“I have been boxin’ for 20 years and I’m a pretty good fighter,” he said. “Look,” Pacheco said, pointing at members of Ali’s entourage “They’ve already taken all his stuff His robe, his shorts, his boots, his gloves, even his socks They’ll sell it.”Then the rains came. The fight would not have survived a storm that turned the highway into a torrent, hammering on the roof of the ancient vehicle that carried us back to N’sele, flood water steadily rising, the driver urged on by promises.Despite being in the best condition he’d known since being forced out of boxing by the US government in 1967, Ali may have harboured doubts about his legs and stamina but his decision to let Foreman crowd in on him had to be seen as an act of calculated bravery. Sent sideways by a left hook, he went down from a following right He struggled upright but not in time to beat the count Pandemonium broke out.

In the mad scramble to reach the dressing-room I offered a helping hand to Schulberg who had been knocked down in the surge His eyes were filled with tears of joy. We fought our way through the crowd and I flopped down alongside Ali’s ring doctor, Ferdie Pacheco, our backs against a wall. Ali lay on a rubbing table, naked but for a towel thrown across his loins. Dundee led the imploring chorus from Ali’s corner, anxiety loud on their lips. “Move, for Christ’s sake move,” Dundee screeched.Taking a tremendous risk, Ali lay back over the ropes as Foreman closed with him again. Then a stinging combination of punches leaped into the champion’s face.

The pattern did not alter through rounds three and four, but in the fifth a terrible left hook pounded into Ali’s head, quickly followed by another In withstanding those blows Ali turned the contest. As though satisfied that he had at last drawn the ogre’s strength, Ali took up the initiative with rasping jabs and in the seventh a right almost sent Foreman through the ropes.At the start of the eighth, Foreman hit Ali with three head punches before stumbling on to a counter. “Muhammad Ali stops George Foreman,” he muttered with his eyes closed “I kicked a lot of asses – not only George’s. All those writers who said I was washed up, all those people who thought I had nothin’ left to offer but my mouth, all them that been against me from the start and waitin’ for me to get the biggest beatin’ of all times. They thought big bad George Foreman, the baddest man alive, could do it for them but they know better now.” As he started the next sentence, Ali remembered the presence of his aunt, Coretta Clay, and the other cook, Lanna Shabazz He checked himself, then shaped rather than spoke the words. Foreman, at first puzzled, prowled forward and unleashed a wide hook to the body, then another.