Abu Dhabi: His legendary ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ defeat to Muhammad Ali in 1974 was not his toughest bout and proved to be ‘a fight for my life’, according to George Foreman.
The former world heavyweight champion told Gulf News that his heroic victory over Ron Lyle had proved more arduous because his opponent had hit harder than Ali.
Foreman survived two knockdowns in the fourth round — in his career only Ali and Jimmy Young sent him to the canvas — to win in the fifth.
“That was not only the toughest fight of my life, it was a fight for my life,” said Foreman.
“When Ron Lyle hit me, he hit me much harder than Ali did. He knocked me down and I wanted to stay down and wait for the count but I thought ‘I’ll die first’.
He added: “I kept getting up and I remember saying: ‘It would be worse than death to get counted out again’. I kept getting up and he [Lyle] was not able to deal with that.
“I couldn’t explain what had happened in Africa [in the Rumble in the Jungle] and I was not going to explain that it was going to happen in [Las] Vegas. I’d made a pact to die before being counted out again.”
