1
00:00:20,847 --> 00:00:23,486
Yeah, I'm in Africa.
Yeah, Africa's my home.

2
00:00:23,527 --> 00:00:26,087
Damn America and what America thinks.

3
00:00:26,127 --> 00:00:29,676
I live in America, but Africa's
the home of the Black man.

4
00:00:29,727 --> 00:00:31,638
I was a slave 400 years ago

5
00:00:31,687 --> 00:00:34,565
and I'm going back home to fight
among my brothers! Yeah!

6
00:00:34,607 --> 00:00:37,565
'For these two African-Americans

7
00:00:37,607 --> 00:00:40,997
'to come home was
of great, great significance.

8
00:00:41,047 --> 00:00:43,322
'Because of Hollywood and TV

9
00:00:43,367 --> 00:00:46,757
'a lot of us
had been taught to hate Africa.'

10
00:00:46,807 --> 00:00:50,595
Once, if you called a Black person
African they'd be ready to fight.

12
00:01:08,207 --> 00:01:12,917
'When I get to Africa we'll get
it on because we don't get along!'

13
00:01:12,967 --> 00:01:14,764
I'm gonna eat him up!

14
00:01:14,807 --> 00:01:19,198
Too much speed for him!
Too fast! Too fast!

15
00:01:19,247 --> 00:01:23,240
I'm gonna retire the
heavyweight champion of the world!

16
00:01:23,287 --> 00:01:25,755
I'm gonna retire
the heavyweight champion!

17
00:01:25,807 --> 00:01:28,958
September 25th
the world'll be stunned!

18
00:01:29,007 --> 00:01:30,645
Tell 'em, Ali!

19
00:01:30,687 --> 00:01:33,724
If you think the world was surprised
when Nixon resigned

20
00:01:33,767 --> 00:01:36,281
wait till I kick Foreman's behind!


22
00:02:09,967 --> 00:02:13,357
'An 18-year-old amateur
champion with a charming smile

23
00:02:13,407 --> 00:02:16,638
'took a physical examination
for his first professional fight.'

24
00:02:20,007 --> 00:02:21,599
It won't be an easy fight

25
00:02:21,647 --> 00:02:25,083
but my plan of attack
on a fighter like Alex Miteff

26
00:02:25,127 --> 00:02:26,958
would be two fast left jabs,

27
00:02:27,007 --> 00:02:29,840
a rapid right cross
and a left hook.

28
00:02:29,887 --> 00:02:32,606
'But in the Belgian Congo,

29
00:02:32,647 --> 00:02:36,117
'freedom was followed
by rioting and an army mutiny.

30
00:02:37,167 --> 00:02:40,637
'For months,
the political pattern kept changing

31
00:02:40,687 --> 00:02:43,599
'until pro-Red
Premier Lumumba was seized

32
00:02:43,647 --> 00:02:46,684
'by the forces
of strongman Colonel Mobutu.'

34
00:02:49,087 --> 00:02:51,965
After watching Mike DeJohn
and Eddie Machen,

35
00:02:52,007 --> 00:02:53,998
I would rate myself number two.

36
00:02:56,647 --> 00:02:59,036
I'm out to break
Floyd Patterson's record

37
00:02:59,087 --> 00:03:03,080
and this being my 20th birthday,
today, January 17th,

38
00:03:03,127 --> 00:03:06,756
that leaves me exactly one year
to reach my goal.

39
00:03:08,967 --> 00:03:13,358
People do say I'm cocky,
some say I need a good whuppin',

40
00:03:13,407 --> 00:03:15,398
some say I talk too much,

41
00:03:15,447 --> 00:03:18,086
but anything that I say,
I'm willing to back up.

42
00:03:19,127 --> 00:03:21,004
The other night I predicted

43
00:03:21,047 --> 00:03:24,642
that I would knock out Banks
in four rounds and I did.

44
00:03:26,647 --> 00:03:28,444
I knocked out Don Warner

45
00:03:28,487 --> 00:03:31,399
and I just annihilated
George Logan in four rounds.

46
00:03:42,207 --> 00:03:45,643
'Close your mouth
and keep it closed.'

47
00:03:45,687 --> 00:03:48,281
- That's impossible.
- Keep it closed.

48
00:03:48,327 --> 00:03:51,125
I'm the greatest
and I'm knocking out all bums.

49
00:03:51,167 --> 00:03:53,442
And if you get too smart
I'll knock you out.

50
00:03:58,967 --> 00:04:02,198
'You'd take him on
before the fight?'

51
00:04:02,247 --> 00:04:04,044
Beat him like I'm his daddy.

52
00:04:04,087 --> 00:04:06,123
I saw Sonny Liston a few days ago.

53
00:04:06,167 --> 00:04:07,998
Ain't he ugly?

54
00:04:11,887 --> 00:04:14,082
I'm young, I'm handsome,

55
00:04:14,127 --> 00:04:17,403
I'm fast, I'm pretty
and can't possibly be beat.

56
00:04:17,447 --> 00:04:20,359
Cassius Clay
goes into the record book

57
00:04:20,407 --> 00:04:23,160
with Corbett, Tunney and Braddock,

58
00:04:23,207 --> 00:04:27,485
bringing off another great upset
in heavyweight history.

59
00:04:27,527 --> 00:04:31,884
It is befitting that I leave
the game just like I came in,

60
00:04:31,927 --> 00:04:35,363
beating a big bad monster
who knocks out everybody

61
00:04:35,407 --> 00:04:37,204
and no one can whup him.

62
00:04:37,247 --> 00:04:40,523
When little Cassius Clay
stopped Sonny Liston,

63
00:04:40,567 --> 00:04:43,877
the man who annihilated
Floyd Patterson twice.

64
00:04:43,927 --> 00:04:45,724
He was gonna kill me!

65
00:04:45,767 --> 00:04:47,758
But he hit harder than George.

66
00:04:47,807 --> 00:04:50,560
His reach is longer,
he's a better boxer

67
00:04:50,607 --> 00:04:55,317
and I'm better now than when you saw
that kid running from Sonny Liston.

68
00:04:55,367 --> 00:04:57,835
I'm experienced now, professional.

69
00:04:57,887 --> 00:05:02,119
Jaw's been broke, been knocked down
a couple of times, I'm bad!

70
00:05:02,167 --> 00:05:05,125
Been chopping trees,
I done something new.

71
00:05:05,167 --> 00:05:08,204
- I wrestled with an alligator.


72
00:05:08,247 --> 00:05:11,523
That's right,
I have wrestled with an alligator!

73
00:05:11,567 --> 00:05:16,436
I tussled with a whale. I handcuffed
lightning, thrown thunder in jail!

74
00:05:16,487 --> 00:05:20,685
That's bad!
Only last week I murdered a rock!

75
00:05:20,727 --> 00:05:24,197
Injured a stone!
Hospitalised a brick!

76
00:05:24,247 --> 00:05:27,444
- I'm so mean I make medicine sick!
- Bad dude!

77
00:05:27,487 --> 00:05:29,205
Bad, fast!

78
00:05:29,247 --> 00:05:32,717
Fast! Fast! Last night,
cut the light off in my bedroom,

79
00:05:32,767 --> 00:05:35,725
hit the switch and was in the bed
before the room was dark!

80
00:05:35,767 --> 00:05:37,644
- Incredible.
- Fast!

81
00:05:37,687 --> 00:05:41,600
You, George Foreman, all you chumps
are gonna bow when I whup him!

82
00:05:41,647 --> 00:05:46,038
All of you! I know you got him picked
but the man's in trouble!

83
00:05:46,087 --> 00:05:48,601
I'm gonna show you how great I am!

84
00:05:48,647 --> 00:05:52,356
I think Ali was scared.
I think he was scared even then.

85
00:05:52,407 --> 00:05:55,763
He knew he was gonna be very scared
as he got closer to the fight.

86
00:05:55,807 --> 00:05:57,957
You know the way George fights.

87
00:05:58,007 --> 00:06:01,044
George comes out...
"I made him the mummy!"

88
00:06:03,687 --> 00:06:08,477
'With his ego he could tell
himself he would dominate Foreman,

89
00:06:08,527 --> 00:06:13,442
'make a fool of him, that Foreman
would never lay a glove on him.'

90
00:06:13,487 --> 00:06:17,002
But in fact, in his sleep
or wherever his private moment came

91
00:06:17,047 --> 00:06:21,962
he knew that he had not done as well
against two fighters particularly,

92
00:06:22,007 --> 00:06:25,841
Joe Frazier and Ken Norton,
whom Foreman had demolished.

93
00:06:25,887 --> 00:06:29,562
Down goes Frazier!
Down goes Frazier!

94
00:06:29,607 --> 00:06:33,441
The heavyweight champion
is taking the mandatory eight count

95
00:06:33,487 --> 00:06:35,796
and Foreman is as poised as can be!

96
00:06:35,847 --> 00:06:38,042
Foreman is going about his job!

97
00:06:38,087 --> 00:06:42,080
'He had an overpowering
intensity when he punched.

98
00:06:42,127 --> 00:06:45,039
'Foreman won
by knocking Joe Frazier out

99
00:06:45,087 --> 00:06:47,885
'and knocked him down
something like seven times.

100
00:06:47,927 --> 00:06:50,999
'Then he destroyed Ken Norton
in two rounds.

101
00:06:51,887 --> 00:06:56,244
'The word "murderous" does not
quite apply, Foreman was awesome.'

102
00:06:56,287 --> 00:06:58,881
This chump has got everybody scared.

103
00:06:58,927 --> 00:07:02,806
Scared of what?
There's nothing to be scared of.

104
00:07:04,047 --> 00:07:05,924
Scared of what?

105
00:07:08,207 --> 00:07:12,200
How many fellas in here
picks George? Be truthful, be men.

106
00:07:12,247 --> 00:07:13,760
Tell the truth.

107
00:07:13,807 --> 00:07:16,799
- John, raise your hand.


108
00:07:19,687 --> 00:07:21,405
Got George?

109
00:07:21,447 --> 00:07:23,517
You got George. Tell the truth.

110
00:07:23,567 --> 00:07:25,876
You! You, fella. Yeah.

111
00:07:25,927 --> 00:07:28,885
No pick? I just wanna know.
You got George...

112
00:07:31,447 --> 00:07:34,723
The time may have come
to say goodbye to Muhammad Ali,

113
00:07:34,767 --> 00:07:39,124
because very honestly I don't think
he can beat George Foreman.

114
00:07:39,167 --> 00:07:43,001
Howard Cosell, you told everybody
I don't have a chance.

115
00:07:43,047 --> 00:07:45,925
Told 'em I don't have
nothing but a prayer.

116
00:07:45,967 --> 00:07:49,880
Well, chump, all I need is a prayer
because if that reaches the right man

117
00:07:49,927 --> 00:07:53,363
not only will George Foreman fall
but mountains will fall!

118
00:07:53,407 --> 00:07:55,637
Maybe he can pull off a miracle,

119
00:07:55,687 --> 00:07:57,917
but against George Foreman?

120
00:07:57,967 --> 00:08:00,606
So young, so strong, so fearless?

121
00:08:00,647 --> 00:08:04,481
Against George Foreman,
who does away with his opponents

122
00:08:04,527 --> 00:08:07,564
one after another
in less than three rounds?

123
00:08:07,607 --> 00:08:10,121
It's hard for me
to conjure with that.

124
00:08:10,167 --> 00:08:14,240
You always say "Muhammad, you're not
the same man you were 10 years ago."

125
00:08:14,287 --> 00:08:15,686
I asked your wife

126
00:08:15,727 --> 00:08:18,799
and she told me you're not the same
man you was two years ago!

127
00:08:18,847 --> 00:08:23,045
After this fight
I suspect Ali will retire.

128
00:08:23,087 --> 00:08:25,123
And through all of the years

129
00:08:25,167 --> 00:08:29,206
my own memories of him
will be as a fighter,

130
00:08:29,247 --> 00:08:34,196
and as the strange and curious
and gregarious and engaging

131
00:08:34,247 --> 00:08:40,243
and sometimes cruel,
and sometimes family man that he is.

132
00:08:40,287 --> 00:08:44,121
I'm gonna let everybody know
that that thing on your head

133
00:08:44,167 --> 00:08:47,318
is a phoney
and it comes from the tail of a pony.

134
00:08:47,367 --> 00:08:49,437
A stolen bicycle.

135
00:08:49,487 --> 00:08:53,162
He had a bicycle
and he went to Columbia Gym.

136
00:08:53,207 --> 00:08:58,042
There was something going on up there
and he left his bike parked outside.

137
00:08:58,087 --> 00:09:00,840
So when he came out
someone had stolen it

138
00:09:00,887 --> 00:09:03,276
and he went inside and he was crying

139
00:09:03,327 --> 00:09:07,320
and he told the policeman there,
his name was Joe Martin,

140
00:09:07,367 --> 00:09:09,358
that someone stole his bike.

141
00:09:09,407 --> 00:09:14,481
And Joe Martin, he also taught the
little boys how to box in the evening

142
00:09:14,527 --> 00:09:18,281
so he asked would he be interested
in learning how to box

143
00:09:18,327 --> 00:09:22,639
and he told him yes, because if he
ever found out who stole his bike

144
00:09:22,687 --> 00:09:26,282
he wanted to know how to fight
so he could beat them up.

145
00:09:26,327 --> 00:09:29,763
An overhand right
sends Sonny to the canvas!

146
00:09:29,807 --> 00:09:33,322
Referee Jersey Joe Walcott is trying
to get Ali to a neutral corner.

147
00:09:33,367 --> 00:09:35,597
Ali yelling at Liston to get up...

148
00:09:35,647 --> 00:09:38,400
- Anchor punch.
- Which fight?

149
00:09:38,447 --> 00:09:40,642
I call it the anchor punch.

150
00:09:40,687 --> 00:09:44,236
- The one Stepin Fetchit helped with?
- Yeah, man.

151
00:09:45,127 --> 00:09:46,924
People couldn't see it,

152
00:09:46,967 --> 00:09:51,165
it was so fast Sports Illustrated
got a slow-motion camera,

153
00:09:51,207 --> 00:09:55,519
they clocked the punch and the punch
flew at 4/100ths of a second.

154
00:09:55,567 --> 00:09:57,797
You can break a second
down to 100 pieces.

155
00:09:57,847 --> 00:10:01,681
When people win a ski race
they say one and 16/100ths,

156
00:10:01,727 --> 00:10:03,718
one and 32/100ths of a second,

157
00:10:03,767 --> 00:10:08,158
so you break a second into 100 pieces
so, you know...that's quick,

158
00:10:08,207 --> 00:10:12,519
they got a machine that goes,
like, fr-r-t, real quick, fr-r-t,

159
00:10:12,567 --> 00:10:15,035
and it counts real quick, real quick.

160
00:10:15,087 --> 00:10:18,557
And by the time that thing
hit four that's how quick,

161
00:10:18,607 --> 00:10:21,599
from the time the punch started
to where it landed

162
00:10:21,647 --> 00:10:25,925
was 4/100ths of a second,
an eye blink, like a camera flash.

163
00:10:25,967 --> 00:10:27,958
That's 4/100ths of a second.

164
00:10:28,007 --> 00:10:31,363
When I hit Sonny Liston
all those people blinked,

165
00:10:31,407 --> 00:10:33,204
so they didn't see it.

166
00:10:33,247 --> 00:10:35,477
- I swear!

167
00:10:35,527 --> 00:10:39,440
If you watch the film close,
keep your eyes real close...

168
00:10:39,487 --> 00:10:41,523
- Keep looking.

169
00:10:41,567 --> 00:10:43,717
I'm getting ready to hit him.

170
00:10:43,767 --> 00:10:48,124
You got to hold your eyes and wait
or you won't see it, man!

171
00:10:48,167 --> 00:10:51,079
Ali was a beautiful...specimen,

172
00:10:51,127 --> 00:10:52,765
a fighting machine.

173
00:10:52,807 --> 00:10:57,927
He was handsome,
he was articulate, he was funny,

174
00:10:58,727 --> 00:11:00,718
charismatic.

175
00:11:00,767 --> 00:11:03,156
And was whuppin' ass too.

176
00:11:03,207 --> 00:11:06,756
'Deposed champion
Cassius Clay, at court in Houston,

177
00:11:06,807 --> 00:11:09,685
'is found guilty of violating
Selective Service laws

178
00:11:09,727 --> 00:11:11,718
'by refusing to be inducted.

179
00:11:11,767 --> 00:11:15,316
'He is sentenced to five years
in prison and fined $10,000.'

180
00:11:15,367 --> 00:11:18,404
'The way he fused
politics and sports.

181
00:11:18,447 --> 00:11:22,998
'Very few Black athletes had ever
talked the way Muhammad Ali talked

182
00:11:23,047 --> 00:11:26,483
'without fear of something
happening to their careers.'

183
00:11:26,527 --> 00:11:29,485
'..as a Moslem minister
made him exempt...'

184
00:11:29,527 --> 00:11:33,520
'He was already very unpopular
with mainstream Americans

185
00:11:33,567 --> 00:11:36,525
'because he had joined
the Nation of Islam,

186
00:11:36,567 --> 00:11:40,242
'which was perceived as
a radical Black separatist group.'

187
00:11:40,287 --> 00:11:43,518
On top of that,
when he was called for induction

188
00:11:43,567 --> 00:11:46,001
he refused to take the step forward.

189
00:11:46,047 --> 00:11:48,515
He absolutely infuriated America.

190
00:11:48,567 --> 00:11:52,276
Muhammad Ali said,
"No Viet Cong ever called me nigger."

191
00:11:52,327 --> 00:11:54,716
The king is going home
to get his throne.

192
00:11:54,767 --> 00:11:57,964
From root to fruit,
that's where everything started at.

193
00:11:58,007 --> 00:12:00,521
This is God's act
and you're part of it.

194
00:12:00,567 --> 00:12:02,876
This is no Hollywood set,
this is real.

195
00:12:02,927 --> 00:12:04,918
Hollywood set up these scenes,

196
00:12:04,967 --> 00:12:07,322
have somebody in the movies
playing his life.

197
00:12:07,367 --> 00:12:09,278
We don't pick up a script.

198
00:12:09,327 --> 00:12:11,158
We get up in the morning,

199
00:12:11,207 --> 00:12:13,926
sometimes we feel good,
sometimes bad,

200
00:12:13,967 --> 00:12:16,197
but we go through it with feeling.

201
00:12:16,247 --> 00:12:20,479
'Muhammad Ali's a prophet, he gonna
be a fisherman for Elijah Muhammad.

202
00:12:20,527 --> 00:12:24,918
'This is only a stop, look and
listen sign he's doing, fighting.'

203
00:12:25,687 --> 00:12:28,485
We been fightin' ever since we met.

204
00:12:28,527 --> 00:12:32,600
We beat Uncle Sam, come out
of the garage and beat number two.

205
00:12:32,647 --> 00:12:36,117
First man ever did it. Rest of 'em
they put out of the country.

206
00:12:39,327 --> 00:12:42,080
'This is God's act,
we just actors in it.

207
00:12:42,127 --> 00:12:45,563
'If Jesus was here
everybody'd want his autograph

208
00:12:45,607 --> 00:12:47,438
'and they'd be filming him.

209
00:12:47,487 --> 00:12:51,162
'This is a sport,
that's why you walking, talk to him.'

210
00:12:51,207 --> 00:12:54,995
I think Muhammad is a prophet.
How you gonna beat God's son?

211
00:12:55,727 --> 00:12:59,322
Anybody who loves poor people
and little people gotta be a prophet.

212
00:12:59,367 --> 00:13:02,279
He was champion of the world,
had a table full of food.

213
00:13:02,327 --> 00:13:06,843
Had a house for his mother, one for
him and he told 'em to shove it.

214
00:13:06,887 --> 00:13:12,280
If he couldn't love his god,
what do you think he is...mister?

217
00:13:25,447 --> 00:13:29,486
'Ali trained for the Foreman
fight at Deer Lake, Pennsylvania.

218
00:13:29,527 --> 00:13:31,995
'He trained very hard
for that fight,

219
00:13:32,047 --> 00:13:34,607
'and had very good sparring partners.

220
00:13:34,647 --> 00:13:36,842
'Larry Holmes was one of them.

221
00:13:36,887 --> 00:13:41,244
'I was struck with how well
he actually handled Ali

222
00:13:41,287 --> 00:13:43,755
'in their sparring sessions.

223
00:13:43,807 --> 00:13:46,685
'He dominated Ali.
That wasn't uncommon.

224
00:13:46,727 --> 00:13:51,039
'Ali would often not show his best
stuff with sparring partners,

225
00:13:51,087 --> 00:13:53,078
'but would work on his weaknesses.

226
00:13:53,127 --> 00:13:56,403
'He'd go against the ropes
and let people pummel him,

227
00:13:56,447 --> 00:13:59,519
'very heavy hitters,
he'd let them bang away at him.

228
00:13:59,567 --> 00:14:03,606
'As if he was training his body to
receive these messages of punishment

229
00:14:03,647 --> 00:14:07,003
'and absorb them faster than other
fighters could absorb them.'

230
00:14:09,567 --> 00:14:14,925
'This is in Africa because
they came up with $10 million.'

231
00:14:14,967 --> 00:14:17,242
$5 million for George Foreman,

232
00:14:17,287 --> 00:14:19,084
$5 million for me.

233
00:14:19,127 --> 00:14:23,006
England was trying to get it.
A promoter said America was trying,

234
00:14:23,047 --> 00:14:25,925
but none could surpass
the $5 million mark.

235
00:14:25,967 --> 00:14:28,117
The dream is becoming a reality.

236
00:14:28,167 --> 00:14:31,045
'Don King
went to George Foreman

237
00:14:31,087 --> 00:14:33,237
'and got him to sign an agreement

238
00:14:33,287 --> 00:14:38,156
'saying that if King could deliver
$5 million, Foreman would fight Ali.

239
00:14:38,207 --> 00:14:41,722
'Then King went to Ali
and made the same deal,

240
00:14:41,767 --> 00:14:44,406
'so Don King now had both fighters,

241
00:14:44,447 --> 00:14:47,200
'their signatures
on a piece of paper.

242
00:14:47,247 --> 00:14:49,886
'What he didn't have
was $10 million.'

243
00:14:49,927 --> 00:14:53,681
..a festival to complement
this great sporting event,

244
00:14:53,727 --> 00:14:56,480
the greatest sporting event
in history.

245
00:14:56,527 --> 00:14:59,405
- Of all time!
- All time, as the champ says.

246
00:14:59,447 --> 00:15:01,324
Greatest event of all time!

247
00:15:01,367 --> 00:15:05,645
Bigger than Evel Knievel and
the Kentucky Derby on the same day.

248
00:15:05,687 --> 00:15:09,760
The president of Zaire was willing
to put $10 million

249
00:15:09,807 --> 00:15:14,881
of his country's own very scarce,
hard-earned currency on the line,

250
00:15:14,927 --> 00:15:17,760
not for any
short-term economic reason

251
00:15:17,807 --> 00:15:21,163
but because he felt
that the fight would be good

252
00:15:21,207 --> 00:15:25,803
in terms of promoting Zaire and also
in terms of promoting himself,

253
00:15:25,847 --> 00:15:27,644
and as Ali said at the time,

254
00:15:27,687 --> 00:15:30,884
countries go to war
to get their names on the map

255
00:15:30,927 --> 00:15:33,725
and wars cost
a lot more than $10 million.

256
00:15:33,767 --> 00:15:37,919
Some of the most dynamic
performers from Afro-America

257
00:15:37,967 --> 00:15:42,279
will appear at the stadium in
Kinshasa on the 20th, 21st and 22nd,

258
00:15:42,327 --> 00:15:44,716
with this theatrical release.

259
00:15:44,767 --> 00:15:48,203
It will be James Brown,
soul brother number one...

260
00:15:48,247 --> 00:15:51,842
- Is he playing?
- Yes, James Brown will be there.

261
00:15:51,887 --> 00:15:54,765
We will have BB King, The Spinners...

262
00:15:54,807 --> 00:16:00,677
This is the first assembly in history
where the top-notch Blacks of America

263
00:16:00,727 --> 00:16:05,323
and the people of Africa had
something together, all on a level,

264
00:16:05,367 --> 00:16:08,723
we're all meeting and learning more
about each other,

265
00:16:08,767 --> 00:16:12,760
the first assembly among American
Black men and Africans in history

266
00:16:12,807 --> 00:16:14,604
and it's a big honour.

267
00:16:14,647 --> 00:16:16,524
Plus I gotta whup George!

268
00:16:17,327 --> 00:16:19,283
'Got to whup George!'

269
00:16:19,327 --> 00:16:22,603
We're gonna rumble in the jungle!

270
00:16:22,647 --> 00:16:24,638
Come on, come on.

271
00:16:28,967 --> 00:16:31,356
Speak up, boy. Go ahead.

272
00:16:33,367 --> 00:16:35,835
- Good boy.

273
00:16:35,887 --> 00:16:37,525
Get down.

274
00:16:38,567 --> 00:16:40,364
- Quiet.
- George?

275
00:16:40,407 --> 00:16:44,036
Is this fight against Ali
the toughest of your career?

277
00:16:49,247 --> 00:16:52,205
Could be, could be. I doubt it.

278
00:16:52,247 --> 00:16:56,479
This is Muhammad Ali, September 10th
at New York City airport,

279
00:16:56,527 --> 00:17:00,520
en route to Zaire to reclaim
the heavyweight title of the world.

280
00:17:00,567 --> 00:17:04,082
Champ, what would you like to say
to the children of the world?

281
00:17:04,127 --> 00:17:09,485
I'd like to say, mainly where they
understand English in America,

282
00:17:09,527 --> 00:17:13,918
to...live a clean life,
stay off the dope.

283
00:17:13,967 --> 00:17:16,162
It's tearing the country up.

284
00:17:16,207 --> 00:17:20,519
Also, if they wanna be like me,
I'm going to whup George Foreman,

285
00:17:20,567 --> 00:17:23,525
and when they see this
I will have beaten him.

286
00:17:23,567 --> 00:17:26,206
Tell them to quit eating
so much candy,

287
00:17:26,247 --> 00:17:30,160
I have three rotten teeth
and I had to have one of 'em pulled,

288
00:17:30,207 --> 00:17:32,402
I can't chew my food like I should.

289
00:17:32,447 --> 00:17:36,884
Eat natural foods
because we must whup Mr Tooth Decay.

290
00:17:36,927 --> 00:17:39,395
I got one right there and one there.

291
00:17:39,447 --> 00:17:44,077
Ali told us he's going to use part
of his money to build a hospital.

292
00:17:44,127 --> 00:17:49,076
Do you intend to use part of your
money for something, a project?

293
00:17:49,967 --> 00:17:53,323
He may think
he may have to be in the hospital.

294
00:17:53,367 --> 00:17:55,437
I want the man!

295
00:17:55,487 --> 00:17:59,799
When I get to Africa we gonna
get it on because we don't get along!

296
00:17:59,847 --> 00:18:02,156
I don't like him, he talks too much.

297
00:18:02,207 --> 00:18:05,324
- Beg your pardon?
- You would continue boxing

298
00:18:05,367 --> 00:18:07,927
- even if you lose?
- I beg your pardon?

299
00:18:07,967 --> 00:18:11,004
- You don't think about losing?


300
00:18:11,047 --> 00:18:14,005
No. But thank you.
Nice talking to you.

301
00:18:15,247 --> 00:18:17,761
Flying over the Sahara desert.

302
00:18:17,807 --> 00:18:23,040
An African airline with all African
stewardesses, all African pilots.

303
00:18:23,087 --> 00:18:26,443
This is the first free feeling
I had in a long time.

304
00:18:26,487 --> 00:18:30,799
Ain't this something, flying in
an airplane with Black pilots?

305
00:18:30,847 --> 00:18:34,840
All Black crew? This is strange
to the American Negro.

306
00:18:34,887 --> 00:18:36,878
We never dreamed of this!

307
00:18:36,927 --> 00:18:41,557
Every time we watch TV they show us
Tarzan and the natives and jungles,

308
00:18:41,607 --> 00:18:46,158
they never told us that Africans
were more intelligent than we are.

309
00:18:46,207 --> 00:18:49,882
They speak English,
French and African.

310
00:18:49,927 --> 00:18:52,157
We can't even speak English good.


312
00:19:06,327 --> 00:19:08,921
Ain't this beautiful? I'm free!

313
00:19:08,967 --> 00:19:10,559
Fantastic!

314
00:19:10,607 --> 00:19:12,165
I'm free.

315
00:19:12,207 --> 00:19:13,959


316
00:19:14,007 --> 00:19:15,804


317
00:19:17,047 --> 00:19:20,756

and where your place in life is

318
00:19:20,807 --> 00:19:23,241


319
00:19:24,447 --> 00:19:26,358


320
00:19:26,407 --> 00:19:28,238


321
00:19:28,287 --> 00:19:29,879


322
00:19:29,927 --> 00:19:31,883


323
00:19:33,127 --> 00:19:34,640


324
00:19:40,687 --> 00:19:42,837
'It was a great joy

325
00:19:42,887 --> 00:19:46,960
'to see that the championship
was going to happen in Africa.

326
00:19:47,007 --> 00:19:49,441
'People were so happy.

327
00:19:49,487 --> 00:19:53,480
'At last the world was
paying attention to our continent.

328
00:19:53,527 --> 00:19:56,678
'Yes, we knew Muhammad Ali
as a boxer,

329
00:19:56,727 --> 00:20:00,276
'but more importantly
for his political stance.

330
00:20:00,327 --> 00:20:05,959
'When we saw that America was at war
with a Third World country, Vietnam,

331
00:20:06,007 --> 00:20:10,717
'and that one of the children
of the United States said

332
00:20:10,767 --> 00:20:14,919
'"Me? You want me to go
and fight against the Viet Cong?"

333
00:20:14,967 --> 00:20:18,960
'"Why should I fight against them?
They haven't hurt me."

334
00:20:19,007 --> 00:20:24,365
'And for us, it was extraordinary to
see that in the America of that time

335
00:20:24,407 --> 00:20:27,365
'someone could take such a position.

336
00:20:27,407 --> 00:20:32,003
'He may have lost his title,
he may have lost millions of dollars

337
00:20:32,047 --> 00:20:35,642
'but he gained
the esteem of millions of Africans.'

338
00:20:35,687 --> 00:20:39,316
Ali! Ali! Ali!

339
00:20:42,767 --> 00:20:45,361
What is your population?

341
00:20:47,567 --> 00:20:50,365
- 22 million.
- 22 million?

342
00:20:50,407 --> 00:20:54,082
- 22 million.
- How many George Foreman fans here?

344
00:20:56,167 --> 00:20:59,159
- We don't know, we don't know.

345
00:20:59,207 --> 00:21:03,280
- How many Muhammad Ali?
- So many we cannot count them.

347
00:21:05,167 --> 00:21:10,719
'George Foreman?
We had heard he was a world champion.

348
00:21:10,767 --> 00:21:16,046
'We thought he was white, then
we realised he was black, like Ali.

349
00:21:16,087 --> 00:21:20,478
'But still, for us,
Foreman represented America.

350
00:21:20,527 --> 00:21:23,644
'He arrived with a dog,
a German shepherd,

351
00:21:23,687 --> 00:21:26,406
'which immediately offended Africans

352
00:21:26,447 --> 00:21:30,235
'since the Belgians
had used them as police dogs.'

353
00:21:30,287 --> 00:21:33,404
Ali said you're
the out-of-towner here.

354
00:21:33,447 --> 00:21:38,157
Africa is the cradle of civilisation,
everybody's home is Africa.

356
00:22:23,767 --> 00:22:27,680
OK, fine.
So, they're leaving tomorrow...

357
00:22:27,727 --> 00:22:32,437
Typhoid. How do you spell typhoid?
Is that all that we're giving?

358
00:22:32,487 --> 00:22:37,515
Who do you want to be
your beneficiary in case of anything?

359
00:22:37,567 --> 00:22:40,604
'You need
a ticket to get on the plane.'

360
00:22:40,647 --> 00:22:44,925
Let me see some hands of the 51
who don't have airline tickets.

361
00:22:44,967 --> 00:22:49,358
Hi! You know who we are, don't you?

362
00:22:50,447 --> 00:22:55,680
I'm Lola Love, I'm with the dancers
of the James Brown show, revue.

363
00:22:58,647 --> 00:23:02,435
Zai-ere, or Zare,
or whatever, you know?

364
00:23:02,487 --> 00:23:04,876
Yeah, when are gonna get to Zee-air?

365
00:23:04,927 --> 00:23:07,316
- Who?
- Mobutu land.

366
00:23:08,807 --> 00:23:12,277
We're gonna fly in zee-air
till we get to Zaire.

367
00:23:12,327 --> 00:23:14,318
That's right!

368
00:23:17,367 --> 00:23:19,642


369
00:23:19,687 --> 00:23:22,121


370
00:23:22,167 --> 00:23:24,044


371
00:23:24,087 --> 00:23:26,442


372
00:23:26,487 --> 00:23:29,445


373
00:23:29,487 --> 00:23:31,762

and live those dreams

374
00:23:31,807 --> 00:23:33,877


375
00:23:33,927 --> 00:23:35,724


376
00:23:35,767 --> 00:23:39,919


377
00:23:39,967 --> 00:23:43,323


378
00:23:43,847 --> 00:23:46,281


379
00:23:46,327 --> 00:23:47,919


380
00:23:47,967 --> 00:23:52,245


381
00:23:54,087 --> 00:23:57,636


382
00:23:57,687 --> 00:24:00,201


383
00:24:00,567 --> 00:24:03,001


384
00:24:03,047 --> 00:24:05,083


385
00:24:05,127 --> 00:24:08,039

to prove myself

386
00:24:08,087 --> 00:24:10,282


387
00:24:10,327 --> 00:24:12,795


388
00:24:12,847 --> 00:24:14,963


389
00:24:15,007 --> 00:24:18,966

turning inside out

390
00:24:19,007 --> 00:24:22,795


391
00:24:22,847 --> 00:24:24,439


392
00:24:24,487 --> 00:24:26,842


393
00:24:26,887 --> 00:24:29,276


394
00:24:29,327 --> 00:24:31,397


395
00:24:31,447 --> 00:24:34,519


396
00:24:34,567 --> 00:24:37,445


397
00:24:37,487 --> 00:24:39,603


398
00:24:41,967 --> 00:24:43,764


399
00:24:44,487 --> 00:24:48,162
The plane is not coming in at six,
it's now coming in between 10 and 11,

400
00:24:48,207 --> 00:24:52,086
so you don't have to have those
trucks up to the airport that early.

401
00:24:52,127 --> 00:24:55,722
- Where's James Brown...?
- James Brown is on his way.

402
00:24:55,767 --> 00:24:58,440
BB King... They ain't nowhere around!

403
00:25:07,287 --> 00:25:10,404
Six, fifth and fourth are done.
Elevators are working.

404
00:25:10,447 --> 00:25:12,881
There's no air conditioning at all?

405
00:25:12,927 --> 00:25:16,556
80%'s out. The circuits are in
but it doesn't work.

406
00:25:16,607 --> 00:25:20,043
What do you mean, 80%?
What floor is out?

407
00:25:20,087 --> 00:25:22,157
I have sixth, fifth and fourth.

408
00:25:22,207 --> 00:25:24,402
I understand, but what about...

409
00:25:24,447 --> 00:25:27,678
It's individual
air conditioning controls...

410
00:25:27,727 --> 00:25:30,525
What apartments
have air conditioning?

411
00:25:30,567 --> 00:25:33,684
How many beds
can we move people into tonight?

412
00:25:33,727 --> 00:25:36,116
- Four. Four rooms.
- Just eight people?

413
00:25:36,167 --> 00:25:37,566
Yeah.

414
00:25:38,927 --> 00:25:41,077


415
00:25:41,127 --> 00:25:43,516

where the heart's at, yeah

416
00:25:43,567 --> 00:25:45,319


417
00:25:45,367 --> 00:25:47,358


418
00:25:47,407 --> 00:25:49,204


419
00:25:49,247 --> 00:25:50,839


420
00:25:51,687 --> 00:25:54,076


421
00:25:54,127 --> 00:25:56,038


422
00:25:56,087 --> 00:25:58,396


423
00:25:58,447 --> 00:25:59,766


424
00:26:00,367 --> 00:26:01,800


425
00:26:02,807 --> 00:26:04,399


426
00:26:04,447 --> 00:26:06,961


427
00:26:08,007 --> 00:26:09,804
Hello, bubba!

428
00:26:10,687 --> 00:26:12,484
How you doin'?

429
00:26:15,887 --> 00:26:19,004
Ready to dance? I got ants
in my pants, I gotta dance.

430
00:26:22,407 --> 00:26:25,205
'The fight was held in Zaire,
the former Belgian Congo.

431
00:26:25,247 --> 00:26:28,045
'Kinshasa was the capital
on the banks of the Congo,

432
00:26:28,087 --> 00:26:30,806
'this was just before
the rainy season.'

433
00:26:30,847 --> 00:26:33,486
Up to the north
was the flickering of storms,

434
00:26:33,527 --> 00:26:36,644
and it was important to the promoters

435
00:26:36,687 --> 00:26:39,485
that this fight get in
before the storms occurred,

436
00:26:39,527 --> 00:26:42,963
because once the rainy season comes
you can't do anything.

437
00:26:43,007 --> 00:26:46,795
The Congo had such a wonderful name,
Conradian and all that.

438
00:26:46,847 --> 00:26:49,441
To call it Zaire
didn't have quite the majesty,

439
00:26:49,487 --> 00:26:51,364
but there it was, the Congo.

440
00:27:11,847 --> 00:27:14,156
'Mobutu was everywhere.

441
00:27:14,207 --> 00:27:16,562
'He was the equivalent of Stalin.'

442
00:27:16,607 --> 00:27:18,757
'You saw his picture everywhere.'

443
00:27:18,807 --> 00:27:22,516
Part of the vanity of dictators,
with the exception of Mussolini,

444
00:27:22,567 --> 00:27:25,286
who was half ugly
and half attractive,

445
00:27:25,327 --> 00:27:29,684
most dictators are unbelievably ugly
or plain - Franco, Hitler...

446
00:27:34,007 --> 00:27:38,444
'Mobutu looked the archetype,
the epitome of a closet sadist.

447
00:27:38,487 --> 00:27:42,082
'Sort of guy, if you meet him
in a bar, you think, "Oh, my God!

448
00:27:42,127 --> 00:27:45,642
'"Who are the poor women
who are associated with this fella?"

449
00:27:51,687 --> 00:27:55,805
'And since Mobutu was
an extraordinarily practical man,

450
00:27:55,847 --> 00:27:59,601
'down under the stadium,
which seated 100,000 people,

451
00:27:59,647 --> 00:28:02,684
'were detention pens
and rooms and chambers

452
00:28:02,727 --> 00:28:07,198
'where you could imprison as many
as a couple of thousand people.

453
00:28:07,247 --> 00:28:11,877
'Before the fight came, the criminal
rate in Zaire began to go up.'

454
00:28:11,927 --> 00:28:16,717
A few white foreigners
had been killed, driving their cars.

455
00:28:16,767 --> 00:28:21,716
And Mobutu decided that this would be
a disaster in terms of publicity,

456
00:28:21,767 --> 00:28:28,366
so on a given day he had a thousand
of the leading criminals in Kinshasa

457
00:28:28,407 --> 00:28:33,959
rounded up and put in this stadium,
down in the detention pens.

458
00:28:34,007 --> 00:28:38,558
'And then the legend has it, and I
suspect the legend may even be true,

459
00:28:38,607 --> 00:28:42,077
'that he had 100
taken at random and killed them.

460
00:28:42,127 --> 00:28:44,766
'And the reason was
a particularly simple one

461
00:28:44,807 --> 00:28:46,798
'from Mobutu's point of view.'

462
00:28:46,847 --> 00:28:51,045
Career criminals have connections who
protect them when they're in trouble,

463
00:28:51,087 --> 00:28:54,602
and by making this kill
of 100 out of 1,000 arbitrarily,

464
00:28:54,647 --> 00:28:59,118
Mobutu was saying "Your connections
are worth nothing. I am Jehovah.

465
00:28:59,167 --> 00:29:03,604
'"I will blast you out of existence
if you fool around with me."'

466
00:29:10,887 --> 00:29:15,358
'He made his point, Kinshasa was
one of the safest cities in Africa,

467
00:29:15,407 --> 00:29:19,400
'in all the world, while the foreign
press was there for the fight.'

469
00:29:32,407 --> 00:29:36,798
'To me, the drum was the communicator
since the beginning of time,

470
00:29:36,847 --> 00:29:39,884
'I'm sure it was
the first message ever sent.

471
00:29:39,927 --> 00:29:42,964
'The beat today
and the beats centuries ago

472
00:29:43,007 --> 00:29:46,124
'are the only thing
that's kept us together.'

473
00:29:50,807 --> 00:29:55,278
We had this thing, when we hurt,
we sung for trial and tribulation,

474
00:29:55,327 --> 00:29:57,966
and for relief, we sung songs to God

475
00:29:58,007 --> 00:30:01,522
and this music that you hear today
is the same songs

476
00:30:01,567 --> 00:30:06,197
that have been made popular around
the world without any volition.

477
00:30:07,087 --> 00:30:08,486
Oh!

478
00:30:39,887 --> 00:30:42,162
'So anybody who knows anything

479
00:30:42,207 --> 00:30:45,836
'about the rhythm and the blues
as they're so-called,

480
00:30:45,887 --> 00:30:47,923
'should know about Africa.'

481
00:30:48,607 --> 00:30:51,075


482
00:30:56,127 --> 00:30:58,800


483
00:30:58,847 --> 00:31:00,644


484
00:31:03,127 --> 00:31:05,595


485
00:31:08,527 --> 00:31:13,396


486
00:31:17,807 --> 00:31:20,879


487
00:31:23,687 --> 00:31:28,556

I'd ever seen

488
00:31:34,327 --> 00:31:38,320
The music I listen to, in most white
people's houses, I don't hear this,

489
00:31:38,367 --> 00:31:40,358
because your culture wouldn't...

490
00:31:40,407 --> 00:31:44,525
Your woman doesn't leave you
and slip away like our women,

491
00:31:44,567 --> 00:31:47,365
because you had money
to keep your woman.

492
00:31:47,407 --> 00:31:51,639
Your songs are like, "And the train
comes around that mountain,

493
00:31:51,687 --> 00:31:55,441
"In the Folsom Prison,
in the Folsom Prison".

494
00:31:55,487 --> 00:31:57,876
You know, "Y'all come, y'all come."

495
00:31:57,927 --> 00:32:01,602
Chinese got diddly music,
"Pleen ting tang tong ting."

496
00:32:01,647 --> 00:32:05,799
I don't want that and he understands.
Everybody's got their culture.

497
00:32:05,847 --> 00:32:10,716
So we're not saying we hate you
or we're never talking to you again

498
00:32:10,767 --> 00:32:13,235
and doing business, we don't do that.

499
00:32:13,287 --> 00:32:16,518
We're saying
that we want to be independent.

500
00:32:16,567 --> 00:32:18,205


501
00:32:18,247 --> 00:32:19,646


502
00:32:19,687 --> 00:32:21,439


503
00:32:25,647 --> 00:32:31,756

is gonna happen to me

504
00:32:39,127 --> 00:32:42,517
'The great place
to visit in Kinshasa

505
00:32:42,567 --> 00:32:45,127
'was a compound
about 20 miles up the Congo.

506
00:32:45,167 --> 00:32:48,603
'A place called Enseli,
a presidential palace.

507
00:32:48,647 --> 00:32:52,799
'That was where we saw Foreman,
who seemed incredible.'

508
00:32:52,847 --> 00:32:56,396
I'd seen him fight before,
I saw him destroy Frazier

509
00:32:56,447 --> 00:33:00,440
and the thing I always remembered
was that the beaten fighter,

510
00:33:00,487 --> 00:33:03,285
even a man as powerful
and big as Frazier,

511
00:33:03,327 --> 00:33:06,125
and he was very much favoured
to win that,

512
00:33:06,167 --> 00:33:08,635
suddenly becomes the size of a pygmy.

513
00:33:08,687 --> 00:33:11,201
They just diminish in size,

514
00:33:11,247 --> 00:33:15,365
and Foreman suddenly became
this gigantic figure.

515
00:33:17,327 --> 00:33:21,002
'And he had a trainer, Dick Sadler,
tiny by comparison,

516
00:33:21,047 --> 00:33:25,723
'and Sadler would hang on to this
heavy bag while Foreman would hit it.

517
00:33:25,767 --> 00:33:28,998
'Sadler would have been
picked off his feet.'

518
00:33:30,527 --> 00:33:32,563
'Foreman hitting the bag

519
00:33:32,607 --> 00:33:37,123
'is one of the more prodigious sights
I've had in my life.

520
00:33:37,167 --> 00:33:41,399
'Of all the people I've seen hit
heavy bags, including Sonny Liston,

521
00:33:41,447 --> 00:33:43,756
'no one hit it the way Foreman did.'

522
00:33:43,807 --> 00:33:47,846
At the end of 15 minutes
of pounding the heavy bag,

523
00:33:47,887 --> 00:33:52,085
there'd be a hole,
not a hole but a huge dent,

524
00:33:52,127 --> 00:33:56,245
the size of half a small watermelon
in that tremendous bag,

525
00:33:56,287 --> 00:33:59,643
and Foreman used to use
the biggest heavy bag around.

526
00:33:59,687 --> 00:34:03,839
'What would be interesting is Ali,
who would train after Foreman,

527
00:34:03,887 --> 00:34:07,800
'would pass this large hall
where the training took place

528
00:34:07,847 --> 00:34:10,964
'and he never looked at Foreman
hitting the heavy bag.

529
00:34:11,007 --> 00:34:14,158
'He just walked right by
as if Foreman didn't exist.

530
00:34:14,207 --> 00:34:16,277
'If you were gonna fight the man

531
00:34:16,327 --> 00:34:19,842
'you didn't want to see him
hitting that heavy bag.'

532
00:34:19,887 --> 00:34:22,526
I'm a speed demon!
I'm a brain fighter!

533
00:34:22,567 --> 00:34:24,637
I'm scientific! I'm artistic!

534
00:34:24,687 --> 00:34:26,518
I plan my strategy!

535
00:34:27,407 --> 00:34:29,523
He's the bull, I'm the matador!

536
00:34:31,807 --> 00:34:33,718
He's scared to death.

537
00:34:34,007 --> 00:34:35,998
He's scared to death!

538
00:34:38,007 --> 00:34:40,885
He wish he could
get out of the whole thing!

539
00:34:40,927 --> 00:34:44,442
He wish he could get out of the whole
thing! The man is frightened!

540
00:34:44,487 --> 00:34:48,162
He's meetin' his master,
his teacher, his idol!

541
00:34:48,207 --> 00:34:50,437
- Time!
- Is that all?


543
00:34:52,407 --> 00:34:55,604
When I talk and work I'm in shape,
it's all I do.

544
00:34:56,687 --> 00:34:59,759
'Ali announced
he was gonna dance.

545
00:34:59,807 --> 00:35:01,843
'He spoke about it all the time.

546
00:35:01,887 --> 00:35:04,640
'Every interview
in that period he'd say

547
00:35:04,687 --> 00:35:08,600
'"How is Foreman going to get
near to me? I'm going to dance!

548
00:35:08,647 --> 00:35:13,198
'"I'm going to dance and dance! He'll
look foolish trying to find me.'

549
00:35:13,247 --> 00:35:15,636
"And as he gropes his way forward

550
00:35:15,687 --> 00:35:19,362
"in this storm of blindness
at the speed of my dancing

551
00:35:19,407 --> 00:35:21,398
"I will strike him with my jab!

552
00:35:21,447 --> 00:35:24,245
"Poo! Poo! Poo!"
he would go and so forth.

553
00:35:24,287 --> 00:35:27,836
We heard this over and over
and Foreman heard it too.

554
00:35:29,207 --> 00:35:32,961
'Foreman was working now on
what's called cutting off the ring.

555
00:35:33,007 --> 00:35:35,077
'This essentially just means

556
00:35:35,127 --> 00:35:39,120
'cornering your opponent
against the ropes or in a corner.

557
00:35:39,167 --> 00:35:43,365
'It's an art, a balletic art,
you have to have very good footwork.

558
00:35:43,407 --> 00:35:45,557
'Foreman's footwork,
he was a big man,

559
00:35:45,607 --> 00:35:48,644
'but his footwork was better
than anyone had expected.

560
00:35:48,687 --> 00:35:50,803
'He worked with very fast fighters,

561
00:35:50,847 --> 00:35:53,645
'smaller than himself,
who certainly could dance

562
00:35:53,687 --> 00:35:55,678
'and he worked on cornering them.

563
00:35:55,727 --> 00:35:58,924
'And the combination
of watching the heavy bag

564
00:35:58,967 --> 00:36:01,606
'and watching Foreman
cut off the ring

565
00:36:01,647 --> 00:36:04,719
'made most fight writers,
myself included,

566
00:36:04,767 --> 00:36:07,235
'pessimistic about Ali's chances.'

567
00:36:40,127 --> 00:36:44,120
The guy threw up his elbows
to protect himself from Foreman

568
00:36:44,167 --> 00:36:46,635
and Foreman walked into his elbow.

569
00:36:46,687 --> 00:36:48,598
That's how he got cut in the eye?

570
00:36:57,207 --> 00:36:58,276
What else can happen?

571
00:37:00,887 --> 00:37:03,526
I saw the man's cut
and this man cannot fight.

572
00:37:03,567 --> 00:37:06,604
This man cannot fight
for a world championship...

573
00:37:06,647 --> 00:37:10,083
- You're not a doctor.
- I don't give a damn. I know what...

574
00:37:10,127 --> 00:37:13,722
The Zaireans kicked us out
and they did not want us around,

575
00:37:13,767 --> 00:37:17,521
and they want the fight to go on,
that's all there is to it.

576
00:37:17,567 --> 00:37:20,365
He won't fight with that eye,
he's not dumb.

577
00:37:20,407 --> 00:37:22,045
He's not that dumb?

578
00:37:22,087 --> 00:37:24,555
That's all you want is a fight.

579
00:37:24,607 --> 00:37:26,359
Excuse me, gentlemen.

580
00:37:31,607 --> 00:37:36,397
I respectfully ask are the fighters
remaining here because they want to

581
00:37:36,447 --> 00:37:39,564
or has the government
requested they remain?

582
00:37:46,087 --> 00:37:50,000
Mr Sadler told me
to convey to the press

583
00:37:50,047 --> 00:37:51,924
that it is just an accident.

584
00:37:51,967 --> 00:37:55,596
They will be contacting
the promoters of the fight

585
00:37:55,647 --> 00:37:59,162
and it is possible
that we may have to delay the fight

586
00:37:59,207 --> 00:38:02,404
and he will let the press know
as soon as possible.

587
00:38:02,447 --> 00:38:04,836
Did they have to stitch Foreman?

588
00:38:04,887 --> 00:38:07,685
They had to stitch him.
Holy shit, man.

589
00:38:07,727 --> 00:38:09,604
So how long is the delay?

590
00:38:09,647 --> 00:38:13,799
It'll take a day to get
any intelligence, this just happened.

591
00:38:13,847 --> 00:38:15,838
Then we can make a decision.

592
00:38:15,887 --> 00:38:17,718
How does George feel?

593
00:38:17,767 --> 00:38:21,680
Like anybody, he's only human.
How would any individual feel?

594
00:38:21,727 --> 00:38:24,241
Does he want it postponed?

595
00:38:24,287 --> 00:38:26,084
Who? Why should he?

596
00:38:26,127 --> 00:38:30,518
- Should he go ahead with it?
- Why should he make any decision?

597
00:38:30,567 --> 00:38:33,081
Who knows what another man thinks?

598
00:38:33,127 --> 00:38:36,915
How could I truthfully tell you
what you would think?

599
00:38:36,967 --> 00:38:41,040
A man may have mixed emotions,
I couldn't speak for George,

600
00:38:41,087 --> 00:38:44,602
I can only speak for Dick Sadler,
not for somebody else.

601
00:38:44,647 --> 00:38:46,558
I'm not that intelligent,

602
00:38:46,607 --> 00:38:51,442
I don't have that knowledge, that
ability to speak another man's mind.

603
00:38:51,487 --> 00:38:53,398
He never discussed it to me,

604
00:38:53,447 --> 00:38:56,484
and a person's mind
change from time to time.

605
00:38:56,527 --> 00:38:59,644
- The decision is yours...
- It is mine to make

606
00:38:59,687 --> 00:39:04,044
and I haven't made any...
I don't have any decisions to make.

607
00:39:04,087 --> 00:39:07,045
Let's get this show
on the road.

608
00:39:07,087 --> 00:39:10,363
This meeting is called to order.
Here, here.

609
00:39:10,407 --> 00:39:15,003
The delay won't have
any effect on the fight at all.

610
00:39:15,047 --> 00:39:18,357
There hasn't been...
there will not be a delay.

611
00:39:18,407 --> 00:39:20,398
The fight will be rescheduled

612
00:39:20,447 --> 00:39:24,520
but when it happens it'll be
actually intended for that time.

613
00:39:24,567 --> 00:39:27,684
Fate intended it for another time.
There is no delay.

614
00:39:27,727 --> 00:39:31,037
How does
Ali feel about it?

615
00:39:31,087 --> 00:39:34,523
If there ever has been
any disappointments in sports,

616
00:39:34,567 --> 00:39:38,162
setbacks or rainy days
that stopped a ball game, anything,

617
00:39:38,207 --> 00:39:40,323
this is the worst of all time.

618
00:39:40,367 --> 00:39:44,246
'Muhammad went through
a bad couple of hours

619
00:39:44,287 --> 00:39:48,485
'and wanted to move the whole fight
back to the United States,

620
00:39:48,527 --> 00:39:53,123
'then he said "Bring Joe Frazier
over and I'll fight him again

621
00:39:53,167 --> 00:39:56,204
'"and instead of each of us
getting $5 million,

622
00:39:56,247 --> 00:39:59,603
'"I'll take $3 million
and Joe can take $1 million."

623
00:39:59,647 --> 00:40:03,401
'Then he realised
nothing could be done about it

624
00:40:03,447 --> 00:40:08,237
'except stay in Zaire an extra
six weeks and make the best of it.'

625
00:40:08,287 --> 00:40:12,485
Now I gotta wait. He'll get his
whupping but I just have to wait.

626
00:40:12,527 --> 00:40:16,486
Boy, I was ready!
I was gonna upset the world again!

627
00:40:16,527 --> 00:40:20,964
The whole world was gonna
crawl and bow the next morning!

628
00:40:21,007 --> 00:40:25,000
I was gonna defeat that big
indestructible George Foreman,

629
00:40:25,047 --> 00:40:26,685
gonna rip him up!

630
00:40:26,807 --> 00:40:29,446
I'm gonna get him
for a sparring partner.

631
00:40:30,487 --> 00:40:33,718
My dream's all messed up
for six more weeks.

632
00:40:35,087 --> 00:40:37,885
The man's in trouble,
the man is scared.

633
00:40:37,927 --> 00:40:41,124
- He's in my country to start with!


634
00:40:44,127 --> 00:40:48,040
He's in my country.
You wanna see some of my country?

635
00:40:48,087 --> 00:40:50,078
Ali, boma ye!

636
00:40:50,127 --> 00:40:54,325
Ali, boma ye!
Ali, boma ye!

637
00:40:54,367 --> 00:40:58,679
Can you picture 100,000?
Can you picture 100,000?

638
00:40:58,727 --> 00:41:03,881
How you say it?
Ali, the government, Ali, the government!

639
00:41:03,927 --> 00:41:05,645
Ali, the government!

640
00:41:05,687 --> 00:41:09,123
When I hear them brothers
howling like that, whoo!

641
00:41:09,167 --> 00:41:10,964
I get my soul and spirit,

642
00:41:11,007 --> 00:41:14,920
100,000 African brothers
hollering "Ali, eat boma!"

643
00:41:14,967 --> 00:41:16,719
And I'm gonna... Ooh!

644
00:41:16,767 --> 00:41:20,680
I'm tired, can't take it no more,
let me get out of here.

645
00:41:20,727 --> 00:41:24,515
I wanna... I'm going to my room,
I'll talk to you later.

646
00:41:30,247 --> 00:41:31,839
I said I'm gone!

647
00:41:35,607 --> 00:41:37,404


648
00:41:38,767 --> 00:41:40,564


649
00:41:41,967 --> 00:41:44,037


650
00:41:45,687 --> 00:41:47,484


651
00:41:49,687 --> 00:41:51,484


652
00:41:52,847 --> 00:41:54,565


653
00:41:56,607 --> 00:41:57,596


654
00:42:00,487 --> 00:42:02,284



656
00:42:04,527 --> 00:42:07,724
'Black acts in America
have not learned

657
00:42:07,767 --> 00:42:11,840
'that once their record
is off the charts they're finished.'

658
00:42:11,887 --> 00:42:15,926
I heard a speech by Jesse Jackson,
saying we must recognise

659
00:42:15,967 --> 00:42:19,403
that we're only useful
as long as we're necessary.

660
00:42:19,447 --> 00:42:24,077
So they don't realise that your
strength comes from your community.

661
00:42:24,127 --> 00:42:26,846
And you have to deal
from your strength.

662
00:42:26,887 --> 00:42:30,084
In dealing from your strength
you got somebody

663
00:42:30,127 --> 00:42:32,925
so if somebody
wants to hurt James Brown,

664
00:42:32,967 --> 00:42:35,879
somebody gonna raise a voice
and say "why?"

665
00:42:35,927 --> 00:42:39,158
You got soldiers,
somebody that's concerned.

666
00:42:39,207 --> 00:42:43,758
But as an individual, no matter
how big you get, you still a nigger.

667
00:42:43,807 --> 00:42:47,925
You don't care how much money
you get. You are still a nigger.

668
00:42:47,967 --> 00:42:49,958
When you become unnecessary.

669
00:42:50,007 --> 00:42:51,406


670
00:42:52,607 --> 00:42:54,598


671
00:42:56,607 --> 00:42:58,404


672
00:42:59,727 --> 00:43:01,877


673
00:43:02,407 --> 00:43:05,877
Do unto others as you would have them
to do unto you.

674
00:43:05,927 --> 00:43:07,918
Would you ask somebody to lynch you

675
00:43:07,967 --> 00:43:12,757
and tell you where to go and how
to look, then refuse to pay you?

676
00:43:12,807 --> 00:43:15,605
Would you ask somebody
to take advantage of your woman

677
00:43:15,647 --> 00:43:17,638
and you can't even speak to his?

678
00:43:17,687 --> 00:43:21,521
Would you like to pay taxes for
something that you never received?

679
00:43:21,567 --> 00:43:24,798
Do unto others as you would have
somebody do unto you.

680
00:43:24,847 --> 00:43:28,078
And I don't have to use
the word "FM" backwards.

682
00:43:33,367 --> 00:43:36,643
We left Africa in shackles,
fetters and chains.

683
00:43:36,687 --> 00:43:40,202
We're coming back
in an aura of splendour and glory.

684
00:43:40,247 --> 00:43:45,196
The champions are here, champions of
the sports world and the music world,

685
00:43:45,247 --> 00:43:49,240
so put 'em together and we got
one champion that's so intermingled

686
00:43:49,287 --> 00:43:51,596
that we're fused into one entity.

687
00:43:51,647 --> 00:43:55,162
The brother said something there!
Yeah!

688
00:43:55,207 --> 00:43:57,038
Don King put this together.

689
00:43:57,087 --> 00:44:00,318
It was not a colour put it together,
you understand?

690
00:44:00,367 --> 00:44:02,358
I'd like to call him the Messiah.

691
00:44:02,407 --> 00:44:05,285
'This fight
came into existence

692
00:44:05,327 --> 00:44:09,002
'because of Don King's
desire to break out of the pack.

693
00:44:09,047 --> 00:44:14,326
'He was either going to become an
enormously prominent man, at least,

694
00:44:14,367 --> 00:44:17,484
'or go back to obscurity again
if it failed.'

695
00:44:17,527 --> 00:44:20,166
Oh, I'm so happy
to see you, my brothers.

696
00:44:20,207 --> 00:44:23,040
This is the Minister of Finance
of Zaire.

697
00:44:23,087 --> 00:44:26,682
Yes, I have met
the Minister of Finance. How are you?

698
00:44:26,727 --> 00:44:29,605
I appreciate your talent
and expertise.

699
00:44:29,647 --> 00:44:33,162
This is what it's all about.
I welcome you with love.

700
00:44:33,207 --> 00:44:37,359
We must deal with it as such,
but with love, not with hostility.

701
00:44:37,407 --> 00:44:39,682
You know, just but with love.

702
00:44:39,727 --> 00:44:41,479
Bravo, Mr King!

703
00:44:41,527 --> 00:44:43,119
My brother!

704
00:44:43,167 --> 00:44:46,523
'King had
this huge air of welcome.

705
00:44:46,567 --> 00:44:50,560
'Rarely has anyone ever been welcomed
the way King could do it.'

706
00:44:50,607 --> 00:44:52,404
'A joy came off him.'

707
00:44:52,447 --> 00:44:55,757
I knew his reputation,
how he'd been in jail,

708
00:44:55,807 --> 00:44:58,241
how he was thoroughly untrustworthy

709
00:44:58,287 --> 00:45:00,926
but nonetheless
he made you feel good.

710
00:45:00,967 --> 00:45:03,276
Don't leave! I need your strength!

711
00:45:03,327 --> 00:45:05,124
He was startling looking.

712
00:45:05,167 --> 00:45:09,399
Writers found different ways
to describe this uprush of hair.

713
00:45:09,447 --> 00:45:13,042
Some would say that he'd stuck
his thumb into an electric socket.

714
00:45:13,087 --> 00:45:15,476
Falling through an elevator shaft.

715
00:45:15,527 --> 00:45:17,722
'The fight was postponed.

716
00:45:17,767 --> 00:45:22,318
'Don King turned up and it seemed
maybe the fight wouldn't happen.'

717
00:45:22,367 --> 00:45:24,756
Nothing as big as this
ever runs smoothly,

718
00:45:24,807 --> 00:45:27,275
anything worthwhile
is worth fighting for.

719
00:45:27,327 --> 00:45:30,205
If you think
about what Shakespeare said,

720
00:45:30,247 --> 00:45:32,238
"the sweet uses of adversity,

721
00:45:32,287 --> 00:45:36,997
"ugly and venomous like a toad yet
wears a precious jewel in his head."

722
00:45:37,047 --> 00:45:41,086
"Ugly and venomous like a toad
yet wears a precious jewel."

723
00:45:41,127 --> 00:45:44,802
How many fight promoters have tried
even one line of Shakespeare?

724
00:45:44,847 --> 00:45:48,362
I can relate to the denial
they are confronted with,

725
00:45:48,407 --> 00:45:53,720
the rat-infested hovels, sub-standard
tenements, overcrowded tenements.

726
00:45:53,767 --> 00:45:57,760
I've been a part of it.
I know about roaches and rats.

727
00:45:57,807 --> 00:45:59,798
When he started talkin' to me

728
00:45:59,847 --> 00:46:02,202
I can understand him
and he can understand me.

729
00:46:02,247 --> 00:46:05,045
So, when I do this here
he can understand.

730
00:46:05,087 --> 00:46:06,884
Now he will believe in me

731
00:46:06,927 --> 00:46:09,885
because he feels
that I have shared with him

732
00:46:09,927 --> 00:46:13,681
the same anguish and anxiety,
the same pain that he has felt.

733
00:46:13,727 --> 00:46:15,365
It's a big difference.

734
00:46:15,407 --> 00:46:18,160
What would happen
if you took a small part

735
00:46:18,207 --> 00:46:21,563
of the vast sums of money
being made from the fight

736
00:46:21,607 --> 00:46:24,075
and put it into something that was...

737
00:46:24,127 --> 00:46:27,563
that would help a number of people
rather than a few?

738
00:46:27,607 --> 00:46:29,677
This is my dream and desire,

739
00:46:29,727 --> 00:46:35,165
and I feel that I would need...
white counterparts to do this here.

740
00:46:35,207 --> 00:46:40,042
I would say let me engender a large
amount of money, if it's possible,

741
00:46:40,087 --> 00:46:44,524
and then don't just let the money
sit there and wither away and die

742
00:46:44,567 --> 00:46:49,004
but put it into the sun so it could
germinate, blossom and grow.

743
00:46:49,047 --> 00:46:51,356
'He's a remarkable man.

744
00:46:51,407 --> 00:46:55,241
'Don King is one of
the brightest people I've ever met,

745
00:46:55,287 --> 00:46:59,075
'he's one of the most
charismatic people I've ever met,

746
00:46:59,127 --> 00:47:03,245
'he's one of the hardest working
people I've ever met.'

747
00:47:03,287 --> 00:47:06,245
He is also totally amoral

748
00:47:06,287 --> 00:47:12,442
and I can't think of a man who has
done more to demoralise fighters,

749
00:47:12,487 --> 00:47:17,880
exploit from fighters and ruin
fighters' careers than Don King.

750
00:47:17,927 --> 00:47:19,963
But you have to give him his due

751
00:47:20,007 --> 00:47:24,558
for what he did to make Muhammad Ali
versus George Foreman in Zaire.

752
00:47:24,607 --> 00:47:27,644
And nobody does anything for nothing.

753
00:47:28,247 --> 00:47:29,839
You understand that?

754
00:47:29,887 --> 00:47:32,765
Fight or no fight,
what business are we in?

755
00:47:32,807 --> 00:47:35,116
- Music!
- I was starting to wonder.

756
00:47:35,167 --> 00:47:36,919
I felt like
we've been in the fight business.

757
00:48:07,727 --> 00:48:09,718


758
00:48:10,047 --> 00:48:11,844


759
00:48:13,367 --> 00:48:15,483


760
00:48:16,167 --> 00:48:18,635


761
00:48:19,687 --> 00:48:21,882


762
00:48:22,247 --> 00:48:24,238


763
00:48:24,647 --> 00:48:27,320


764
00:48:28,927 --> 00:48:31,395


765
00:48:32,367 --> 00:48:34,881


766
00:48:36,007 --> 00:48:38,646


767
00:48:39,607 --> 00:48:41,837


768
00:48:41,887 --> 00:48:43,320


769
00:48:43,367 --> 00:48:48,043


770
00:48:57,647 --> 00:49:00,002


771
00:49:00,647 --> 00:49:03,241


772
00:49:04,687 --> 00:49:07,121


773
00:49:08,247 --> 00:49:10,556


774
00:49:10,607 --> 00:49:12,438


775
00:49:12,487 --> 00:49:16,958


776
00:49:26,807 --> 00:49:29,879
I'm gonna play me
some soul music, man.

777
00:49:31,287 --> 00:49:34,723
The Spinners...to James Brown.

778
00:49:34,767 --> 00:49:37,201
-
-

779
00:49:37,487 --> 00:49:39,318
-
-

780
00:49:39,367 --> 00:49:42,598
-
-

781
00:49:42,647 --> 00:49:45,366
Or! Or!

782
00:49:45,407 --> 00:49:47,716


783
00:49:47,767 --> 00:49:49,997
-
-

784
00:49:50,047 --> 00:49:51,799


785
00:49:51,847 --> 00:49:54,520
-
- I'm ready.

786
00:49:54,567 --> 00:49:56,558
-
-

787
00:49:57,127 --> 00:49:58,321
-
-

788
00:49:58,807 --> 00:50:00,126
-
-

789
00:50:00,527 --> 00:50:02,324
-
-

790
00:50:02,407 --> 00:50:04,045
-
-

791
00:50:04,407 --> 00:50:05,396
-
-

792
00:50:05,847 --> 00:50:07,246
-
-

793
00:50:07,647 --> 00:50:09,285
-
-

794
00:50:55,287 --> 00:50:57,164
Sucker, you ain't nothin'!

795
00:50:57,207 --> 00:50:58,799
You're too ugly!

796
00:50:58,847 --> 00:51:01,566
You don't represent
us coloured folks.

797
00:51:01,607 --> 00:51:04,075
These Africans make all of us ugly.

798
00:51:05,127 --> 00:51:06,719
Sucker, look at you!

799
00:51:08,647 --> 00:51:10,638
You out, sucker.

800
00:51:13,727 --> 00:51:15,843
Ali, boma ye!

801
00:51:15,887 --> 00:51:17,957
Ali, boma ye!

802
00:51:18,007 --> 00:51:19,998
Ali, boma ye!

803
00:51:20,247 --> 00:51:22,363
Ali, boma ye!

804
00:51:22,407 --> 00:51:24,079
That mean kill him!

805
00:51:24,127 --> 00:51:27,836
When I walk
down the street kids follow me

806
00:51:27,887 --> 00:51:30,560
screaming "George Foreman, bumba yu"

807
00:51:30,607 --> 00:51:32,404
er, "boma ye", yeah.

808
00:51:32,447 --> 00:51:35,723
And that hasn't...
I don't think that's so nice.

809
00:51:35,767 --> 00:51:39,726
I'd like, if they have anything
to say about me they could say

810
00:51:39,767 --> 00:51:44,363
"George Foreman loves Africa"
or "George Foreman loves being here"

811
00:51:44,407 --> 00:51:47,797
not "George Foreman, kill him,"
I don't like that.

812
00:51:47,847 --> 00:51:50,042
 Boma ye!
 Boma ye!

813
00:51:51,167 --> 00:51:54,284
George Foreman.
Boma ye! Boma ye!


815
00:51:58,607 --> 00:52:01,405
- There he is!
- Boma ye!

816
00:52:01,447 --> 00:52:03,403
Sucker, you wasn't nothing!

817
00:52:03,447 --> 00:52:05,517
Even they understand English.

818
00:52:05,567 --> 00:52:09,196
'We were all for Muhammad Ali.

819
00:52:09,247 --> 00:52:11,841
'Foreman? We didn't know him.

820
00:52:14,287 --> 00:52:16,960
'Foreman said "Why?

821
00:52:17,007 --> 00:52:19,805
'"I'm black,
blacker than Muhammad Ali.

822
00:52:19,847 --> 00:52:21,838
'"Why all this bias?"

823
00:52:23,007 --> 00:52:25,965
'Yes, Muhammad Ali, he was lighter,

824
00:52:26,007 --> 00:52:29,363
'but he was a real person,
he was genuine.

825
00:52:29,407 --> 00:52:33,116
'Muhammad Ali could have been
even lighter-skinned

826
00:52:33,167 --> 00:52:36,204
'but for us
he was defending the good cause,

827
00:52:36,247 --> 00:52:38,886
'for Africans and the whole world.'

828
00:52:38,927 --> 00:52:40,724
Watch this, seven punches.

829
00:52:41,847 --> 00:52:44,156
I'm gonna fight for the prestige,

830
00:52:44,207 --> 00:52:47,119
not for me
but to uplift my little brothers

831
00:52:47,167 --> 00:52:50,842
who are sleeping
on concrete floors today in America.

832
00:52:50,887 --> 00:52:54,084
Black people living on welfare,
who can't eat,

833
00:52:54,127 --> 00:52:59,121
Black people who don't know no
knowledge of themselves or no future.

834
00:52:59,167 --> 00:53:03,558
I wanna win my title and walk down
the alleys with the wine-heads,

835
00:53:03,607 --> 00:53:06,838
walk with the dope addicts,
the prostitutes.

836
00:53:06,887 --> 00:53:11,005
I could help people, show 'em films,
take this documentary,

837
00:53:11,047 --> 00:53:14,483
and help uplift my people
in Louisville, Kentucky;

838
00:53:14,527 --> 00:53:17,519
Indianapolis, Indiana;
Cincinnati, Ohio;

839
00:53:17,567 --> 00:53:20,843
go through Tennessee, Florida
and Mississippi

840
00:53:20,887 --> 00:53:25,165
and show Black Africans who didn't
know this was their country,

841
00:53:25,207 --> 00:53:28,722
"You look like your brothers
in Alabama, in Georgia.

842
00:53:28,767 --> 00:53:31,076
"They never knew you was over here."

843
00:53:31,127 --> 00:53:33,846
God is blessing me
and it was an accident

844
00:53:33,887 --> 00:53:35,878
to help get to all these people

845
00:53:35,927 --> 00:53:40,398
and show them films I haven't seen!
I'm well and I haven't seem them!

846
00:53:40,447 --> 00:53:45,077
Now I can get all these films, you
governments can let me take pictures

847
00:53:45,127 --> 00:53:48,324
and I can take
all this back to America!

848
00:53:48,367 --> 00:53:52,758
But - it's good to be a winner,
all I've got to do is whup Foreman.

849
00:53:52,807 --> 00:53:56,322
I realise how unfortunate
and uncomfortable it is

850
00:53:56,367 --> 00:53:58,801
for you guys to have travelled so far

851
00:53:58,847 --> 00:54:00,758
and expecting so much

852
00:54:00,807 --> 00:54:02,763
and getting so little.

853
00:54:02,807 --> 00:54:05,275
'George Foreman
was a phenomenon.

854
00:54:05,327 --> 00:54:07,716
'He was almost like a physical guru.

855
00:54:07,767 --> 00:54:11,282
'He almost never spoke
but it was always arresting.

856
00:54:11,327 --> 00:54:16,196
'You never quite knew what he meant,
it might be deep or non-responsive.

857
00:54:16,247 --> 00:54:19,922
'He was Negritude.
He was this huge Black force.'

858
00:54:19,967 --> 00:54:23,880
Because of this I had expected
Muhammad Ali to be here today.

859
00:54:23,927 --> 00:54:28,443
I was gonna hit him in his mouth
to give you some entertainment.

860
00:54:28,487 --> 00:54:32,400
Now when I go in the ring,
you see what kind of mind I got now?

861
00:54:33,447 --> 00:54:35,438
Oh! Oh!

862
00:54:35,487 --> 00:54:37,478
I just got to pound him.

863
00:54:37,527 --> 00:54:39,324
I'm not gonna even realise...

864
00:54:39,367 --> 00:54:42,643
I might look at his face
and say, "How'd I do that?"

865
00:54:42,687 --> 00:54:47,317
Allah, God, I'm his tool. God got
in me on purpose for my people.

866
00:54:47,367 --> 00:54:50,439
God has made this man
look like a little kid.

867
00:54:50,487 --> 00:54:54,958
His so-called right hand ain't
nothing now, I don't even feel 'em!

868
00:54:55,007 --> 00:54:59,000
I walk right in and take my shots
because I have God in my mind.

869
00:54:59,047 --> 00:55:03,677
I'm thinking of my people being free
and I can help with just one fight.

870
00:55:03,727 --> 00:55:07,640
He looks little in comparison
to what I'm getting from it!

871
00:55:07,687 --> 00:55:10,155
But if I think about just me...

872
00:55:10,207 --> 00:55:13,597
George Foreman knocked out
Joe Frazier like he was God.

873
00:55:13,647 --> 00:55:15,638
He knocked out Ken Norton.

874
00:55:15,687 --> 00:55:18,485
And the white press,
the power structure

875
00:55:18,527 --> 00:55:20,722
rank me to get tired in five or six,

876
00:55:20,767 --> 00:55:24,680
then I go in like Norton
and the rest of them and get scared.

877
00:55:24,727 --> 00:55:26,160
But my God controls the universe.

878
00:55:36,207 --> 00:55:40,120
'I was interested
in people called "f�ticheurs".

879
00:55:40,167 --> 00:55:42,761
'They are witches, soothsayers,

880
00:55:42,807 --> 00:55:45,480
'and in Western Africa
almost everybody has one.

881
00:55:45,527 --> 00:55:48,087
'They go to a witch doctor
the way we would go to a dentist.'

882
00:55:50,686 --> 00:55:54,201
Muhammad Ali had been
to Mobutu's f�ticheur.

883
00:55:56,366 --> 00:55:58,163
And...

884
00:55:59,046 --> 00:56:01,196
He had said that...

885
00:56:01,246 --> 00:56:05,125
The f�ticheur had said
that a woman with trembling hands

886
00:56:05,166 --> 00:56:07,475
would somehow get to Foreman.

887
00:56:07,526 --> 00:56:09,323
A succubus.

888
00:56:09,366 --> 00:56:11,926
'And that impressed me enormously.'


890
00:57:13,766 --> 00:57:19,079
'The heavyweight
championship produces an excitement

891
00:57:19,126 --> 00:57:22,163
'that's unlike
almost any other spectacle.

892
00:57:22,206 --> 00:57:24,766
'It's almost physically unendurable

893
00:57:24,806 --> 00:57:28,162
'to wait for that bell
to ring for the first round.

894
00:57:28,206 --> 00:57:31,835
'In 1974 in Zaire, the fight started
at four in the morning,

895
00:57:31,886 --> 00:57:35,003
'in order that it could be shown
on TV in America

896
00:57:35,046 --> 00:57:37,241
'at a reasonable hour like 10.'

897
00:57:37,286 --> 00:57:39,800
Boma ye! Boma ye!

898
00:57:39,846 --> 00:57:44,158
'Before the fight,
I saw a scene that was incomparable.

899
00:57:44,206 --> 00:57:47,004
'Ali's dressing room
was like a morgue.'

900
00:57:47,046 --> 00:57:49,037
It was like The Last Supper.

901
00:57:50,006 --> 00:57:52,600
And at a certain point Ali said,

902
00:57:52,646 --> 00:57:55,479
"Why is everyone...

903
00:57:56,886 --> 00:57:58,683
"so unhappy?

904
00:57:58,726 --> 00:58:01,160
"What is the matter with all of you?"

905
00:58:01,206 --> 00:58:06,485
The sense was that we were watching
a man who was going out to be...

906
00:58:06,526 --> 00:58:08,596
going out to the gallows.

907
00:58:08,646 --> 00:58:13,117
They all believed he was gonna get
defeated and they were terrified.

908
00:58:13,166 --> 00:58:15,396
They thought that with his pride

909
00:58:15,446 --> 00:58:18,438
he would take one of the world's
worst beatings ever

910
00:58:18,486 --> 00:58:20,204
and he wouldn't give up.

911
00:58:20,246 --> 00:58:23,921
And he was gonna be destroyed.
Killed or maimed, they knew not what.

912
00:58:23,966 --> 00:58:26,196
But they were deeply frightened,

913
00:58:26,246 --> 00:58:30,956
as if they were taking whatever fear
Ali might have had and absorbing it.

914
00:58:31,006 --> 00:58:33,395
After a while he looked at Bundini

915
00:58:33,446 --> 00:58:36,199
and said,
"We're gonna dance tonight."

916
00:58:36,246 --> 00:58:39,477
They said, "You're gonna dance!"

917
00:58:39,526 --> 00:58:42,916
Muhammad Ali was so funny
repeating this.

918
00:58:42,966 --> 00:58:45,844
"What am I gonna do?!"
They said, "Dance!"

919
00:58:45,886 --> 00:58:49,674
He said, "Yes!
And that man's gonna be bewildered!

920
00:58:49,726 --> 00:58:51,842
"I'm gonna dance and dance!"

921
00:58:51,886 --> 00:58:55,879
And they said, "You're gonna dance!"
I swear they were all crying.

922
00:58:55,926 --> 00:58:58,838
And he built them up to a degree

923
00:58:58,886 --> 00:59:00,956
so that for him
they became half-happy.

924
00:59:03,606 --> 00:59:05,801
Here comes the
Ali people out of the dressing room

925
00:59:05,846 --> 00:59:08,724
and all of the questions
will be answered.

926
00:59:08,766 --> 00:59:11,234
The awesome power of George Foreman

927
00:59:11,286 --> 00:59:14,756
against the varied boxing skills
of Muhammad Ali.

928
00:59:14,806 --> 00:59:17,195
It's age against youth.

929
00:59:17,246 --> 00:59:19,362
The experience of Muhammad Ali

930
00:59:19,406 --> 00:59:23,160
against the youth and brute force
and blinding speed.

931
00:59:23,206 --> 00:59:25,800
You can hear the band strike up
in the background

932
00:59:25,846 --> 00:59:27,837
as Ali moves to the ring.

933
00:59:27,886 --> 00:59:31,799
This is what Muhammad Ali lives for,
this is the man's life.

934
00:59:31,846 --> 00:59:33,996
This may be an historic event,

935
00:59:34,046 --> 00:59:38,039
Muhammad Ali coming into
the boxing ring for the last time.

936
00:59:38,086 --> 00:59:39,997
Should Muhammad Ali retire,

937
00:59:40,046 --> 00:59:43,641
this will be, what you're seeing now,
a very historic event.

938
00:59:43,686 --> 00:59:47,759
Here comes the heavyweight champion
of the world, George Foreman,

939
00:59:47,806 --> 00:59:49,797
jogging out!

940
00:59:49,846 --> 00:59:52,838
George Foreman
decked out in his red robes,

941
00:59:52,886 --> 00:59:54,877
coming in with his people.

942
00:59:54,926 --> 00:59:58,282
'No one in the press
ever saw Mobutu

943
00:59:58,326 --> 01:00:00,556
'and he didn't come to the fight.

944
01:00:00,606 --> 01:00:03,439
'He watched the fight
on closed circuit.

945
01:00:03,486 --> 01:00:05,442
'It was the only one in Zaire.

946
01:00:05,486 --> 01:00:08,398
'He was terribly afraid
of assassination.

947
01:00:08,446 --> 01:00:11,643
'This stadium
was a true arena for gladiators.

948
01:00:11,686 --> 01:00:16,965
'The floor you could not see beneath
the floor was covered with blood.

949
01:00:17,006 --> 01:00:21,397
'That blood had been washed away
but the effect was still there.'

950
01:00:21,446 --> 01:00:24,836
There was talk
about the possibility of rain,

951
01:00:24,886 --> 01:00:28,401
I don't think the weather could be
any more beautiful than it is.

952
01:00:28,446 --> 01:00:31,006
Ali is getting the people to chant!

953
01:00:31,046 --> 01:00:34,004
"Ali, boma ye,"
that means "Ali, kill him."

954
01:00:34,046 --> 01:00:38,995
'The atmosphere before
the bell rang for that first round

955
01:00:39,046 --> 01:00:42,277
'was as intense
as any I ever recall.'

956
01:00:42,326 --> 01:00:47,241
As they stare, Muhammad
Ali talking to George Foreman.

957
01:00:47,286 --> 01:00:49,277
Really staring at each other.

958
01:00:49,326 --> 01:00:52,841
Foreman looking serious,
Ali definitely talking.

959
01:00:52,886 --> 01:00:56,481
Look at the stare on Foreman.
Look at Ali give him the word.

960
01:00:56,526 --> 01:01:00,155
The stage is set, we're just about
ready to begin round one.

961
01:01:00,206 --> 01:01:02,276
The championship is at stake

962
01:01:02,326 --> 01:01:05,523
and $5 million will be paid
to both fighters.

963
01:01:05,566 --> 01:01:09,445
Ali ready, Foreman ready,
we're waiting for the bell.

964
01:01:10,926 --> 01:01:13,759
Here we go,
Ali quickly across the ring.

965
01:01:13,806 --> 01:01:17,719
Round one, Ali bouncing around,
shifting left to right.

966
01:01:17,766 --> 01:01:20,997
George moves slow,
Ali gets the first punch in,

967
01:01:21,046 --> 01:01:25,039
a light right-hand taken
on the forehead by the champion.

968
01:01:25,086 --> 01:01:27,475
Foreman moving slow, stalking.

969
01:01:27,526 --> 01:01:30,643
Ali looks like he's ready to go here.

970
01:01:30,686 --> 01:01:33,758
He's not staying away,
he's going after his man.

971
01:01:33,806 --> 01:01:38,277
Foreman cautious in the first round,
looking to drop that left hook.

972
01:01:42,606 --> 01:01:45,564
Foreman's locked his man
to the far corner.

973
01:01:45,606 --> 01:01:49,360
There's that left upper-cut
into the body of Muhammad Ali.

974
01:01:49,406 --> 01:01:52,762
Ali tries to hang on
to the head of George Foreman.

975
01:01:52,806 --> 01:01:55,923
Foreman dances...
Ali with a right-hand lead!

976
01:01:55,966 --> 01:01:59,481
Has Foreman slightly confused
with that right-hand lead,

977
01:01:59,526 --> 01:02:02,245
which I haven't seen
too many times before.

978
01:02:02,286 --> 01:02:06,359
A right-hand lead, where you throw
your right without countering,

979
01:02:06,406 --> 01:02:09,045
you throw it first, like a jab.

980
01:02:09,086 --> 01:02:13,159
That has to travel that extra
distance across the shoulders.

981
01:02:13,206 --> 01:02:17,802
'Professionals rarely use this
because it's so dangerous to throw

982
01:02:17,846 --> 01:02:20,121
'since you are open to a left hook.

983
01:02:20,166 --> 01:02:22,964
'Since fighters work in milliseconds

984
01:02:23,006 --> 01:02:26,601
'they can see a right coming
much faster than a jab.'

985
01:02:26,646 --> 01:02:29,763
Nobody had thrown a right-hand lead
at Foreman in two years,

986
01:02:29,806 --> 01:02:32,843
and none of his sparring partners,
for $50 a day,

987
01:02:32,886 --> 01:02:36,356
was going to start
throwing right-hand leads at him

988
01:02:36,406 --> 01:02:39,842
because it's a great insult
to a top professional.

989
01:02:39,886 --> 01:02:43,674
'It suggests he's slow enough
that you can hit him with it.'

990
01:02:43,726 --> 01:02:48,436
'Instead Ali figured out Foreman's
not expecting a right-hand lead.

991
01:02:48,486 --> 01:02:52,001
'"I'm gonna hit him with a right hand
and knock him out."

992
01:02:52,046 --> 01:02:56,756
'Ali threw 12 right hand leads, he
hadn't told anybody he was going to.'

993
01:02:56,806 --> 01:03:00,560
He may have debated whether to
up until the last moment.

994
01:03:00,606 --> 01:03:03,916
But he didn't knock Foreman down
or knock him out.

995
01:03:03,966 --> 01:03:05,922
Instead, Foreman went crazy.

996
01:03:05,966 --> 01:03:09,641
That punch
did no damage. That one did!

997
01:03:09,686 --> 01:03:12,758
Two wild right hands
taken on the head of Ali!

998
01:03:12,806 --> 01:03:16,003
A real strong right hand
just underneath the heart.

999
01:03:16,046 --> 01:03:18,685
Ali is taking some punishment now!

1000
01:03:18,726 --> 01:03:20,921
Eight seconds left in the round.

1001
01:03:20,966 --> 01:03:22,957
Bell rang.

1002
01:03:23,566 --> 01:03:25,796
Ali went back to the corner...

1003
01:03:25,846 --> 01:03:29,998
Finally the nightmare
he'd been awaiting in the ring

1004
01:03:30,046 --> 01:03:32,196
had finally come to visit him.

1005
01:03:32,246 --> 01:03:35,795
'He was in the ring
with a man he could not dominate,

1006
01:03:35,846 --> 01:03:39,441
'who was stronger than him,
who was not afraid of him,

1007
01:03:39,486 --> 01:03:43,399
'who'd try to knock him out,
and who punched harder than Ali,

1008
01:03:43,446 --> 01:03:47,280
'and this man was determined
and unstoppable.

1009
01:03:47,326 --> 01:03:49,920
'Ali had a look on his face
that I'll never forget.

1010
01:03:49,966 --> 01:03:52,878
'It was the only time
I ever saw fear in Ali's eyes.'

1011
01:03:52,926 --> 01:03:56,123
Ali looked as if
he looked into himself and said,

1012
01:03:56,166 --> 01:03:58,282
"All right, this is the moment.

1013
01:03:58,326 --> 01:04:00,965
"This is what
you've been waiting for.

1014
01:04:01,006 --> 01:04:03,725
"This is...that hour.

1015
01:04:04,646 --> 01:04:07,638
"Do you have the guts?"
And he kind of nodded,

1016
01:04:07,686 --> 01:04:10,519
like, "Really got
to get it together, boy.

1017
01:04:10,566 --> 01:04:14,605
"You are gonna get it together...
you WILL get it together."

1018
01:04:14,646 --> 01:04:19,117
He nodded some more, as if he were
looking into the eyes of his maker,

1019
01:04:19,166 --> 01:04:23,045
and then turned to the crowd
and went "Ali, boma ye!"

1020
01:04:23,086 --> 01:04:26,965
and 100,000 people
all yelled back "Ali, boma ye!"

1021
01:04:27,006 --> 01:04:31,841
And this huge reverberation
of the crowd came back into the ring.

1022
01:04:31,886 --> 01:04:34,958
'Ali picked it up as if
"these are my people,

1023
01:04:35,006 --> 01:04:36,962
'"this is what I'm here for.

1024
01:04:37,006 --> 01:04:41,158
'"The time has come, I'm gonna find
a way to master this man."'

1025
01:04:41,206 --> 01:04:43,674
Ali tries
to tie him up.

1026
01:04:43,726 --> 01:04:46,286
No real damage done in that exchange.

1027
01:04:46,326 --> 01:04:50,956
'Foreman, like everyone,
had assumed that Ali would dance,

1028
01:04:51,006 --> 01:04:56,034
'and so Ali now went to the ropes
and went into the Rope-a-Dope.

1029
01:04:56,926 --> 01:05:00,805
'And a lot of people thought
that moment the fight was over.

1030
01:05:00,846 --> 01:05:05,158
'Especially on TV, it looked like
Foreman was killing a very weak Ali.'

1031
01:05:05,206 --> 01:05:07,003
You don't go to the ropes.

1032
01:05:07,046 --> 01:05:10,038
And there he was, leaning way back.

1033
01:05:10,086 --> 01:05:13,044
'I wrote about it, like a man
leaning out of his window

1034
01:05:13,086 --> 01:05:15,919
'trying to see
if there's something on his roof.'

1035
01:05:15,966 --> 01:05:17,763
And, you know, taking it.

1036
01:05:17,806 --> 01:05:19,922
Here were these great broadsides

1037
01:05:19,966 --> 01:05:23,436
and it looked like
he was being set up for the kill.

1038
01:05:23,486 --> 01:05:25,920
It happened so quickly
and so abruptly,

1039
01:05:25,966 --> 01:05:30,437
that I said, I shouted to Norman,
"The fix is in."

1040
01:05:30,486 --> 01:05:33,000
'He's supposed to go down
in the first or second.

1041
01:05:33,046 --> 01:05:35,514
'Ropes is halfway house
to the floor.'

1042
01:05:35,566 --> 01:05:38,160
'It just looked as though
he had to cave in.'

1043
01:05:38,206 --> 01:05:43,121
..some awkward but
very powerful hooks with both hands.

1044
01:05:43,166 --> 01:05:46,954
'They became so basic that
they were like two kids fighting.'

1045
01:05:48,486 --> 01:05:51,683
'For that round and the next round
and the next round

1046
01:05:51,726 --> 01:05:55,321
'Ali lay against the ropes,
and he kept talking to Foreman.

1047
01:05:55,366 --> 01:05:56,958
'It was extraordinary.

1048
01:05:57,006 --> 01:05:59,645
'You had to be close to see it.'

1049
01:05:59,686 --> 01:06:03,281
'And Foreman was throwing
these prodigious punches

1050
01:06:03,326 --> 01:06:06,079
'and Ali swung
like a man in the rigging.'

1051
01:06:06,126 --> 01:06:08,799
He'd go all the way back,
he'd slide out like that.

1052
01:06:08,846 --> 01:06:12,236
Occasionally, he'd get hit and he'd
say "George, you disappoint me.

1053
01:06:12,286 --> 01:06:16,359
"You don't hit as hard
as I thought you would, George,

1054
01:06:16,406 --> 01:06:18,840
"you're not breaking popcorn!"

1055
01:06:18,886 --> 01:06:21,081
'And Foreman's insane with rage,

1056
01:06:21,126 --> 01:06:23,845
'wanging at him and wanging at him,

1057
01:06:23,886 --> 01:06:26,354
'powerful, powerful, powerful.

1058
01:06:26,406 --> 01:06:30,115
'And middle of the fifth round
Foreman had punched himself out.

1059
01:06:30,166 --> 01:06:32,122
'It had taken three rounds.'

1060
01:06:32,166 --> 01:06:36,523
Ali picks it up,
40 seconds left in round five.

1061
01:06:40,686 --> 01:06:45,157
First good combination by Ali
lands on the head of Foreman.

1062
01:06:45,206 --> 01:06:47,595
Foreman with that right hook.

1063
01:06:47,646 --> 01:06:49,557
Ali scores a hook!

1064
01:06:49,606 --> 01:06:52,564
Quick jab with the right
backs up Foreman!

1065
01:06:52,606 --> 01:06:54,483
Backs him up in his tracks!

1066
01:06:54,526 --> 01:06:57,916
Foreman tries the hook!
Ali goes to the right!

1067
01:06:57,966 --> 01:07:00,196
Foreman gets knocked to the left!

1068
01:07:01,286 --> 01:07:03,242
Foreman hit again!

1069
01:07:03,286 --> 01:07:07,165
Foreman has been hit
three or four times!

1070
01:07:07,206 --> 01:07:09,561
Ali came off the ropes
and hit him a right

1071
01:07:09,606 --> 01:07:13,599
and you can see the sweat pour off
like a fountain off Foreman's face

1072
01:07:13,646 --> 01:07:17,719
and you suddenly realised
there was design in this madness.

1073
01:07:17,766 --> 01:07:20,997
So I turned to Norman,
he was somewhat puzzled,

1074
01:07:21,046 --> 01:07:23,640
but I said,
"The succubus has got him!",

1075
01:07:23,686 --> 01:07:26,564
referring to this woman
with the trembling hands

1076
01:07:26,606 --> 01:07:30,360
that the witch doctors had said
would touch Foreman and destroy him.

1077
01:07:32,166 --> 01:07:36,717
..Ali's tactics,
to let the man punch himself out.

1078
01:07:36,766 --> 01:07:38,996
30 seconds left in round eight.

1079
01:07:41,966 --> 01:07:43,763
Very even fight.

1080
01:07:43,806 --> 01:07:46,001
Ali a sneaky right hand.

1081
01:07:46,726 --> 01:07:48,603
Another sneaky right hand.

1082
01:07:48,646 --> 01:07:51,035
Works over the shoulder of Foreman.

1083
01:07:51,086 --> 01:07:52,883
There's the combination!

1084
01:07:55,206 --> 01:07:57,561
Two...three...

1085
01:07:57,606 --> 01:08:00,166
Four...five...

1086
01:08:00,206 --> 01:08:03,562
Foreman gets up to the knee at eight!

1087
01:08:04,406 --> 01:08:06,966
That's it! The fight is stopped!

1088
01:08:07,006 --> 01:08:10,316
Muhammad Ali with
a dramatic eighth round knockout!

1089
01:08:10,366 --> 01:08:13,995
He knocks out...George Foreman!

1090
01:08:14,046 --> 01:08:16,879
He's done it! Muhammad Ali
has done it! Muhammad Ali has...

1091
01:08:19,806 --> 01:08:21,239
Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali...

1092
01:08:21,286 --> 01:08:25,518
'Muhammad Ali,
he was like a sleeping elephant.

1093
01:08:25,566 --> 01:08:29,605
'You can do whatever you want
around a sleeping elephant,

1094
01:08:29,646 --> 01:08:35,118
'but when he wakes up...
he tramples everything.'

1096
01:08:38,126 --> 01:08:41,084
Muhammad Ali, boma ye.

1097
01:08:41,126 --> 01:08:45,756
Boma ye. Muhammad Ali,
boma ye George Foreman.

1098
01:08:45,806 --> 01:08:47,717
He did it.

1099
01:08:47,766 --> 01:08:51,122
'He's champion again,
we couldn't believe it.

1100
01:08:51,166 --> 01:08:54,397
'It was such a classic performance
and so beautiful

1101
01:08:54,446 --> 01:08:57,961
'that at the moment
Ali hit the knockout punch,

1102
01:08:58,006 --> 01:09:01,555
'Foreman began to go,
Ali followed him around,

1103
01:09:01,606 --> 01:09:04,643
'Ali had his right cocked
for one more punch

1104
01:09:04,686 --> 01:09:06,199
'but he never threw it,

1105
01:09:06,246 --> 01:09:10,956
'as though he didn't want to ruin the
aesthetic of this man going down.'

1106
01:09:11,966 --> 01:09:15,117
One has mixed emotions
when you see the end of a fight.

1107
01:09:15,166 --> 01:09:18,203
'I always feel sympathy
for the man losing it,

1108
01:09:18,246 --> 01:09:22,159
'particularly when you see
a titanic, formidable figure

1109
01:09:22,206 --> 01:09:24,037
'suddenly on the ground.'

1110
01:09:24,086 --> 01:09:26,680
'Now,
when we see George on TV,

1111
01:09:26,726 --> 01:09:29,286
'and know that after that knockout

1112
01:09:29,326 --> 01:09:33,001
'he went through two years
of the deepest depression,

1113
01:09:33,046 --> 01:09:35,321
'he almost didn't come out of it.

1114
01:09:35,366 --> 01:09:38,119
'To see the man who's come out of it,

1115
01:09:38,166 --> 01:09:41,363
'the way he reconstructed
his personality,

1116
01:09:41,406 --> 01:09:46,560
'it's hard to find anyone in America
more affable than George Foreman.

1117
01:09:46,606 --> 01:09:50,485
'Foreman has become
a fabulous person in American life.'

1118
01:09:50,526 --> 01:09:52,517
Just as the fight finished,

1119
01:09:52,566 --> 01:09:56,559
the monsoons, the African rains,
came, and they came so hard

1120
01:09:56,606 --> 01:10:00,599
that the waters were about
three feet deep in the dressing rooms

1121
01:10:00,646 --> 01:10:04,036
where we'd just been an hour ago,
I'd never seen such a downpour.

1122
01:10:04,086 --> 01:10:07,078
And we rode back
through the African night

1123
01:10:07,126 --> 01:10:09,435
from the boxing ring into Kinshasa

1124
01:10:09,486 --> 01:10:13,638
and there were crowds on the roads
standing in the pouring rain

1125
01:10:13,686 --> 01:10:17,804
leaping up and down because
news had got around that Ali had won.

1126
01:10:17,846 --> 01:10:21,919
'He stayed up all night
from what I heard,

1127
01:10:21,966 --> 01:10:26,482
'and in the morning he spoke to
African groups who'd come to see him,

1128
01:10:26,526 --> 01:10:29,438
'and they more than revered him,
he was a god.

1129
01:10:29,486 --> 01:10:33,195
'And he spoke to them
very simply and beautifully,

1130
01:10:33,246 --> 01:10:36,955
'and he said,
"Afro-Americans, in America,

1131
01:10:37,006 --> 01:10:38,962
'"we're not as good as you are.

1132
01:10:39,006 --> 01:10:41,315
'"Some of us are richer than you are,

1133
01:10:41,366 --> 01:10:45,120
'"but you have a dignity
in your poverty that we don't have.

1134
01:10:45,166 --> 01:10:46,963
'"We are spoiled in America,

1135
01:10:47,006 --> 01:10:50,999
'"we have lost what you still have
in Africa and you must keep that."

1136
01:10:51,046 --> 01:10:55,039
'And I thought, on top of everything
else he's a political leader

1137
01:10:55,086 --> 01:10:57,236
'and he's gonna be
a great political leader.'

1138
01:10:59,886 --> 01:11:02,275
I have a lot of things to do
in the Black neighbourhoods,

1139
01:11:02,326 --> 01:11:06,239
we have a lot of problems
we have to solve among ourselves.

1140
01:11:06,286 --> 01:11:08,595
Prostitution, dope, gang fights.

1141
01:11:08,646 --> 01:11:12,480
Knowledge of self. Black people
have no knowledge of themselves.

1142
01:11:12,526 --> 01:11:15,120
We have been made
just like white people mentally.

1143
01:11:15,166 --> 01:11:17,805
White people have made us
so much like them

1144
01:11:17,846 --> 01:11:20,519
it's hard to teach them
about themselves,

1145
01:11:20,566 --> 01:11:24,798
it's hard to teach them to unite
and marry and be with their own.

1146
01:11:24,846 --> 01:11:27,314
Black people
are now like white people,

1147
01:11:27,366 --> 01:11:29,516
we have to re-brainwash 'em now,

1148
01:11:29,566 --> 01:11:33,718
teach them about themselves
and their history and language,

1149
01:11:33,766 --> 01:11:35,836
to do something for themselves

1150
01:11:35,886 --> 01:11:40,164
and quit begging white people
for things they should do themselves.

1151
01:11:40,206 --> 01:11:43,482
I never heard Ali say
he would never fight again.

1152
01:11:43,766 --> 01:11:46,200
If he had said it,
and usually he told the truth,

1153
01:11:46,246 --> 01:11:48,202
I wouldn't have believed it.

1154
01:11:48,246 --> 01:11:51,875
He was born to fight,
born for the ring and loved it,

1155
01:11:51,926 --> 01:11:53,757
he truly loved fighting.

1156
01:11:53,806 --> 01:11:58,675
And...as happens with people who love
a thing too much, it destroys them.

1157
01:11:58,726 --> 01:12:02,082
It was Oscar Wilde that said
you destroy the thing you love.

1158
01:12:02,126 --> 01:12:05,801
It's the other way round,
what you love destroys you.

1159
01:12:11,046 --> 01:12:13,844
'He came back,
he had 22 fights.

1160
01:12:13,886 --> 01:12:16,684
'Some were most honourable,
some very difficult.

1161
01:12:16,726 --> 01:12:19,115
'Some were comedies and farces.

1162
01:12:19,166 --> 01:12:23,637
'He hurt himself in those 22 fights
after the fight in Africa.'

1163
01:12:27,046 --> 01:12:31,039
'There is a tendency
to look at Muhammad and say

1164
01:12:31,086 --> 01:12:32,997
'he's wounded, he's ill.

1165
01:12:33,046 --> 01:12:37,437
'There are no intellectual deficits,
it's a motor skills problem

1166
01:12:37,486 --> 01:12:40,364
'and he doesn't try
to hide his condition.

1167
01:12:40,406 --> 01:12:42,966
'He goes out and lets
the whole world see it.

1168
01:12:43,006 --> 01:12:45,361
'He doesn't feel sorry for himself

1169
01:12:45,406 --> 01:12:49,957
'and there's really no reason for
anybody else to feel sorry for him.

1170
01:12:50,006 --> 01:12:52,281
'He loves being Muhammad Ali,

1171
01:12:52,326 --> 01:12:55,762
'he truly believes
that he's doing God's work

1172
01:12:55,806 --> 01:12:59,242
'and he's as happy with each day
as anybody I know.'

1173
01:13:00,246 --> 01:13:04,080
'Today's young generation,
they don't know anything.'

1174
01:13:05,006 --> 01:13:08,919
Something happened last year,
they know nothing about it.

1175
01:13:08,966 --> 01:13:13,278
So there are these great great
stories, great historic events,

1176
01:13:13,326 --> 01:13:16,204
and I'm not talking
about 1850s stuff,

1177
01:13:16,246 --> 01:13:20,159
they don't know who Malcolm X is,
they don't know who JFK is,

1178
01:13:20,206 --> 01:13:23,801
Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson,
you can go down the line.

1179
01:13:23,846 --> 01:13:25,643
And it's scary.

1180
01:13:25,686 --> 01:13:30,237
'They're missing a lot if they don't
know the legacy of Muhammad Ali,

1181
01:13:30,286 --> 01:13:33,084
'because no matter
what era you live in,

1182
01:13:33,126 --> 01:13:35,242
'you see very few true heroes.'

1183
01:13:39,766 --> 01:13:41,836
Ali, boma ye!

1184
01:13:41,886 --> 01:13:46,562
Ali, boma ye! Ali, boma ye!
Ali, boma ye!

1185
01:13:48,246 --> 01:13:50,521
Back up, sucker, back up.

1186
01:13:51,406 --> 01:13:53,715
Come get me, sucker, I'm dancin'!

1187
01:13:53,766 --> 01:13:55,836
I'm dancin'! Follow me, chump!

1188
01:13:55,886 --> 01:13:57,922
I'm not there, I'm here!

1189
01:13:59,726 --> 01:14:01,921
Sucker, you ain't got nothing!

1190
01:14:10,166 --> 01:14:12,680


1191
01:14:12,726 --> 01:14:15,957


1192
01:14:16,006 --> 01:14:17,962


1193
01:14:18,006 --> 01:14:21,476


1194
01:14:21,526 --> 01:14:23,994


1195
01:14:24,046 --> 01:14:29,643

the true belief

1196
01:14:32,486 --> 01:14:35,205


1197
01:14:35,246 --> 01:14:37,919


1198
01:14:37,966 --> 01:14:40,719


1199
01:14:40,766 --> 01:14:43,803


1200
01:14:43,846 --> 01:14:46,485


1201
01:14:46,526 --> 01:14:48,721


1202
01:14:48,766 --> 01:14:52,122


1203
01:14:54,606 --> 01:15:00,954

has been fought and won

1204
01:15:01,006 --> 01:15:05,079


1205
01:15:05,126 --> 01:15:07,720


1206
01:15:07,766 --> 01:15:10,326


1207
01:15:10,366 --> 01:15:16,236

in robes of gold

1208
01:15:16,286 --> 01:15:21,997

the world remembering

1209
01:15:22,046 --> 01:15:27,166


1210
01:15:27,406 --> 01:15:31,558


1211
01:15:33,646 --> 01:15:35,716


1212
01:15:35,766 --> 01:15:39,122


1213
01:15:39,166 --> 01:15:44,479

the rest are lifted up

1214
01:15:44,526 --> 01:15:47,245


1215
01:15:47,286 --> 01:15:50,039


1216
01:15:50,086 --> 01:15:54,876


1217
01:15:55,886 --> 01:16:02,075

to claim the throne

1218
01:16:02,126 --> 01:16:05,675


1219
01:16:05,726 --> 01:16:08,320


1220
01:16:08,366 --> 01:16:11,164


1221
01:16:11,206 --> 01:16:16,724

in robes of gold

1222
01:16:16,766 --> 01:16:22,875

the world remembering

1223
01:16:22,926 --> 01:16:28,239


1224
01:16:28,526 --> 01:16:32,485


1225
01:16:32,526 --> 01:16:34,642


1226
01:16:34,686 --> 01:16:37,120


1227
01:16:38,166 --> 01:16:40,077


1228
01:16:40,126 --> 01:16:41,525


1229
01:16:41,566 --> 01:16:43,682


1230
01:16:43,726 --> 01:16:47,719


1231
01:16:48,086 --> 01:16:50,077


1232
01:16:51,766 --> 01:16:53,802


1233
01:16:57,046 --> 01:17:01,039
Years after the fight in Zaire,
perhaps ten years after,

1234
01:17:01,086 --> 01:17:05,716
I'd run into Ali on occasion after
that, but I remember this meeting.

1235
01:17:05,766 --> 01:17:08,917
Esquire was giving a party
for various people

1236
01:17:08,966 --> 01:17:12,800
who had distinguished themselves
in Esquire that year.

1237
01:17:12,846 --> 01:17:14,837
Ali, for whatever he'd done,

1238
01:17:14,886 --> 01:17:18,925
I was there probably because I had
a good story in Esquire that year,

1239
01:17:18,966 --> 01:17:21,605
maybe 25 of us, honoured guests,

1240
01:17:21,646 --> 01:17:24,160
I was there with my wife
and we saw Ali

1241
01:17:24,206 --> 01:17:26,117
and we were talking with him

1242
01:17:26,166 --> 01:17:28,555
and he couldn't have been nicer.

1243
01:17:28,606 --> 01:17:31,723
I remember I was 62 then,
cos he said, "How old are you now?"

1244
01:17:31,766 --> 01:17:36,556
I said "62," he said "Oh," same as
when we were jogging that night,

1245
01:17:36,606 --> 01:17:41,361
"Oh, I hope I'm as young as you are
when I'm 62," he went on like that.

1246
01:17:41,406 --> 01:17:45,399
I got so pleased and so vain that,
you know, I'm like a dog.

1247
01:17:45,446 --> 01:17:49,075
What did I have to do?
I had to go urinate, and I did.

1248
01:17:49,126 --> 01:17:52,482
I went away and once I was gone
he turned to my wife,

1249
01:17:52,526 --> 01:17:56,565
who's much younger than I am,
and he looked at her hard and said,

1250
01:17:56,606 --> 01:17:59,120
"You still with that old man?"

1251
01:18:01,086 --> 01:18:04,078
And for me that's always been...
That's Ali.

1252
01:18:04,926 --> 01:18:08,316
You love him even when
you turn your back on him.

1253
01:18:08,366 --> 01:18:13,281
I heard him once talking to the
Harvard senior class commencement.

1254
01:18:14,646 --> 01:18:18,798
He gave this extraordinary speech,
you know he was dyslexic,

1255
01:18:18,846 --> 01:18:21,155
and he would look
at a paper and say,

1256
01:18:21,206 --> 01:18:24,482
"What does this word mean?"
I'd say, "Appendicitis."

1257
01:18:24,526 --> 01:18:28,838
He'd say, "How d'you get a word
like appendicitis? It's so long."

1258
01:18:28,886 --> 01:18:31,116
Here he was delivering a lecture,

1259
01:18:31,166 --> 01:18:36,320
senior class day with these
1,000, 2,000 Harvard graduates,

1260
01:18:36,366 --> 01:18:39,756
and...he had these little cards
in front of him.

1261
01:18:39,806 --> 01:18:44,561
He gave this wonderful speech
about he hadn't had the opportunity

1262
01:18:44,606 --> 01:18:49,157
but they had and they should use that
to make the world a better place.

1263
01:18:49,206 --> 01:18:53,722
It was moving and funny, and a great
roar of appreciation at the end.

1264
01:18:53,766 --> 01:18:56,644
Then someone shouted out,
"Give us a poem!"

1265
01:18:56,686 --> 01:18:59,359
And everybody quieted down.

1266
01:18:59,406 --> 01:19:04,321
Now, the shortest poem according
to Bartlett's Quotations is called

1267
01:19:04,366 --> 01:19:06,436
"On the Antiquity of Microbes"

1268
01:19:06,486 --> 01:19:08,795
and the poem is "Adam had 'em."

1269
01:19:08,846 --> 01:19:10,484
Pretty short.

1270
01:19:10,526 --> 01:19:12,801
But Muhammad Ali's poem was

1271
01:19:12,846 --> 01:19:15,918
"Me, we."

1272
01:19:16,726 --> 01:19:18,284
Two words.

1273
01:19:18,326 --> 01:19:22,763
I wrote Bartlett's Quotations
and I said, "Look, that's shorter."

1274
01:19:22,806 --> 01:19:26,242
It stands for something more
than the poem itself.

1275
01:19:26,286 --> 01:19:28,641
"Me, we." What a fighter he was.
And what a man.

1276
01:19:33,166 --> 01:19:37,079


1277
01:19:37,126 --> 01:19:40,277


1278
01:19:45,966 --> 01:19:47,319


1279
01:19:47,366 --> 01:19:49,675

more bass than Bootsy Collins

1280
01:19:49,726 --> 01:19:52,365

that's like Ali versus Foreman

1281
01:19:52,406 --> 01:19:55,159


1282
01:19:55,206 --> 01:19:58,039

can't be timed with no Swatch watch

1283
01:19:58,086 --> 01:20:00,316


1284
01:20:00,366 --> 01:20:03,039

yellow man, Vietnam

1285
01:20:03,086 --> 01:20:05,361

as I spar with literature

1286
01:20:05,406 --> 01:20:06,680


1287
01:20:06,726 --> 01:20:08,284


1288
01:20:08,326 --> 01:20:10,794

I seen the Devil spar with Allah

1289
01:20:10,846 --> 01:20:13,406

to set my whole race free

1290
01:20:13,446 --> 01:20:16,040

a refugee no harm hurt me

1291
01:20:16,086 --> 01:20:18,805

to my own hustle bubble

1292
01:20:18,846 --> 01:20:21,406

to show the Free Bob right

1293
01:20:21,446 --> 01:20:22,765


1294
01:20:22,806 --> 01:20:24,205


1295
01:20:24,246 --> 01:20:25,599


1296
01:20:25,646 --> 01:20:26,965


1297
01:20:27,006 --> 01:20:28,439


1298
01:20:28,486 --> 01:20:29,885


1299
01:20:29,926 --> 01:20:32,281

you got to recognise and witness

1300
01:20:32,326 --> 01:20:34,999

to knock you out with mic fitness

1301
01:20:35,046 --> 01:20:36,274

from holding the mic tight

1302
01:20:36,326 --> 01:20:37,520


1303
01:20:37,566 --> 01:20:40,478

cos I'm gonna take away your breath

1304
01:20:40,526 --> 01:20:43,086

and it's just a daily operation

1305
01:20:43,126 --> 01:20:45,799

you can see this occupation

1306
01:20:45,846 --> 01:20:48,201

You know we're here from Q-borough

1307
01:20:48,246 --> 01:20:51,204

Prazwell promote the throw

1308
01:20:51,246 --> 01:20:53,885

with the pigskin cases

1309
01:20:53,926 --> 01:20:56,565

like a gang of street masons

1310
01:20:56,606 --> 01:20:59,040

true pyramid architects

1311
01:20:59,086 --> 01:21:01,316


1312
01:21:01,366 --> 01:21:03,084


1313
01:21:03,126 --> 01:21:04,400

change the picture

1314
01:21:04,446 --> 01:21:07,006

like holy Moslem scripture

1315
01:21:07,046 --> 01:21:09,799

only one when it's jihad

1316
01:21:09,846 --> 01:21:12,485

to reconnect 400 years

1317
01:21:12,526 --> 01:21:13,925

dark but equal

1318
01:21:13,966 --> 01:21:15,240


1319
01:21:15,286 --> 01:21:17,880

remember when we were kings

1320
01:21:17,926 --> 01:21:20,042


1321
01:21:20,086 --> 01:21:22,441


1322
01:21:22,486 --> 01:21:25,205


1323
01:21:25,246 --> 01:21:27,919


1324
01:21:27,966 --> 01:21:30,526


1325
01:21:30,566 --> 01:21:33,205


1326
01:21:33,246 --> 01:21:35,999


1327
01:21:36,046 --> 01:21:38,879


1328
01:21:39,926 --> 01:21:44,522

in the morning, baby

1329
01:21:44,806 --> 01:21:49,960

in the morning, darling

1330
01:21:50,006 --> 01:21:55,205

in the morning, baby

1331
01:21:55,446 --> 01:22:00,645

in the morning, darling

1332
01:22:00,686 --> 01:22:02,677

it's danger

1333
01:22:02,726 --> 01:22:03,920


1334
01:22:03,966 --> 01:22:05,797

and I'll derange you

1335
01:22:05,846 --> 01:22:08,485

everyone looks despondent

1336
01:22:08,526 --> 01:22:11,120

similar to Liston catching licks

1337
01:22:11,166 --> 01:22:13,555

is still the greatest in history

1338
01:22:13,606 --> 01:22:16,166

yapping about that negative shit

1339
01:22:16,206 --> 01:22:19,164

and escape if you want to

1340
01:22:19,206 --> 01:22:22,039

who the hell you gonna run to?

1341
01:22:22,086 --> 01:22:24,759

you got a punch that I can sleep to

1342
01:22:24,806 --> 01:22:27,240

forever coming through

1343
01:22:27,286 --> 01:22:29,754

over two dollar plates

1344
01:22:29,806 --> 01:22:32,525

like Jake the Snake

1345
01:22:32,566 --> 01:22:35,364

wash our sins at the Great Lakes

1346
01:22:35,406 --> 01:22:38,000

so therefore we can't relate

1347
01:22:38,046 --> 01:22:40,514

when I make myself crystal clear

1348
01:22:40,566 --> 01:22:43,205

when I aced you up in Zaire

1349
01:22:43,246 --> 01:22:45,760

in the Royal Rumble

1350
01:22:45,806 --> 01:22:48,639

in the concrete jungle

1351
01:22:48,686 --> 01:22:50,722

flipped the script

1352
01:22:50,766 --> 01:22:52,199


1353
01:22:52,246 --> 01:22:55,124

Ali, the government!

1354
01:22:55,166 --> 01:22:58,556

God nutrition, lightly stricken

1355
01:22:58,606 --> 01:23:00,562

like you was poison bitten

1356
01:23:00,606 --> 01:23:02,915

you and your sister

1357
01:23:02,966 --> 01:23:05,685

before my fights, my nigga

1358
01:23:05,726 --> 01:23:08,843

once you walk past the doorman

1359
01:23:08,886 --> 01:23:11,605

until the morning

1360
01:23:11,646 --> 01:23:14,160

provided by Joseph Mobutu

1361
01:23:14,206 --> 01:23:17,243

like the Archbishop Desmond Tutu

1362
01:23:17,286 --> 01:23:19,038


1363
01:23:19,086 --> 01:23:21,680

to be the first to fall and fumble

1364
01:23:21,726 --> 01:23:24,286

like solid milestones

1365
01:23:24,326 --> 01:23:27,204

imbalance your chromosomes

1366
01:23:27,246 --> 01:23:28,964

of a thousand warriors

1367
01:23:29,006 --> 01:23:31,839

identify me as the lord victorious

1368
01:23:31,886 --> 01:23:33,877


1369
01:23:33,926 --> 01:23:36,759


1370
01:23:36,806 --> 01:23:39,366


1371
01:23:39,406 --> 01:23:41,601


1372
01:23:41,646 --> 01:23:44,558


1373
01:23:44,606 --> 01:23:47,404


1374
01:23:47,446 --> 01:23:49,880


1375
01:23:49,926 --> 01:23:52,281