Celebrating the 35th Anniversary of the Ali-Foreman Rumble in the Jungle

The Rumble in the Jungle turns 35 years old today. For those of you who are not aware that is, it was the historic legendary heavyweight championship fight between a prime, undefeated monster heavyweight champion known as "Big George" George Foreman and an aging Muhammad Ali. This fight took place in Zaire, Africa on Oct. 30, 1974.

Ali, for most of the fight, utilized a new very risky method known as the "rope-a-dope." This involved Ali leaning backwards into the ropes, allowing Foreman to aggressively punch himself out.

Foreman took the bait and eventually punched himself out landing most of his thunderous blows onto the blocked arms and gloves of Ali. Finally, in the eighth round, Foreman began to significantly tire and Ali saw his chance to open up and hit him with a left hook and big right hand to the face of Foreman knocking him down to the canvas.

Foreman just laid their looking up as if he did not know what had hit him and his body would not respond to even attempting to pick himself off the ground and was eventually counted out.

Many forget how different this version of George Foreman was back in 1974. He was not your cute cuddly Christian teddy bear with a smile who now makes a fortune selling you George Foreman grills. This 1974 version of George Foreman was a beast.

He was mean and powerful with no mercy, destroying any opponent that stood in his way. Foreman utterly annihilated the only two men at the time to defeat Ali: Ken Norton and Joe Frazier, punishing them for two rounds until they were both knocked out.

These were some of the reasons why Foreman was such a betting favorite and Ali was such an underdog going into the fight. That's what made the result of the fight so much more impressive and legendary.

This fight would go down in history as one of the greatest ever and one of the most talked about. Many musicians have written songs in honor of this great fight such as Jethro Tull's song "Bungle in the Jungle" all the way to the Fugees' song "Rumble in the Jungle."

An Academy-award winning documentary titled When We Were Kings highlights the before and after events of this fight as well as the actual fight itself.

In the biographical movie ALI, starring Will Smith as Ali, the climatic ending of the film was this fight between Ali and Foreman.

On a more personal note, I have always viewed this fight not only as a great historic legendary fight but more so a metaphor for one over coming the odds and being so self-confident that one can do anything if one really trains hard and believes in one's self even when everyone around you says that you can not.

I have a replica of the white and black trunks and white robe that Ali wore that night made by Adidas. Right by the belt section of the trucks it reads: "1974 Zaire Ali vs Foreman Rumble in the Jungle."

These trunks and robe hang in my closet as a reminder to remember to always be the greatest at what you do and if Ali could win this impossible fight then that should be the standard for how we live our lives.