The strategic genius of Muhammad Ali
The legendary boxer’s clever strategy on how to beat a superior foe still holds lessons
‘‘ I ADMIT HE AMAZED ME. JUST THE DISTANCE HE COULD LEAN BACK OVER THE ROPES WAS AMAZIN’. AND HE OUTTHOUGHT ME TACTICALLY GEORGE FOREMAN
Muhammad Ali’s victory over George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle in 1974 is one of the great demonstrations of strategy triumphing over all other factors.
Foreman, then 25, was a giant of a man who would punch huge dents into the heavy bag during training in the lead-up to the fight, which was held in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). His power and strength far outweighed that of Ali, who was 32 at the time.
Ali had won fame for his fastpaced dancing and hand-speed in the ring — as well as his fastpaced chirping and descriptions of himself as being “so pretty” and “The Greatest”. He was expected to “dance like a butterfly, sting like a bee” as he had in earlier bouts, when he was in his prime in the mid-1960s, before being stripped of his title in 1967 for refusing to be drafted to serve in Vietnam. (He famously said: “Man, I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong. No Vietcong ever called me nigger.”)
He did not fight again until late 1970.
Before the Rumble in the Jungle Ali had lost two fights: against Joe Frazier and Ken Norton.
Foreman had destroyed each of these men within two rounds.
In the Zaire fight against Foreman, Ali uncharacteristically went to the ropes, where he deflected, dodged and ducked the champion’s pounding blows, all the while chiding the big man: “Hit harder, George. That the best you got? They told me you had body punches but that don’t hurt even a little bit. Harder, sucker, swing harder. You the champion and you gettin’ nowhere,” as he told a reporter afterwards.
To further rile Foreman, he resorted to jabbing him — which for the non-boxing fans, including me — is a lesser punch. It’s essentially an insult to a heavyweight boxer. (Of course it also piles up the points and wears down the opponent psychologically.)
Anyway, that was Ali’s strategy: get Foreman angry and make him exhaust himself in the heat and humidity of Zaire. The big-hitting young champion, as Ali and his advisers knew, was not used to long fights — he would characteristically knock out his opponents within a couple of rounds.
Ali knew he’d tire himself out by dancing around the ring, so decided it would be better to let Foreman do that by slugging. Ali leant on the ropes and protected his head and body with his arms. Meanwhile, the jabs to Foreman’s face inflicted pain and swelling.
This “rope-a-dope”, as he called it, had another angle to it. By leaning back on the ropes, he allowed them to absorb some of the kinetic energy Foreman was exerting. This strategy was completely different to Ali’s usual way of fighting, which had been to stay off the ropes as far as possible, to avoid being trapped there by hard punchers.
Foreman, whom everyone considered the stronger boxer and a shoo-in to win, was caught off guard in every way. It was as crafty a strategy as Lawrence of Arabia attacking from the deep desert.
By the eighth round, Foreman was a spent force. Ali burst out of his passivity to knock the champion down and regain his heavyweight title. With the crowd roaring “Ali, boma ye!” (Ali, kill him!), “The Greatest” pulled off the most unlikely of victories, using guile and strategy where strength wouldn’t have been enough.
The Art of War is the book most often used as the guiding principle in modern-day business strategy, based on the wisdom of Sun Tzu, a Chinese general from around 500 BC.
But this more contemporary feat by Ali is arguably a better example for businesses looking to compete in the digital age. Play to your strengths, confound expectations, let your competitors misread your intentions and add a healthy dose of misinformation.
Foreman said later: “I admit he amazed me. Just the distance he could lean back over the ropes was amazin’. And he outthought me tactically, planned his fight better than I did.”
I’m not a fan of boxing — a brutal sport that I never warmed to — but I am an enthusiastic fan of Ali, who died last week aged 74 after battling Parkinson’s Disease for three decades.
Like Bruce Lee, Ali was an innovator in his sport. He brought a thrilling new way of doing what had been done for centuries. He improved it, made it sexy, and made himself into a legend.
Ali’s moral integrity was admirable, especially when he refused to be drafted to fight in Vietnam, and stood with dignity in everything he did.
Ali’s first meeting with Nelson Mandela was a moment of obvious delight for both men. Mandela was an amateur boxer and a professional revolutionary, Ali a professional boxer and an amateur revolutionary. Both men were icons, and it was hard to tell who was more awestruck at meeting the other.
If you haven’t seen the remarkable documentary When
We Were Kings, about the Rumble in the Jungle, now is a good time. It holds great lessons for everyone.
The Rumble in the Jungle was one of Ali’s defining moments. But so too was his groundbreaking defeat of Sonny Liston in 1964 to win his first world heavyweight title. Ali, still known as Cassius Clay at the time, was a callow 22-year-old when he beat Liston, then the most intimidating fighter in the world. The champion, his face puffy from the lightning-fast fists of his young challenger, refused to come out for the seventh round.
The man who later called himself “The Greatest” had won Olympic gold in the lightheavyweight category four years before in Rome (and this would enable him to famously light the Olympic flame in Atlanta in 1996). But Liston was a monster who had twice demolished former champion Floyd Patterson.
“I won’t lie, I was scared. It frightened me, just knowing how hard he hit. But I didn’t have no choice but to go out and fight,” Ali said later, proving one of the greatest of life lessons: be afraid but do it anyway.
His announcement, after becoming champion, that he was a member of the Nation of Islam, also known as the Black Muslims, was another defining moment (especially as it came during a heated time of blackwhite tensions in the US). Ali was always his own man.
But it was the Liston rematch a year later that produced what’s often cited as one of the greatest sporting moments — and one of the defining pictures in sport — when an enraged Ali stood over Liston, who he had just knocked down in the first round, shouting: “Get up and fight, sucker!”
Ali suffered his first professional defeat when he was beaten by Joe Frazier in the aptly named Fight of the Century in 1971.
Both men were undefeated before the bout and Frazier would controversially win on points. Ali had his revenge in a rematch in 1974. But it was their third bout, the Thrilla in Manila in 1975, that would be another defining moment for The Greatest.
The event, in the Philippines capital, earned its name from an Ali taunt. The fight, he said, would be a “killa and a thrilla and a chilla, when I get that gorilla in Manila.”
After a punishing battle, Ali won when Frazier’s trainer refused to let him come out for the 15th and final round.
Ali had the greatest of sporting (and life) gifts: self-belief and staying power. He would need both after he was diagnosed with the debilitating Parkinson’s Disease in 1984, a cruel and unusual punishment for a man whose mercurial verbal style was matched by his light-footed dancing in the ring.
As Ali’s aunt, Coretta Clay, said after the Rumble in the Jungle: “There’ll never be another like him. He is the Alpha and the Omega.”
RIP, The Greatest.