George Foreman to this day is still the oldest heavyweight champion of all time but in his younger days he had a famed fight above all others.
The Rumble In The Jungle with Muhammad Ali in Zaire.
Most never gave Ali a shot at winning the fight against the young feared Foreman at the time.
Years later however, after Ali has now died even, George Foreman has finally admitted that Muhammad Ali did not in fact hurt him at all at the time of the stoppage.
He simply mistimed the ten count from the referee and was fine to get up but he just misjudged the second at the end of the fight to get up, and the referee waved it off.
Not because Ali hurt him or George Foreman wanted to stay down but purely just because he misjudged the count and arose a fraction of a second too late.
Speaking to the I AM ATHLETE podcast Foreman said:
“Rumble in the Jungle. I call it the mugging in the jungle because I went there with two title belts and left there with nothing. I was devastated. The only guy I thought I’d beat easily, beat me, Muhammad Ali. He never would give up. I never run into anything like that. Hit the guy with the hardest shots and looked like he said, I’m not going anywhere. Then after so many rounds, I was tired.”
He added:
“No (it was not the toughest fight I had), the toughest one was when you come back with Ron Lyle. He knocked me down I hit the floor so hard and bust my mouth and I said what excuses can I come up with now? Then when you should stay down you fight to get up because nobody is going to believe in any excuses I had. I had to fight. And I didn’t want to do it at the time because he (Ron Lyle) hurt me. Muhammad (Ali) didn’t hurt me. He just clipped me with a shot and knocked me down, I was waiting on a count and jumped up late, but this guy (Lyle) hurt me.”
There you have it.
Ron Lyle after the Ali fight would also succumbed to the Foreman power however.
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George Foreman won that fight by a 5th round knockout.
George Foreman later would come back to boxing later in life at the age of 45 he came back and knocked out Michael Moorer on November 5th, 1994.
