The Big Fight
On October 30th, 60, 000 people were gathered at dawn to watch the fight at the Stade du 20 Mai . Before the fight, Ali had been making a jest of Foreman.
The big strong man couldn’t just wait for the bell so he could unleash all his anger on Ali. Before getting to the venue of the fight, Ali watched a horror movie titled Baron Blood. When the bell finally rang, Foreman began to hit Ali with Jawbreaking blows.
Muhammad Ali (far left) knocks George Foreman (far right) onto his back during the eighth round of their world heavyweight title boxing match in 1974.
To survive this, Ali developed a strategy right there in the boxing ring….he would later call it the “rope-a-dope” tactics. The key to this tactic was to make Foreman lose energy. Ali started to lean on the ropes and let Foreman come at him. Foreman punches at Ali was either blocked or dodged. By the fifth round, Foreman began to wear out. His punches were not as powerful as they were during the first round. The eight round saw Ali leave the ropes. He started to release a series of right hooks on the already tired Foreman, followed by a 5-punch combination and hard right-handed punch that knocked Foreman to the ground. At the rise count of 8, the referee ended the fight. Ali regained the heavyweight title.