On the evening of October 30 in Kinshasa, Zaire, 1974, the formidable and unbeaten George Foreman took on former champion and now challenger Muhammad Ali in what is now considered the greatest heavyweight fight of all time. Now Zaire has been renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo, this was very much deepest, darkest Africa as described by Ali at the time.

Ali, famed for his speed and technical prowess was pitted against the raw and devastating punching power of Foreman. While Ali is famous for covering up allowing Foreman to wear himself out, he countered with straight punches to Foreman at every opportunity. They trained at the same facilities at different times, the welts Foreman left in the heavy bag rattled Ali, Foreman in his prime was a powerful puncher, you would not want to be on the receiving end of these bombs. 

Rope-a-dope, who would have thought covering up on the ropes to allow your opponent, one of the most powerful and devastating punchers in heavyweight history to wear himself out before springing into action and land a few blows yourself was a viable let alone a winning strategy. If Ali had run his strategy by me before the fight, I would have tried to talk him out of it. 

When you actually view the fight, Ali was very active early in the round before covering up. Ali timed each round perfectly, a the end of each round approached, he uncovered and moved from defensive strategy to offence landing some very quick combinations. I reckon he was at least ahead in the fight by five rounds, it would not be outrageous to have Ali ahead in all eight rounds before George found himself on the canvas.