When We Were Kings Page #7
- PG
- Year:
- 1996
- 88 min
- 1,078 Views
Look at the stare on Foreman.
Look at Ali give him the word.
The stage is set, we're just about
The championship is at stake
and $5 million will be paid
to both fighters.
Ali ready, Foreman ready,
we're waiting for the bell.
Here we go,
Round one, Ali bouncing around,
shifting left to right.
George moves slow,
a light right-hand taken
on the forehead by the champion.
Foreman moving slow, stalking.
Ali looks like he's ready to go here.
He's not staying away,
Foreman cautious in the first round,
looking to drop that left hook.
Foreman's locked his man
to the far corner.
There's that left upper-cut
into the body of Muhammad Ali.
Ali tries to hang on
to the head of George Foreman.
Foreman dances...
Ali with a right-hand lead!
with that right-hand lead,
which I haven't seen
too many times before.
A right-hand lead, where you throw
your right without countering,
you throw it first, like a jab.
That has to travel that extra
distance across the shoulders.
'Professionals rarely use this
because it's so dangerous to throw
'since you are open to a left hook.
'Since fighters work in milliseconds
'they can see a right coming
much faster than a jab.'
Nobody had thrown a right-hand lead
at Foreman in two years,
and none of his sparring partners,
for $50 a day,
was going to start
throwing right-hand leads at him
because it's a great insult
to a top professional.
'It suggests he's slow enough
that you can hit him with it.'
'Instead Ali figured out Foreman's
not expecting a right-hand lead.
'"I'm gonna hit him with a right hand
and knock him out."
'Ali threw 12 right hand leads, he
hadn't told anybody he was going to.'
He may have debated whether to
up until the last moment.
But he didn't knock Foreman down
or knock him out.
Instead, Foreman went crazy.
That punch
did no damage. That one did!
Two wild right hands
taken on the head of Ali!
just underneath the heart.
Ali is taking some punishment now!
Eight seconds left in the round.
Bell rang.
Ali went back to the corner...
Finally the nightmare
he'd been awaiting in the ring
had finally come to visit him.
'He was in the ring
with a man he could not dominate,
'who was stronger than him,
who was not afraid of him,
'who'd try to knock him out,
and who punched harder than Ali,
'and this man was determined
and unstoppable.
'Ali had a look on his face
that I'll never forget.
'It was the only time
I ever saw fear in Ali's eyes.'
Ali looked as if
he looked into himself and said,
"All right, this is the moment.
"This is what
you've been waiting for.
"This is...that hour.
"Do you have the guts?"
And he kind of nodded,
like, "Really got
to get it together, boy.
"You are gonna get it together...
you WILL get it together."
He nodded some more, as if he were
looking into the eyes of his maker,
and then turned to the crowd
and went "Ali, boma ye!"
and 100,000 people
all yelled back "Ali, boma ye!"
And this huge reverberation
of the crowd came back into the ring.
'Ali picked it up as if
"these are my people,
'"this is what I'm here for.
'"The time has come, I'm gonna find
a way to master this man."'
Ali tries
to tie him up.
No real damage done in that exchange.
'Foreman, like everyone,
had assumed that Ali would dance,
'and so Ali now went to the ropes
and went into the Rope-a-Dope.
'And a lot of people thought
that moment the fight was over.
'Especially on TV, it looked like
Foreman was killing a very weak Ali.'
You don't go to the ropes.
And there he was, leaning way back.
leaning out of his window
'trying to see
if there's something on his roof.'
And, you know, taking it.
Here were these great broadsides
and it looked like
he was being set up for the kill.
It happened so quickly
and so abruptly,
that I said, I shouted to Norman,
"The fix is in."
'He's supposed to go down
in the first or second.
'Ropes is halfway house
to the floor.'
'It just looked as though
he had to cave in.'
..some awkward but
very powerful hooks with both hands.
they were like two kids fighting.'
'For that round and the next round
and the next round
'Ali lay against the ropes,
and he kept talking to Foreman.
'It was extraordinary.
'You had to be close to see it.'
'And Foreman was throwing
these prodigious punches
'and Ali swung
like a man in the rigging.'
He'd go all the way back,
he'd slide out like that.
Occasionally, he'd get hit and he'd
say "George, you disappoint me.
"You don't hit as hard
as I thought you would, George,
"you're not breaking popcorn!"
'And Foreman's insane with rage,
'wanging at him and wanging at him,
'powerful, powerful, powerful.
'And middle of the fifth round
Foreman had punched himself out.
Ali picks it up,
First good combination by Ali
lands on the head of Foreman.
Foreman with that right hook.
Ali scores a hook!
Quick jab with the right
backs up Foreman!
Backs him up in his tracks!
Foreman tries the hook!
Ali goes to the right!
Foreman gets knocked to the left!
Foreman hit again!
Foreman has been hit
three or four times!
Ali came off the ropes
and hit him a right
and you can see the sweat pour off
like a fountain off Foreman's face
and you suddenly realised
there was design in this madness.
So I turned to Norman,
he was somewhat puzzled,
but I said,
"The succubus has got him!",
referring to this woman
with the trembling hands
that the witch doctors had said
would touch Foreman and destroy him.
..Ali's tactics,
to let the man punch himself out.
Very even fight.
Works over the shoulder of Foreman.
There's the combination!
Two...three...
Four...five...
Foreman gets up to the knee at eight!
That's it! The fight is stopped!
Muhammad Ali with
a dramatic eighth round knockout!
He knocks out...George Foreman!
He's done it! Muhammad Ali
has done it! Muhammad Ali has...
Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali...
'Muhammad Ali,
he was like a sleeping elephant.
'You can do whatever you want
around a sleeping elephant,
'but when he wakes up...
he tramples everything.'
Muhammad Ali, boma ye.
Boma ye. Muhammad Ali,
boma ye George Foreman.
He did it.
'He's champion again,
we couldn't believe it.
'It was such a classic performance
and so beautiful
'that at the moment
Ali hit the knockout punch,
'Foreman began to go,
Ali followed him around,
'Ali had his right cocked
for one more punch
'as though he didn't want to ruin the
aesthetic of this man going down.'
One has mixed emotions
when you see the end of a fight.
'I always feel sympathy
for the man losing it,
'particularly when you see
a titanic, formidable figure
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"When We Were Kings" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 22 Nov. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/when_we_were_kings_23329>.
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