Foreman never hit Ali with his best shot, right?

Literally none of this is true.

They do?

 

Despite this and perhaps why the fight is so fascinating is that round 3 was probably one of Foreman's best and that he was still able to rack up a 90+ punch count in round 5 - quite possibly going for broke.

 

the 3rd is probably the best round where both do some good work, Foreman looks spent after it and, the quote the commentator (the Bob Sheridan version) states how “unusually slow” Foreman’s looking during that round. Good stats from the 5th, he must have got his 2nd wind, but still that volume of punches are clearly lacking much zip. He’s looking confused and befuddled as early as the 3rd.

 

Confused and befuddled is a good way of putting it and, from thereon in, he was fighting on pure instinct. No method, no marshaling.

It's just a view, but I think Foreman might have entered a state of full psychological shock during round 3.

 

George and flattery/hyberbole go hand-in-hand. Even when he was commentating, hardly a big fight went by when somebody didn't get hit with the hardest shot he'd ever seen or that the fight he was watching wasn't the best ever.

 

Yeah but I bet this was old foreman saying this, right? You just can’t take anything he says about his first career in the 60s an 70s seriously. His playing the good guy persona, you just know it’s just mostly playing to his audience. It’s like the total bs he came up with saying that when he fought Frazier, it was lucky that Frazier didn’t look down during the stare out cos he would have seen that Foreman was so scared that his knees was shaking yet every one could see that Foreman stared at Frazier like he wanted to rip his head off there an then. So I would take anything that old Foreman says about the Ali fight with a a truck full of salt

 

IMHO, it proved the "styles make fights" theory is infinitely more determinative than the "transitive" theory.

 

Agreed. I think Foreman was repeatedly shocked by his best punches failing to meet with expectations, i.e. in terms of a material impact on Ali and the course of the fight

The Ring magazine have unsurprisingly published several articles on this bout, drawing heavily from Thomas Hauser's book, 'Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times', among others.

The following excerpt from their article, 'Rumble in the Jungle retrospective: Ali-Foreman 40 years later', contains one of several quotes on the fight which I think sums up what was happening.

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It worked.... What's the old saying about punching the bully
in the mouth 1st?
Ali's aggression early put Foreman in such a rage, getting
him to pace himself after would've been a lost cause.
Any tactics thought of prior to the fight was thrown out
the window, overpowered with reckless anger and aggression.
AND.............. Doubt.
It would change the path of his 1st career. Creating self doubt
that his trainers saw , and tried to fix but couldn't.
He didn't get right until ten years after the Jimmy Young
fight when he started his comeback.
Boxing is more mental than physical. Foreman's career
would be a prime example of that fact.

 

To paraphrase Napolean the moral to the physical in boxing is three as to one.

 

Yes, I cannot really think of any other heavyweight who could have withstood Foreman that night.

The more I watch the fight - whether in its entirety or, by way of a highlight here or there - the more I see a certain nonchalance in Ali, driven by the power of his will. It really is the rarest kind of self-mastery.

 

And that will, coupled with extraordinary physicality, and skills made him
the best heavyweight in history in my opinion.