50 years after Ali fought Foreman in the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’, Kongo is still fighting

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) – Alfred Mamba remembers the madness that gripped the Zaire soccer stadium now generally known as Congoas the hard-fought heavyweight title fight lasted eight rounds between the underdog Muhammad Ali and the seemingly invincible George Foreman.

“It was a big party,” Mamba said, recalling his father, certainly one of the founders of Congo’s boxing federation, taking him to a fight when he was 15.

Looking through a stack of photos he believed were taken during the fight, Mamba recalled the stadium erupting as Ali and Foreman got here out for the long-awaited ” Rumble in the jungle ”, as the competition was commonly called.

“When Foreman was throwing punches, the audience was screaming,” recalls Mamba, now a boxing referee. “But Ali surprised everyone with his hook technique. And how he boxed on the ropes. And voila, that’s how he won the fight.”

The hysteria of the crowd followed the series of blows until Ali’s last blow. It also created a brand new generation of fighters and fans who were inspired to maintain the country on the world boxing stage.

Ahead of the fiftieth anniversary of the Ali vs. Foreman fight, boxers and fans from across Africa descended on Kinshasa, the capital of the Congo, for the just concluded twenty first African Amateur Boxing Championships, during which the Stade des Martyrs stadium and primary roads were illuminated.

Landry Matete Kankonde, who represented Congo in the men’s heavyweight division, lost to Karamba Kebe of Senegal, but said he still dreams of becoming the next Ali, crediting the 1974 fight with putting Congo on the map.

“The next superstar will be me,” Kankonde, 24, said with a giant smile on his face.

But in this impoverished country of 110 million people, most of them young, people like Kankonde fight against adversity to succeed in the highest level.

Although Congo is certainly one of Africa’s most successful boxing nations, it still lacks proper sports infrastructure reminiscent of a gymnasium for the national team, leaving a lot of them to coach in open spaces, Mamba said.

In the eastern region, where a deadly security crisis has resulted in certainly one of the world’s worst humanitarian disastersmany can only dream of getting out of conflict zones and IDP camps to get to an official competition in a distant capital.

Even in Kinshasa, amateurs often train on roadsides and streets without equipment, hiding and moving their arms as they execute their shots.

“Congo is a country where people are motivated by the suffering we experience here,” Kankonde said. “Every time a Congolese boxer gives his all, it gives us strength to see what we go through here.”

The 1974 fight was certainly one of boxing’s most memorable moments.

Mobutu Sese Seko, the Congolese dictator who desired to put the (*50*) African nation in the highlight, partnered with organizers to bring the competition to the country, committing $5 million to the fight.

Just before dawn on October 30, 1974, as soldiers with machine guns surveyed the ringside crowd and an enormous portrait of Mobuto towering over the Stade des Martyrs, spectators from around the world watched the 32-year-old Ali fight – longing for a comeback after being stripped of his world title for refusing to be drafted into the military for the Vietnam War – and the then undefeated 25-year-old Foreman.

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Many believed Ali had no probability against Foreman because he had been out of the ring for years after being sanctioned.

“People were praying before the fight that Ali wouldn’t die,” said Bill Caplan, Foreman’s public relations specialist in Zaire.

“I think it was one of the top 10 upsets in boxing,” Ed Schuyler Jr., a longtime boxing author for The Associated Press who was in Congo to cover the fight, said of Ali’s victory.

The fight ended with Ali dropping Foreman in the eighth round, but that was only the starting of the passion for the sport amongst many Congolese. “From then on, everyone wanted to learn boxing,” Mamba said. He was inspired by each competitions and his father, also a judge.

Congo has continued to thrive for 50 years, producing boxing champions reminiscent of Sumbu Kalambay, a Congolese-Italian champion who held the World Boxing Association (WBA) middleweight world title in the Eighties, and Junior Ilunga Makabu, who held the title WBC cruiserweight in the early Twenties.

People in this country proceed to fall in love with the sport, including Josue Loloje, who was amongst the spectators at the Kinshasa stadium during the African Championships.

“The Ali vs. Foreman fight is the foundation of the talent emerging in Congolese boxing,” Loloje said between fights. “It all started there.”