There are a lot of dictators or wannabe dictators in the world today. Back when Muhammad Ali fought, dictators used his talent, along with promoter Don King, to prop up their countries and hide their sinister pasts.
Ali battled Joe Frazier in the “Thrilla in Manila,” under the gaze of President Fernando Marcos. He fought Joe Bugner in Malaysia under President Suharto. It was infamously different under President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), where Ali fought Big George Foreman 50 years ago and counting on October 30, 1974.
Jerry Izenberg, the long-time sports columnist for the Star-Ledger (now NJ.com), remembers his first encounter with Mobutu. “Ali took me to meet Mobutu,” said Izenberg, now 95. “We went to the bottom of this hill. These little naked kids were running around. Their bellies were covering their genitals. That’s how swollen they were. They were starving.”
After the meeting, he saw the same kids begging for pennies. “We go up this hill and there is a solid-gold leopard cage and there’s a leopard in it because that’s the national symbol. Mobutu comes out. He says, ‘Hello,’” remembered Izenberg. “I put out my hand to shake and the guards took a step forward and said, ‘You can’t shake his hand. Don’t touch him,’ so I didn’t.”
Mobutu thought the fight would enhance Zaire’s reputation. Hardly. He was overthrown in 1997. “Everyone was scared to death [of him],” Izenberg stated. The stadium was another matter. “The wooden seats were horrible. It was a dump,” said Izenberg.
“The Rumble in the Jungle” was held in the 20th of May Stadium (now Stade Tata Raphael), which was primarily a soccer venue, but it had a darker side: It was used for executions under Mobutu, and Izenberg should know. He heard what was going on when he visited the stadium.
“They didn’t just execute them. They didn’t want to waste bullets,” Izenberg recalled. “They clubbed them to death. It sounded like a mother hitting the mattress in spring cleaning.” Izenberg and the rest of the writers found out that a “free press” did not exist in Zaire. He dealt with censorship because of an unflattering portrayal he was writing about the country’s crumbling infrastructure.
“I used ‘dusty roads’ and this censor said, ‘No dusty roads inside [Zaire].’ He winked his eye,” said Izenberg. “I thought it was a gag. He said to use ‘pretty country roads.’ I told him, ‘That ain’t the Ohio Turnpike out there,’ and that’s when he called the guys with the guns. That’s when we understood that Zaire had no dust at all.”
He’s seen it all. How many writers got to see Imelda Marcos’s famed shoe room in Manila? The Newark-born scribe did. Ali’s reign as the best heavyweight in the world took Izenberg to faraway places like Japan, Switzerland, Indonesia, and Germany, to name a few.
Today, it seems like Las Vegas and Saudi Arabia are the main fight destinations. “There won’t be any more places other than Saudi Arabia, because Saudi Arabia will win on [account of] money,” Izenberg noted, adding, “They own an English soccer team (Newcastle United) and half the golf tour (LIV Golf).”
Before Ali’s dreadful performance against Larry Holmes in 1980, Izenberg went to his room. Ali wanted to know if Izenberg thought he could win. “I came here to thank you because many days, you filled a big white space for me [for my boxing column],” said a humbled Izenberg, who hours later had to fill space about the end of the Ali era.