Rumble in the Jungle and the stray elbow that nearly KO’d boxing’s most famous fight
It was not the only time an accidental elbow threatened or ruined a major fight
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It looked like one of the greatest fights in history would never happen when, in September 1974, George Foreman was cut above the right eye by Bill McMurray’s left elbow. The pair were finishing off a long training camp at their base in Kinshasa, Zaire, when the cut, tiny compared to Haye’s gash, opened up with just eight days left before the Rumble in the Jungle’s original date of 25 September.
In addition to what has been said about Foreman trying to leave the country – there are lurid tales of armed guards confiscating his passport – it is a little-known fact that Muhammad Ali was even more desperate to flee and return to America. However, Ali, who would be in Zaire for a total of 57 days, sought wise counsel, stayed, and exploited Foreman’s desire to run away. “Ali kept telling everybody that, ‘George is scared, George doesn’t like Africa, George doesn’t like Africans.’ Ali just put up with it,” said Gene Kilroy, Ali’s friend and business manager.
Had either boxer left Zaire there is every chance that, for a variety of financial reasons, one of sport’s most iconic events would have simply never taken place. They both had to stay, not exactly prisoners, but they were each warned about the consequences of flight by President Mobutu Sese Seko’s henchmen. He was, after all, a nasty little despot who ran Zaire for 32 years, and he was delighted when the pair finally fought on 30 October – 50 years ago, today.
And this was not the only time an accidental elbow played with the fate of a fight.
When Filip Hrgovic’s right elbow sliced through both the epidermis and dermis, leaving David Haye requiring six stitches from a plastic surgeon, the pair joined this list of unfortunate fighters in 2013.
The cut happened late one Friday night on the last day of Haye’s sparring for his failed fight with Tyson Fury, and everybody in the Vauxhall gym knew that the fight was off. Hrgovic, now a known name but at the time not even the most dangerous of Haye’s sparring partners, was just in the right place at the right time to end the multimillion-pound night.
There seemed to be genuine remorse in Haye’s voice when he apologised to Fury and to all the fans who were due to pack the sold-out former MEN Arena in Manchester. I believed him to be genuine because the purse, thought to be in excess of £3m, was the sole motivation for the fight and the bout, of course, never happened.
There was also Ray Webb, a good little fighter from Hackney, who landed flush with a right hand on Michael Watson’s nose in November 1989. It was the last day, last round, and last few seconds of sparring for Watson’s WBA middleweight title fight against Mike McCallum.
The nose was broken and the fight at Alexandra Palace was off. Watson had not fought since May and McCallum, perhaps realising the delay would be longer than expected, took a hard, 12-round defence in February 1990 against Steve Collins. Watson could only look on in despair.
He finally got his chance against McCallum in April 1990 but Watson had been out of the ring for 11 months and the inactivity cruelly ruined his performance; he was stopped in the 11th round and his timing looked off. “The 11-month gap robbed me of the title. I know it did, but I can’t blame Ray,” Watson said. “What could I do? Ray was an old friend, a good friend.”
Nobody is blaming McMurray, Webb or even big Filip for their wayward elbows and well-placed punches but it is, all the same, a dreadful shame when a big fight collapses at such short notice.
Fury was almost the victim of a similar scenario this year, in fact, when his sparring partner Agron Smakici caught the “Gypsy King” with an elbow, two weeks before Fury’s undisputed heavyweight title fight with Oleksandr Usyk.
That bout – decades in the making, given what was up for grabs – was pushed back by three months but thankfully did go ahead, with Fury just coming up short in an instant classic in Saudi Arabia. Fury was hurt badly in round nine, but the cut over his eye, inflicted by Smakici, thankfully caused him no trouble on the night.
A rematch awaits in December, yet perhaps it was for the best that the Rumble in the Jungle received no sequel. It remains the most iconic fight that boxing has ever seen, and was best left untouched.
N.B. Article first published in 2013 and edited in October 2024.
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