of the sports world,

686. champions of the music world.

687. We put 'em together, and we got one champion that's so intermingled

688. and intertwined that we're fused into one entity.

689. The brother said something there! Yeah, the brother said something there.

690. Don King put this together.

691. It was not a color put it together. You understand?

692. I'd like to call him the messiah.

693. This fight came into existence because of Don King's desire

694. to be famous, to break out of the pack.

695. It was the world to him. He was either going to become enormously prominent,

696. at the least, in American life,

697. or he was going to go back to obscurity again if it failed.

698. Oh, I'm so happy to see you, my brother. Oh, good.

699. - This is the minister of finance. - We met before.

700. Yes, I have met the minister of finance. How are you?

701. I recognize and appreciate your talent and your expertise.

702. This is what it's all about. I welcome you with love. That's all I'm saying.

703. We must deal with it as such, but with love, you know?

704. Not with hostility and alienation.

705. You know? But with love.

706. Bravo, Mr. King! Bravo!

707. King had this huge air of welcome.

708. Rarely has anyone ever been welcomed the way King could do it for you.

709. There was a joy that came off him.

710. I knew his reputation, all about him, how he'd been in jail,

711. how he was thoroughly untrustworthy and so forth, but nonetheless,

712. what it was is, he made you feel good.

713. Don't leave me. I need you. I need your strength.

714. He was a startling-looking man.

715. All the writers used to find different ways of describing

716. this great up-brush of hair.

717. Some people would say that he'd stuck his thumb into an electric socket.

718. Falling through an empty elevator shaft.

719. The fight, of course, was postponed, and Don King turned up,

720. and everybody wanted to know what was going on.

721. It looked as though maybe the fight wasn't going to happen, and...

722. Nothing that's as big as this ever runs smoothly anyway.

723. Anything worthwhile is worth fighting for.

724. So we have a situation here where we have been struck with adversity.

725. If you think about what Shakespeare said: "The sweet uses of adversity,

726. ugly and venomous like the toad, yet wears a precious jewel in his head."

727. - "Venomous like a..." - "Ugly and venomous like a toad,

728. yet wears a precious jewel in his head."

729. How many fight promoters have even tried one line of Shakespeare?

730. He had a whole raft of them.

731. I can relate to the denial that they have to be confronted with.

732. I can relate to the rat-infested hovels,

733. the substandard tenements, the overcrowded tenements.

734. I can relate to these things because I've been a part of them.

735. I know about roaches, about rats, so when he started talkin' to me about it,

736. I can understand him and he can understand me.

737. You understand? So it's a big difference.

738. So when I do the thing he can understand, so now he will believe in me

739. because he feels that he has... I have shared with him

740. the same anguish and anxiety, the same pain that he has felt.

741. Big difference.

742. What would happen if you took an enormous... not an enormous,

743. but a small part of the vast sums of money that'll be made out of the fight

744. and put it into something that was...

745. that would help a number of people rather than a few?

746. This is what my dream and desire is,

747. and I feel that I would need...

748. white counterparts to do this here.

749. I would say, let me engender

750. a large amount of money, if it's possible,

751. and then don't let this money just be sitting there

752. so that it would wither away and just die, but put it into the sun,

753. so it could be exposed, so it could germinate, blossom and grow.

754. He's really quite a remarkable man.

755. Don King is one of the brightest people I've ever met,

756. he's one of the most charismatic people I've ever met,

757. he's one of the hardest working people I've ever met.

758. He is also totally amoral,

759. and I can't think of a man who has done more

760. to demoralize fighters,

761. exploit from fighters,

762. and ruin fighters' careers than Don King.

763. But you have to give him his due for what he did

764. to make Muhammad Ali versus George Foreman in Zaire.

765. And nobody does anything for nothing.

766. You understand that?

767. Fight or no fight, what business are we in?

768. - We're in the music business. - I was starting to wonder, man.

769. Because I feel like we're in the fight business these days.

770. - I'm gonna play me some soul music, man. - Right. Come on.

771. The Spinners... to James Brown.

772. I think I'm ready. I am ready.

773. Sucker, you ain't nothin'.

774. You're too ugly to represent us colored folks.

775. These Africans make all of us ugly.

776. Sucker, look at you.

777. You out, sucker.

778. Bomaye. Bomaye.

779. - Ali, bomaye! - Ali, bomaye!

780. Ali, bomaye!

781. - Ali, bomaye! - That mean "kill him."

782. When I'm walking down the street, the kids follow me,

783. screaming, "George Foreman, bumba yu"...

784. Uh, bomaye, yeah.

785. And, uh, that hasn't... I don't think that's so nice to me.

786. You know, I'd like, if they have any, uh,

787. anything to say about me, they can say, you know,

788. "George Foreman loves Africa"

789. or "George Foreman loves being here."

790. Not "George Foreman, kill him." I don't like that.

791. - Bomaye! - Bomaye!

792. - George Foreman. - Bomaye! Bomaye!

793. - That sucker. There he is. - Bomaye. Bomaye.

794. You ain't no champ, sucker. You wasn't nothing!

795. Even they understand English.

796. We were all for Muhammad Ali.

797. Foreman? We didn't know him.

798. Foreman said, "Why?

799. I'm black, blacker than Muhammad Ali.

800. Why all this bias?"

801. Yes, Muhammad Ali, he was lighter,

802. but he was a real person.

803. He was genuine.

804. Muhammad Ali could have been even lighter-skinned than he was,

805. but for us, he was defending the good cause,

806. for Africans and the whole world.

807. Watch this. Seven punches.

808. I'm gonna fight for the prestige,

809. not for me but to uplift my little brothers

810. who are sleeping on concrete floors today in America.

811. Black people who are living on welfare, black people who can't eat,

812. black people who don't know no knowledge of themselves,

813. black people who don't have no future.

814. I want to win my title and walk down the alleys,

815. sit on the garbage can with the wine-heads.

816. I want to walk down the street with the dope addicts, talk to the prostitutes.

817. So I can help a lot of people.

818. I can show 'em films, I can take this documentary,

819. I can take movies and help uplift my people in Louisville, Kentucky;

820. Indianapolis, Indiana; Cincinnati, Ohio.

821. I can go throughout Tennessee and Florida and Mississippi

822. and show black Africans in them countries who didn't know this was their country,

823. "You look like people in Mississippi, in Alabama, in Georgia.

824. They're your brothers, but they never knew you was over here,

825. and you don't know much about them."

826. God is blessing me, as an accident through boxing,

827. to help get to all these people and show them films I haven't seen!

828. I know they haven't seen 'em. I'm worldly, and I haven't seem 'em!

829. Now I can get all these films. You governments can let me take pictures.

830. You can let me do things, and I can take all this back to America!

831. But... it's good to be a winner. All I've got to do is whup George Foreman.

832. And I realize how unfortunate and how uncomfortable it is

833. for some of you guys to have traveled so far

834. and expecting so much and getting so little.

835. George Foreman was a phenomenon.

836. He was almost like a physical guru.

837. He almost never said anything, but when he did, it was arresting.

838. You never quite knew what he was talking about.

839. It might be deep. It might be non-responsive.

840. He was negritude. He was this huge black force.

841. And because of this, I had expected Muhammad Ali to be here today.

842. I was gonna immediately jump and hit him in his mouth

843. to give you some form of entertainment.

844. Now when I go in the ring, you see what kind of mind I got now?

845. Oh! Oh!

846. I just got to pound now. I mean, I've got to pound it.

847. I'm not gonna even realize until after.

848. I might look at his face, say, "How did I do that?"

849. Allah, God. I'm his tool.

850. God got in me on purpose. This is for my people.

851. This man look slow. God has made this man look like a little kid.

852. A so-called right hand ain't nothing now. I don't even feel 'em.

853. I ain't got no fear of it. I walk right in. I'm gonna take my shots.

854. Because I got God in my mind. I'm thinking of my people being free.

855. And I can help with just one fight.

856. Now he look little in comparison to what I'm getting from it. He ain't nothin' now.

857. But if I think about me, just me, and...

858. George Foreman knocked out Joe Frazier like he was God.

859. George Foreman knocked out Ken Norton.

860. And the white press, the power structure, rank me to get tired in five or six.

861. Then I go in like Norton and the rest of 'em and get scared.

862. But I'm not looking at the world and what they say. My God controls the universe.

863. I was very interested in people called féticheurs.

864. They are witches,

865. soothsayers,

866. and in Western Africa, almost everybody has one.

867. Like a witch doctor, and you go the way we would go to a dentist.

868. Muhammad Ali had been to Mobutu's féticheur.

869. And, uh...

870. he had said that...

871. the féticheur had said that a woman with trembling hands

872. would somehow get to Foreman.

873. A succubus.

874. And that impressed me enormously.

875. That's the way I confuse that sucker!

876. The heavyweight championship does produce

877. an excitement in the onlookers

878. that's unlike almost any other spectacle.

879. It's almost physically unendurable

880. to wait for that bell to ring for the first round.

881. In 1974 in Zaire,

882. the fight started at 4:00 in the morning,

883. in order that it could be shown on television in America

884. at a reasonable hour like 10:00.

885. Before the fight, I saw a scene that was incomparable.

886. Ali's dressing room was like a morgue.

887. It was like The Last Supper.

888. And at a certain point, Ali said...

889. "Why is everyone...

890. so unhappy?

891. What is the matter with all of you?"

892. The sense was, was that we were watching a man

893. who was going out to be...

894. going out to the gallows.

895. Because they all believed that he was gonna get defeated,

896. and they were terrified.

897. They thought that, with his pride,

898. he would take one of the world's worst beatings ever,

899. and he wouldn't give up, and he was gonna be destroyed in that ring.

900. Killed or maimed, or they knew not what. But they were deeply frightened now.

901. It was as if they were taking whatever fear Ali might have had

902. before this enormous confrontation, and they were absorbing it.

903. So after a while, he looked at Bundini and said,

904. "We're gonna dance tonight, aren't we? We're gonna dance."

905. When they said, "You're gonna dance," he said, "I'm gonna dance."

906. Muhammad Ali was so funny, gracious, repeating this.

907. "What am I gonna do?" And they said, "You're gonna dance!"

908. He said, "Yes! I'm gonna dance and dance!

909. And that man's gonna be bewildered! I'm gonna dance and dance!"

910. And they said, "You're gonna dance!" And I swear they were all crying.

911. And he built them up to a degree

912. so that for him they became half-happy.

913. And here comes the Ali people out of the dressing room,

914. and all of the questions will be answered.

915. This is an awesome power of George Foreman

916. against the venerated boxing skills of Muhammad Ali.

917. It's age against youth.

918. The experience of Muhammad Ali against the youth

919. and brute force and blinding speed.

920. You can hear the band beginning to strike up in the background

921. as Ali moves to the ring.

922. This is what Muhammad Ali lives for. This is the man's life.

923. This may be an historic event,

924. Muhammad Ali coming into the boxing ring for the last time.

925. Should Muhammad Ali retire, this will be,

926. what you're seeing now, a very historic event.

927. Now here comes the heavyweight champion of the world, George Foreman,

928. jogging out.

929. George Foreman, decked out in his red robe,

930. coming in with his people.

931. No one in the press ever saw Mobutu,

932. and he didn't come to the fight.

933. He watched the fight on closed-circuit.

934. It was the only closed-circuit in Zaire, and it was in his palace.

935. He was terribly afraid of assassination, I think.

936. Now, this stadium was a true arena for gladiators.

937. Its floor, the floor you could not see beneath the floor,

938. was covered with blood.

939. That blood had been washed away,

940. but the effect of the blood was still there as part of the atmosphere.

941. There was a lot of talk about the possibility of rain.

942. I don't think the weather could be any more beautiful than it is tonight.

943. And Ali is getting the people to chant, "Ali, bomaye."

944. That means "Ali, kill him."

945. The atmosphere before the bell rang, before that first round,

946. was as intense as any I ever recall.

947. Look at this now, as they stare.

948. Muhammad Ali beginning to talk to George Foreman.

949. They're really putting the stare on each other.

950. George Foreman has that serious look. Ali definitely talking to him.

951. Look at the stare on George Foreman. Look at Ali give him the word.

952. So the stage is set. We're just about ready to begin round one.

953. This time, the championship is at stake,

954. and $5 million will be paid to both fighters.

955. Ali ready, Foreman ready.

956. We're waiting for the opening bell.

957. Here we go. Ali quickly across the ring.

958. Round one. Ali bouncing around, shifting left to right.

959. George moves slow. Ali gets the first punch in.

960. A light right hand taken on the forehead by George Foreman, the champion.

961. Foreman moving slow, trying to stalk his man.

962. Ali looks like he's ready to go here.

963. He's not staying away. He's going after his man.

964. Foreman a bit cautious in the first round,

965. looking to drop that left hook.

966. Foreman's locked his man to the far corner.

967. There's that left uppercut and jab to the body of Muhammad Ali.

968. Ali tries to hang on to the head of George Foreman.

969. Foreman dances now. Ali with a right-hand lead again!

970. Has Foreman slightly confused with that right-hand lead,

971. which I haven't seen too many times before.

972. A right-hand lead, which means that you throw your right without countering...

973. You throw it first, like a jab, but you throw it like... there...

974. that has to travel that extra distance across the shoulders.

975. Professionals will very rarely use a right-hand lead

976. 'cause it's a terribly dangerous punch to throw,

977. since you are open to a counter with a left hook.

978. And fighters, since they work in milliseconds,

979. can see a right coming much faster than a jab.

980. Nobody had thrown a right-hand lead at Foreman in two years,

981. and in training camp none of his sparring partners,

982. for $50 a day, was gonna start throwing right-hand leads at him

983. because it's a great insult to a top professional

984. when you throw a right-hand lead at him.

985. It suggests he's slow enough that you can hit him with it.

986. And instead Ali figured out

987. the one punch Foreman's not prepared for is a right-hand lead.

988. "He's expecting me to dance. I'm not gonna dance.

989. I'm gonna hit him with a right hand, knock him out in the first round."

990. Ali threw 12 right-hand leads.

991. I don't think he had told anyone he was gonna do it.

992. He may have debated about whether he was going to do it up till the last moment.

993. The only thing is, he didn't knock Foreman down and didn't knock him out.

994. Instead, Foreman went crazy.

995. That punch did no damage. That one did!

996. Two wild right hands taken on the side of the head of Muhammad Ali!

997. There's a real strong right hand just underneath the heart.

998. And Muhammad Ali is taking some punishment now.

999. About eight seconds left in the round.

1000. Bell rang.

1001. Ali went back to the corner.

1002. Finally, the nightmare he'd been awaiting in the ring

1003. had finally come to visit him.

1004. He was in the ring with a man he could not dominate,

1005. who was stronger than him, who was not afraid of him,

1006. who was gonna try to knock him out,

1007. and who punched harder than Ali could punch,

1008. and this man was determined and unstoppable.

1009. And Ali had a look on his face that I'll never forget.

1010. It's the only time I ever saw fear in Ali's eyes.

1011. Ali looked as if he looked into himself and said,

1012. "All right, this is the moment. This is what you've been waiting for.

1013. This is... that hour.

1014. And do you have the guts?" And he kind of nodded to himself, like,

1015. "Got to get it together, boy. You really got to get it together.

1016. And you are gonna get it together.

1017. You will get it together."

1018. He nodded some more,

1019. as if he were looking into the eyes of his maker,

1020. and then turned to the crowd, and he went,

1021. "Ali, bomaye!"

1022. And a hundred thousand people all yelled back "Ali, bomaye!"

1023. And this huge reverberation of the crowd came back into the ring,

1024. and Ali picked it up almost as if, "These are my people.

1025. This is what I'm here for.

1026. All right. The time has come. I'm gonna find a way to master this man."

1027. Ali tries to tie him up.

1028. No real damage done in that exchange.

1029. Foreman, like everyone else, had assumed that Ali would dance,

1030. and so Ali now went to the ropes

1031. and went into the rope-a-dope.

1032. And a lot of people thought at that moment the fight was over.

1033. Especially on television, where they saw it,

1034. because it looked like Foreman was now killing a very weak Ali.

1035. You don't go to the ropes.

1036. And there he was, leaning way back.

1037. I wrote about it as if... I think the phrase I used was,

1038. "It was like a man leaning out a window

1039. trying to see if there's something on his roof."

1040. And, you know... But you couldn't really see.

1041. Here were these great broadsides going at him,

1042. and it looked as though he was being set up for the kill.

1043. It happened so quickly and so abruptly

1044. that I said, I shouted to Norman, "The fix is in."

1045. That somehow he's supposed to go down in the first or the second.

1046. Ropes is halfway house to the floor.

1047. It just looked as though he had to cave in.

1048. awkward but very powerful hooks with both hands.

1049. Left hooks in what would really be...

1050. They became so basic at that point

1051. that they were like two kids having a fight.

1052. And for that round and for the next round and for the next round,

1053. Ali lay against the ropes in the rope-a-dope,

1054. and he kept talking to Foreman, and it was extraordinary.

1055. You had to be close to see it, 'cause it was intimate.

1056. And Foreman was throwing these prodigious punches

1057. that the sparring partners had thrown, and Ali swung like a man in the rigging.

1058. He'd go all the way back, slide out, come in and out like that.

1059. Occasionally he'd get hit, and he'd say, "George, you disappoint me.

1060. You don't hit as hard as I thought you would.

1061. George, you're not hitting hard enough.

1062. You're not breaking popcorn, George. You're just not hitting."

1063. And Foreman's insane with rage

1064. and wanging at him and wanging at him and wanging at him.

1065. Powerful, powerful, powerful.

1066. And middle of the fifth round, Foreman was worn out.

1067. He had punched himself out. It had taken three rounds.

1068. Ali picks it up a bit. About 40 seconds left in round five.

1069. Good, crisp combination by Ali

1070. lands on the head of Foreman.

1071. Foreman with that right hook.

1072. Ali scores a hook! Quick jab with the right backs up Foreman!

1073. Backs him up in his tracks! Foreman's stunned here!

1074. Foreman tries the hook! Ali goes to the right!

1075. Foreman gets knocked to the left!

1076. Foreman hit again! Foreman has been hit three or four times!

1077. Suddenly Muhammad Ali came off the ropes, and he hit him a right,

1078. and you could see the sweat just pour off,

1079. just like a fountain, come off Foreman's face,

1080. and you suddenly realized there was design in this madness.

1081. I then turned to Norman, I remember, and he must've been somewhat puzzled,

1082. but I said, "The succubus has got him,"

1083. referring back to this woman with the trembling hands

1084. that I'd been told by the witch doctors

1085. was going to touch Foreman and destroy him.

1086. This could be the tactics of Ali,

1087. to let the man punch himself out.

1088. Thirty seconds left in round eight.

1089. A very even fight. Ali, a sneaky right hand.

1090. Another sneaky right hand.

1091. This time he works over the shoulder of Foreman.

1092. This is the combination!

1093. Two, three,

1094. four, five, six!

1095. Foreman gets up to the knee at eight!

1096. That's it! The fight is stopped!

1097. Muhammad Ali, a dramatic eighth-round knockout!

1098. He knocks out...

1099. George Foreman!

1100. He's done it!

1101. Muhammad Ali has done it! Muhammad Ali has done it!

1102. Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali.

1103. Muhammad Ali, he was like a sleeping elephant.

1104. You can do whatever you want around a sleeping elephant.

1105. Whatever you want.

1106. But when he wakes up,

1107. he tramples everything.

1108. Muhammad Ali, bomaye.

1109. Bomaye. Muhammad Ali bomaye George Foreman.

1110. He did it.

1111. He's champion again. We couldn't believe it.

1112. It was such a classic performance, and so beautiful,

1113. that at the moment Ali hit the knockout punch...

1114. Foreman began to go, Ali followed him around.

1115. Ali had his right cocked for one more punch, but he never threw it.

1116. He didn't want to ruin the aesthetic of this man going down

1117. with a clumsy punch on the way down.

1118. I think one has mixed emotions when you see the end of a fight.

1119. I always feel enormous sympathy for the man that's losing it.

1120. You just can't help but to,

1121. particularly when you see really a titanic, formidable figure

1122. just suddenly on the ground.

1123. And now, when we see George on television...

1124. and know that after that knockout,

1125. he went through two years of the deepest depression,

1126. he almost didn't come out of it.

1127. To see the man who's come out of it, to see the way in which

1128. he reconstructed his personality,

1129. until it'll be hard-put to find anyone in American life

1130. who's more affable than George Foreman.

1131. Foreman has become a fabulous person in American life.

1132. Just as the fight finished, the monsoons, the African rains, came,

1133. and in fact they came so hard that the waters

1134. were about three feet deep in the dressing rooms,

1135. where we'd just been, you know, an hour ago.

1136. You've never seen such a downpour.

1137. And we rode back through the African night from the boxing ring into Kinshasa,

1138. and there were crowds along the road

1139. standing in the rain, in this pouring rain, leaping up and down,

1140. because of course the news had gone around that Muhammad Ali had won this fight.

1141. He stayed up all night, from what I heard,

1142. and in the morning he spoke to African groups

1143. who'd come as delegations to see him.

1144. And they more than revered him. He was a god.

1145. And he spoke to them very simply that day, and beautifully,

1146. and he said, "Afro-Americans, in America,

1147. we're not as good as you are.

1148. Some of us are richer than you are,

1149. but you have a dignity in your poverty that we don't have.

1150. We are spoiled in America.

1151. We have lost what you still have in Africa, and you must keep that."

1152. And he spoke very gently. And I thought,

1153. "My Lord, on top of everything else, this man is a political leader,

1154. and he's gonna be a great political leader."

1155. I have a lot of things to do in the black neighborhoods.

1156. We have a lot of problems that we have to solve among ourselves.

1157. Prostitution problems, dope problems, gang-fight problems.

1158. Knowledge of self. The black people don't have no knowledge of themselves.

1159. We have been made just like white people mentally.

1160. And white people have made us so much like them

1161. until it's hard to teach them anything about themselves.

1162. It's hard to teach them to unite and marry and be with their own

1163. because they're now like white people... black people are now like white people.

1164. But they're so brainwashed that we have to re-brainwash 'em now

1165. and teach 'em more about themselves and their own history,

1166. their own names, their own language, to respect and protect their own women,

1167. do something for themselves

1168. and quit always begging white people for things they should do for themselves.

1169. I never heard Ali say that he was never gonna fight again.

1170. Uh...

1171. if he had said it, and usually he told the truth, I wouldn't have believed it.

1172. He was born to fight, born for the ring, and loved it.

1173. He truly loved fighting. And, uh...

1174. as happens with people who love a thing too much, it destroys them.

1175. I think it was Oscar Wilde that said, "You destroy the thing that you love."

1176. It's the other way around. What you love destroys you.

1177. He came back. He had 22 fights.

1178. Some of them were most honorable. Some were very difficult.

1179. Some of them were comedies and farces.

1180. He hurt himself in those 22 fights after the fight in Africa.

1181. There's a tendency to look at Muhammad and say,

1182. "He's wounded. He's ill."

1183. There are no intellectual deficits. It's a motor-skills problem.

1184. And he doesn't try to hide his condition.

1185. He goes out and lets the whole world see it.

1186. He doesn't feel sorry for himself,

1187. and there's really no reason for anybody else to feel sorry for him.

1188. He loves being Muhammad Ali.

1189. He truly believes that he's doing God's work,

1190. and he's as happy with each day as anybody I know.

1191. Today's young generation, they don't know anything.

1192. Something happened last year, they know nothing about it.

1193. So there are these great, great stories, great historic events,

1194. and I'm not talking about 1850s stuff.

1195. They don't know who Malcolm X is. They don't know who JFK is.

1196. Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, you can go down the line.

1197. And-And it's scary.

1198. These kids today will be missing a whole lot

1199. if they don't know about the legacy of Muhammad Ali,

1200. because no matter what era you live in,

1201. you see very few true heroes.

1202. Ali, bomaye! Ali, bomaye!

1203. Ali, bomaye! Ali, bomaye!

1204. Back up, sucker. Back up.

1205. Come get me, sucker. I'm dancin'!

1206. I'm dancin'! Follow me, chump!

1207. No, I'm not there, I'm here. Whoop!

1208. Sucker, you ain't got nothing!

1209. Years after the fight in Zaire, perhaps ten years after...

1210. and I'd run into Ali on occasion after that,

1211. but I remember this meeting particularly.

1212. 'Cause Esquire was giving a party for various people

1213. who had distinguished themselves in Esquire that year in one way or another.

1214. Ali, for whatever he'd done.

1215. I was there probably 'cause I had a good story in Esquire that year.

1216. Other people were there, maybe 25 of us, honored guests.

1217. I was there with my wife, and we saw Ali, and we were talking with him,

1218. and he couldn't have been nicer, more complimentary.

1219. I remember I was 62 at the time, 'cause he said, "How old are you now?"

1220. I said "62." He said "Oh."

1221. It was the same as when we were running, jogging that night.

1222. He said, "Oh, I hope I'm as young as you are when I'm 62.

1223. You are looking wonderful." He went on and on like that.

1224. And I got so pleased and so vain that, you know, I'm like a dog.

1225. What did I have to do? I had to go urinate.

1226. And I did. I went away, and the moment I was gone,

1227. he turned to my wife, who's much younger than I am,

1228. and he looked at her, looked at her hard, and he said,

1229. "You still with that old man?"

1230. And for me that's always been... That's Ali.

1231. You love him even when you turn your back on him.

1232. I heard him once talking to the Harvard senior class commencement.

1233. He gave this extraordinary speech. You know, he was dyslexic.

1234. And he would look at a paper with me, and he'd say,

1235. "Hey, George, what's this word?" I'd say, "Appendicitis."

1236. He'd say, "How do you get a word like 'appendicitis'? It's so long.

1237. It's so long."

1238. Here he was, teaching... uh, delivering a lecture,

1239. senior class day for these thousand, 2,000 Harvard graduates...

1240. and, um, he had these little cards in front of him.

1241. He gave this wonderful speech about, he hadn't had opportunity, but they had,

1242. and they should use that language, that learning that they had

1243. to go out and do their best to change the world and make it a better place.

1244. It was moving and it was funny at the same time,

1245. and a great roar of appreciation at the end of it, and then...

1246. someone shouted out, "Give us a poem!"

1247. And everybody quieted down.

1248. The shortest poem in the English language, according to Bartlett's Quotations, is...

1249. it's called "On the Antiquity of Microbes."

1250. And the poem is, "Adam had 'em."

1251. It's pretty short.

1252. But Muhammad Ali's poem was,

1253. "Me, we."

1254. Two words. I wrote Bartlett's Quotations, and I said,

1255. "Look here. That's shorter than 'Adam had 'em.' You want to put it in?"

1256. And it stands for something more than the poem itself.

1257. "Me, we." What a fighter he was. And what a man.

1258. I want to win my title and walk down the alleys.