Fifty years ago, on October 30, Muhammad Ali – as much of a 10-1 underdog – shocked the world by winning the heavyweight title from George Foreman. In all sports there had never been anything like it. It was Marquis of Queenberry meets National Geographic and the triumph of Justice Deferred rolled into one. I was there and this is how I remember it. —Jerry Izenberg

I was a stranger in what to me and my colleagues was the strangest of foreign countries. We had come to Zaire in the early fall of 1974 because where Muhammad Ali went we followed. And now Ali had come to reclaim his rightful heavyweight championship from George Foreman in “The Rumble in the Jungle.”

I knew little about Zaire except that it had been the Belgian Congo, then the Democratic People’s Republic of the Congo, and under Colonel Joseph Mobutu had been named Zaire. I was also aware that it was there that a 19th-century journalist named Henry Stanley had focused much of his search for a missing British explorer, a journey that, according to legend, ended dramatically with the words “Dr. Livingstone, I suppose .”

When I found out that the ring would be struck not far from that place, for me this became a story in search of a writer.

The name and title that Mobuto had given himself was President Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Wa Za ​​Banga of Zaire, which translates as “The Almighty Warrior who, because of his perseverance and inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake.”

Even that was incomplete.

In addition to his “perseverance and inflexible will to win”, there was also his ability to assassinate, steal and maintain happy ties with the CIA. He had already been singled out by Amnesty International for torturing political prisoners and had not hesitated to support episodes of strategic genocide in neighboring Rwanda when it served his purpose.

When the fight was announced, I saw little chance of an AIi victory. But I later learned something that even Foreman didn’t know. Ali, then 32, had long suffered from arthritic hands. Painkillers had been a constant companion. But it was Gene Killroy, his business manager and close friend, who gave Ali one of the biggest punch cards of his career.

He took him to an orthopedist in Philadelphia named Dr. James Nixon, who ordered him to remove all those useless painkiller injections and prescribed warm paraffin soaks for both hands three times a day. The hands began to come around.

A month later, the late Jerry Lisker, sports editor of the New York Post, and I traveled to Deer Lake, Pa., to watch Ali’s final preparations. I couldn’t believe what we saw. For the first time in over a year, his hands allowed him to knock the heavy bag away. With each punch, he chanted, “I’m going to … knock … that … sosser … out.”

As we left for the long drive home, Lisker said, “You know what I think? His time is running out. I think his exile lasted too long.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But here’s what I think. I think he’s going to knock the sugar out just like he said. I remember something he told me years ago. He said, ‘If Muhammad Ali tells you that a mosquito can pull a plough, don’t mess around. Just hook him up.’

“If he says he’s going to do it, he’s going to do it. Go check with Sonny Liston.”

Lisker and I were the only two writers who picked him to win and we each said knockout.

Zaire – about the size of that part of the United States east of the Mississippi River – was a polyglot of more than 20 tribes with nothing in common (including their native languages) other than the fact that someone long ago claimed the entire landmass for Belgium.

It was chaos from the time the outside world arrived. As they got off the plane, Ali asked Gene Kilroy, a kind of major-domo in the Ali camp, “Who do these people hate?”

“I couldn’t say ‘white people,'” Kilroy explained, “because I was white and so was Angelo Dundee. So I said, ‘I guess the Belgians’ who had occupied the country.

“So, there was this scene. Ali turned to the crowd and yelled, ‘George Foreman is a Belgian.’

Thousands of people chant “Ali!” and then the cry was changed to “Ali, Boom-a-yay” (in Lingala) and the interpreter told me it means “Ali, kill him,” and Ali turned it into a song every day.

With that, he jumped right into the head of George Foreman. He played Foreman’s psyche until it tightened like an overwound violin string, exploiting countless self-doubts that plagued the then troubled heavyweight champion. Ali even altered the genetics and turned Foreman into a white man by carefully explaining to onlookers at a training session:

“George came here with a dog. I don’t need to tell you all how many dogs were set against you over the years. What kind of dog did he bring? A Belgian shepherd. And who oppressed you? The Belgians. So what do that to him?”

Ali nicknamed him “The Mummy” and shouted every time he saw him in the days leading up to the fight: “No mother will beat the great Muhammad Ali when we meet in the house of horrors.”

When Foreman was cut over the right eye, delaying the fight for six weeks, Ali and Kilroy went to Mobuto’s people and told them, “George is going to escape. You should put some army men in front of his hotel.”

They did, and George began to brood even more deeply at this insult. On fight night he was a nervous wreck.

Due to time constraints dictated by the orbit of a communications satellite, the fight would not start until 3 a.m. US Eastern Time. They filled the gap from midnight onwards with traditional native dancers. A full moon hung over the proceedings. And through it all, the steady pounding of the drums.

Half a century later. the fight itself remains an electric tale of romance, history and justice deferred and finally obtained. In many ways, it is the benchmark for Ali’s career. It generated astonishing myths through fake books by people who were not there or just passing through. Inside the ring before it started, Ali walked up to George and stood maybe two meters away and yelled at him:

“I’m gonna beat you to death, soss. Warn all the soss around you. I’m going to pop … pop … POP … do you hear me?” And just before they dragged him away, you could almost see the ferocity that was George’s stock and trade disappear before your eyes.

I don’t need to tell you about the rope-a-dope, greatly increased in effectiveness when Ali chose to lean back on those ropes. I need not tell you how, in the eighth round, exhaustion, fatigue and frustration set Foreman up for the short right hand lead that shocked the world.

Actually, there were two, but by the time the first one landed, Foreman had already tripped and groped for an invisible handle. He seemed to fall into sections.

That’s how it ended.

But what I remember most was a moment just after dawn, hot on the heels of one of those torrential African downpours. Ali had been the champion for only a couple of hours.

Columnist Dave Anderson of The New Times and I found him alone, staring hard for at least five minutes at the river. Obviously he saw something or someone that we didn’t. He didn’t even know we were there.

Framed by the first healthy rays of a new African sunshine and staring silently at the river, he raised his arms in Rocky pose.

To me, in that quiet, powerful moment, Muhammad Ali, vindicated and victorious, was truly king of the world.

Jerry Izenberg is columnist emeritus for The Star Ledger. He can be reached at [email protected].