Rumble in the Jungle: 50 years since the most famous fight in boxing history

OVER the last half-century, the world heavyweight title has beaten an increasingly erratic and sadly inconsequential course.
It has traipsed its gaudy cloak through bust casino towns and dead-end leisure centres, pitching up most recently in the Saudi desert, and been contested in one spurious form or another on all five major continents.
It has survived so-called “bite nights” and interruptions by errant paragliders, and been claimed both by those who deserve to be called all-time greats, and others who, in the words of Larry Holmes, were not fit to carry their jockstraps.
Similar stories

JOHN WIGHT explains how the eighth-round stoppage back in 1974 remains among the most important moments in the entire history of sports

The musical progeny of the Rumble in the Jungle, and contemporary Nigerian Afrobeat

JOHN WIGHT describes the boxer’s decades-long career that saw him fight some of the most iconic and legendary heavyweights of all time

JOHN WIGHT tells the fascinating story behind the boxer’s unexpected interest in the poet and lyricist when he visited Scotland in 1965