Fight Doctor: Muhammad Ali's True Story by Pacheco M.D. Ferdie

Author:Pacheco M.D., Ferdie [Pacheco M.D., Ferdie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hillcrest Media Group
Published: 2011-12-19T16:00:00+00:00

10. The Rumble in the Jungle—George Foreman

OCTOBER 1974

Bud Collins of the Boston Globe was the pleasantest of companions as we traveled together on Air France to Zaire, but Bud was all that was good about that trip. It involved six stops and lasted twenty-six hours and our luggage was lost. We did get to Africa in the end, but I for one am never going to do it again for fun. We weren’t the only ones.

Over one hundred American newsmen knew that there was something amiss when their direct charter plane to Zaire landed in Iceland. A modest knowledge of geography would suffice to indicate that this was not the shortest route to Kinshasa. After many weary hours of jet travel they found themselves in Luxembourg and heard the astounding news that the heavyweight champion, George Foreman, who had taken the crown off Joe Frazier’s battered brow in two rounds in January 1973, was cut, and the Great Fight was in doubt. That was enough for most veteran newsmen, and most followed Jim Murray and Shirley Povich to the nearest terminal counter to begin renegotiating their return to the States and sanity. Theirs was a triumph of experience over optimism.

Reggie Gutteridge, Britain’s answer to Howard Cosell, figured he was in for a bad day when he arrived in Zaire and strapped on his artificial leg backward. But he gave the Zaire porters and police an even nastier shock when they saw a small disheveled Englishman walking toward them with one foot pointed in the opposite direction.

Bud and I were leaving stop number five for Zaire when I heard the shocking news and decided to press on to see if I could be of help, and to hang around for the fight if it was not delayed too long. The prospect of seeing Foreman face Ali for the real championship of the world was too much to let go for lack of trying. Ali had revenged himself on Ken Norton, winning a tough twelve-round decision over him in September 1973, and four months later had turned the tables on Joe Frazier in similar fashion. So we had the official champion, Foreman, up against our man, Ali, who still was the champion in our book, no matter what the official commission had declared. This fight would settle things, and I wasn’t going to miss it.

Zaire has a small airport but a large army, and on arriving I had the feeling that I had landed in the Havana airport in the midst of the Castro takeover. Zaire customs officials have a brusque no-nonsense approach to foreigners. No attempt is made to speak English, although most do speak English and their French is a patois that even a Haitian wouldn’t understand. Because of the fight, the government had issued orders for a general softening of their normal attitude, and several actually tried to smile, unused muscles creaking with the strain. It all had the aspect of Parents’ Day at Dachau. Fortunately I had foreseen this, and wore my bright green Muhammad Ali jacket with his name emblazoned on the pocket.

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