Those were the prophetic words uttered by the "old mongoose" Archie Moore to Muhammad Ali on the eve of the celebrated "Rumble in the Jungle". The question is, could any heavyweight - past or present - have beaten Ali in Kinshasa, Zaire on that historic night?
I think, in many ways, this was Ali's most impressive performance. He was a little scared of Foreman. By that I mean, he knew it was possible that Foreman could take him out and he trained accordingly, both mentally and physically. By contrast, Foreman was not in a super good frame of mind in Zaire. He'd been cut in training and had to have the fight postponed and he didn't feel welcome in Africa, unlike Ali. So Ali's fantastic physical and mental condition aside, Foreman had things going against him. I don't know the answer to the question. Say Ali fought Lennox Lewis. To make a comparison to Foreman, the Rahman I edition of Lennox Lewis was likely close to Foreman mentally. Distracted, not training as well as he should. The Zaire version of Ali would beat the South African version of Lennox Lewis. But I'm not sure he'd beat, say, the Rahman rematch version of Lennox Lewis. Or the FOTC version of a highly motivated Joe Frazier. Or a Cooney fight version of Larry Holmes. He might, he might not.
Ali was past his best. A top outboxer like Wlad, Lennox, Holmes and Fury probably beat him. Maybe Norton too.
