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The Rumble in the Jungle

Boxing match

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 10, 2026
Entity authorityQ939560
Source-derived summary

George Foreman vs. Muhammad Ali, billed as The Rumble in the Jungle, was a heavyweight championship boxing match on October 30, 1974, at the 20th of May Stadium in Kinshasa, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo), between undefeated and undisputed heavyweight champion George Foreman and Muhammad Ali. The event had an attendance of 60,000 people and was one of the most watched televised events at the time. Ali won by knockout in the eighth round. It has been called "arguably the greatest sporting event of the 20th century", and was a major upset, with Ali coming in as a 4–1 underdog against the unbeaten, heavy-hitting Foreman. The fight is famous for Ali's introduction of the rope-a-dope tactic.

Some sources estimate that the fight was watched by as many as one billion television viewers around the world, becoming the world's most-watched live television broadcast at the time. This included a record estimated 50 million viewers watching the fight on pay-per-view or closed-circuit theater TV. The fight grossed an estimated $100 million (inflation-adjusted $700 million) in worldwide revenue. Decades later, the bout would be the subject of the Academy Award winning documentary film When We Were Kings.

Inception

Don King arranged the fight with music businessman Jerry Masucci, who took his record label's showcase group, the Fania All-Stars, to play at the venue.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Rumble in the Jungle” is boxing match. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Rumble, Jungle and Boxing, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1974—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Rumble, Jungle and Boxing is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “boxing match” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q939560. Authority coordinates are -4.338, 15.322. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1974.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Rumble in the Jungle”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Rumble in the Jungle primary sources, The Rumble in the Jungle archive and Rumble research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Rumble in the Jungle”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from The Rumble in the Jungle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.