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November 13, 2024 47 mins

In the wake of the Attica Prison Uprising, BB King performs for the prisoners at Sing Sing Prison in 1972. The Thanksgiving Day concert sparks a new conversation about prisoner rights. Documentarian Daivd Hoffman recalls his time behind the camera, watching BB King perform, and how he softened the hearts of otherwise life-hardened men. Meanwhile, with the surly Sonny Liston as a role model, George Foreman rises in the ranks as a heavyweight. He fights the Champ, Smokin’ Joe Frazier, and is held hostage in Venezuela.

 

FILM/VIDEO REFERENCES

Muhammad Ali poem from the Cathal O’Shannon TV show (available on YouTube)

Sing Sing Thanksgiving, documentary by David Hoffman (available on YouTube)

BOOKS

“The Rumble in the Jungle” by Lewis Erenberg

“Angela Davis: an autobiography” by Angela Davis 

“Hit Me, Fred” by Fred Wesley (autobiography) 

“Smokin’ Joe” by Joe Frazier and Phil Berger (autobiography)

“Smokin’ Joe: The Life of Joe Frazier” by Mark Kram Jr. 

“By George” by George Foreman (autobiography)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Life changes for George Foreman after his personal debacle at
the sixty eight Olympics. When Foreman wins gold, he stands
there in the ring and he waves this tiny American flag.
He even kisses it. Meanwhile, other young black Olympians famously
hold up defiant black fists. The contrast all but seals

(00:26):
Foreman's fate. Back home, Foreman experiences first hand the sting
of public rejection, the deep hurt, all the embarrassment, the
cold water shock that comes from the total lack of
appreciation for what all he has achieved and how far
he has come. This moment of public humiliation, it strengthens

(00:47):
the bond he feels with his hero, Sunny Listing. You see,
back in nineteen sixty two, when Sunny Liston won the
heavyweight Championship of the World, he boarded a flight home
to Philadelphia. He practiced his victory speech as he soared
among the clouds at fifty thousand feet. Listen expected to

(01:08):
be greeted by adoring fans and hailed as the conquering hero.
His seat make was Jack McKinney, a sportswriter from the
Philadelphia Daily News. Listen told McKenny.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
One thing's very important. I want to reach my people.
I want to reach them and tell them you don't
have to worry about me disgracing you. You won't have
to worry about me stopping your progress. I want to
go to colored churches and colored neighborhoods. I know it
was in the papers that the better class of colored

(01:40):
people were hoping I'd lose, even praying I'd lose, because
they was afraid I wouldn't know how to act. I
remember one thing so clear about listening to Joe Lewis
fight on the radio when I was a kid, A
great fighter and a credit to his race. Remember that
used to make me feel real proud inside.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Now, just like his hero, Joe Lewis, Listen was the
heavyweight champion of the world. Perhaps now they'd accept him
after all that he had accomplished. Listen told the sportswriter,
I want to go.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
To a lot of places like often homes and reform schools.
I'll be able to say, he I know it's tough
for you, and it might even get tougher, but don't
give up on the world. Good things can happen if
you let them.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
When the plane arrives in Philadelphia. Sunny Liston takes a breath,
preparing himself for the crowd he imagines as waiting for
him to walk down the airplane steps. He can almost
hear their boisterous shouts and cheers. Maybe someone has organized
a full marching band. The plane door opens, and Sunny
Liston sees that not only is there no band, no

(03:00):
crowd of cheering fans, there is no one there to
celebrate Sonny Liston. McKinney writes, quote, you could feel the deflation,
the look of hurt in his eyes. A silent shudder
went through him. That moment marks the birth of a villain.

(03:21):
For the heavyweight champion to be rejected, to be publicly
shunned like that, it wounds him, It deadens something in
his heart. Sonny Liston decides he will become the bad
man everyone believes him to be. He will use that
hurt and embarrassment to hone his anger into a punishing

(03:41):
force in the ring. Meanwhile, there's the young George Foreman
coming up in the ranks, and he sees this pitiless
fury of Liston. He sees this undeniable strength, and he
thinks to himself, that's the way to be that's a champ.
Sonny Liston shapes the young attitudes of both Ali and Foreman,

(04:03):
but they learned very different lessons from his brutal anger
in the ring. For one, George Foreman is always searching
for a father figure. In Sonny Liston, he finds more
of a dark uncle.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
While I was still in the job Corps, I was
invited down to spa with Liston several times. I had
a strong feeling for Sonny Listing. He had come from
so far back and made it.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
When Foreman first decides to turn pro, he signs with
veteran boxing trainer Dick Sadler. Liston's trainer and manager.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
Dick Sadler didn't offer money, but I wasn't excited about money.
He did tell me I can make you a champion
like Listen. That excited me.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
And then Foreman gets to actually train with his hero.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
I trained full time with Sonny. Everything he did I did.
We often ate together and afterwards took a walk. To
say that Sonny Liston was a man a few words
is to say that the son is war now. Normally
he just glared. So when he suddenly began talking about
himself on one of our walks, I hung on to

(05:13):
his every syllable.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Muhammad ad Lee. Biographer Jonathan Eig observed that Listen's a
lot like Foreman in that way.

Speaker 4 (05:20):
He's not an entertainer. He's a slugger. He's seen as unbeatable,
and Louis Ehrenberg, author of The Rumble in the Jungle,
elaborates on how Liston's hardened exterior influenced Foreman to imitate
his villainous hero.

Speaker 5 (05:38):
He had the advantage of being literate, whereas Sonny was illiterate.
But he feels, you know, attacked, despite his achievements. He
is not appreciated for what he has done and achieved,
you know, despite the negatives that he grew that both
of them grew up with.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
Sonny Liston's past and his pain bonds him with George Foreman,
and in response, Foreman adopts Liston's surly persona. It becomes
his battle armor, and Foreman secretly needs it because remember, George.

Speaker 5 (06:12):
Is a sensitive guy underneath all of this, you know,
I mean, everybody wants to be recognized for what they
are and what they've achieved. Sonny Listen, too mean and
tough as he was, he wanted to be appreciated as well.
I mean he had a tougher hide that he could,
you know, put up against these attacks. But Foreman, Yeah,

(06:35):
I think being around Liston really deepened his sense of
alienation from his community and from the white society as well.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
Now, with Dick Sadler training and managing him and Sonny
Liston as his sparring partner and role model, the undeniably
great George Foreman races up the ranks of professional fighters.
Foreman wins his first twelve fights, eleven by knockout. The
next year, in nineteen seventy one, he wins seven more fights,

(07:08):
all seven are knockouts. He starts to average one heavyweight
prize fight a month. That same year that Foreman is
on his rise, another fight breaks out, another notable uprising,
Only this one takes place within the walls of Attica
Prison in upstate New York. Welcome to Rumble, the story

(07:41):
of Ali Foreman and the soul music of nineteen seventy four.
I'm your host, Zarn Burnett, the third from iHeart Podcast
and School of Humans. This is Rumble. Previously on Rumble.

Speaker 6 (07:58):
Looking up here in the out the roars from the
crowd are in.

Speaker 7 (08:02):
My ear Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe Frasier. They put each
other in the hospital.

Speaker 6 (08:08):
Joe Fraser represents all that is wrong with white America.

Speaker 8 (08:12):
He found all of the as hard as he could
and beat him, and yet nobody really accepts him.

Speaker 7 (08:16):
She wasn't singing against anybody, singing for all the Africans
who have been spread around the world.

Speaker 9 (08:23):
Church Foreman was a great fighter, and he was big.
He was gonna talk with his gloves, not with his mouth.

Speaker 10 (08:30):
What everybody remembers about forming waving the American flag and
the same Olympia that Tommy Smith and John Carlos held
up a black glove fist.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
September ninth, nineteen seventy one, a riot breaks out inside
the Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York. Twenty two
hundred inmates turned to violence to protest their treatment, their
living conditions, and to exercise their political rights. The result,
forty two correctional officers are held hostage, four are killed,

(09:09):
and the prison rebellion last four whole days. To restore
control to the prison, Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York
orders the state police and National Guard to retake the
facility at the point of a machine gun, shrouded by
clouds of tear gas. For six long minutes, gunfire is exchanged.

(09:29):
Some of the rounds used include dumb dumb bullets which
expand on impact, tearing through flesh. Forty five hundred rounds later,
the bloody confrontation leaves forty three people dead. Twenty nine
prisoners are shot dead by law enforcement, and importantly, another
ten prison guards are killed by other law enforcements, victims
of what's dubbed friendly fire. The attic of prison uprising

(09:58):
and resulting bloodshed lead to a nationwide focus on the
US prison system and law enforcement. You see this riot,
this fight was not just occurring between incarcerated men and
their wardens. The tension in marginalized communities in the sixties
throughout the country were now taught as a stretched rubber band.
People were pulled and yanked to their limits, and finally,

(10:20):
that day in the Attica Correctional facility, the rubber band snapped.

Speaker 7 (10:25):
When the Attica thing hit, it caught everybody's attention because
this is in the middle of all the George Jackson,
Angela Davis Black Panthers, All of this urban political intensity
was all occurring at the same time.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
That's the thing about the late sixties, All of it
was happening all at once. The tensions in America's cities
had ramped up as law enforcement used more and more
violence to maintain the status quo. In response, a new
militancy in Black America takes hold in nineteen sixty seven,
when the Black Panther for Self Defense explodes into the

(11:02):
popular consciousness of America. The Panthers were iconic looking black
men in black leather coats and jackets, wearing dark sunglasses
and rocking global afros, the very image of black defiance,
and they carried guns. The Panthers would drive around at
night with shotguns and rifles and follow the police as

(11:24):
they patrolled their neighborhoods. Obviously, the police couldn't stand that.
In California, a lawmaker drew up legislation to put a
stop to the panther police patrols. In response, the Panthers,
armed with their shotguns and rifles, marched into the state
capitol in protest of the new law forbidding the open

(11:45):
carrying of weapons in the state, the so called Panther Bill.
After the Black Panthers attempt to take over the state
capital of California, the new bill passed. The bill portrayed
the Black Panther Party as the image of resistance, and
thus on the streets they were seen as some badass
brothers who took on the man radicals who were undeniably

(12:06):
down for the people. The Panthers were best known in
the community not for their shotguns, but for feeding school
children with their free breakfast program. To limit the spread
of their influence, the director of the FBI J. Eggar Hoover,
designated the Black Panthers as the number one threat in
America in nineteen sixty eight. Hoover said, the Black Panther

(12:27):
Party for self Defense quote without question, represents the greatest
threat to the internal security of the country. By the
start of the nineteen seventies, there had been numerous shootouts, raids, assassinations,
and incarceration of Black Panther leaders. Fellow Black Panther Angela Davis,
first became famous when she stood trial in California in

(12:47):
nineteen seventy one. You see earlier, a young Black Panther
was in court when his brother, also a Panther, stormed
the court room and took the judge, Deputy da and
three jurors hostage. He hoped this desperate move would free
his brother and a few other inmates, but instead, the

(13:07):
judge was killed during the violent takeover. And it turns
out UCLA professor Angela Davis had purchased the guns used
in the courtroom takeover. She'd also been in communication with
the inmates. That was enough to name Angela Davis as
criminally responsible for the murdered judge, and a restawrant was issued.

(13:28):
Angela Davis went into hiding. Jagar Hoover added Angela Davis
to the FBI's ten most Wanted list. That began a
month's long manhunt for her. Finally, on October thirteenth, nineteen seventy,
Angela Davis was caught at a Howard Johnson motor lodge
in New York City. President Nixon gave Jaegar Hoover and

(13:52):
his g men all the credit for the quote capture
of the dangerous terrorist Angela Davis. Year in nineteen seventy one,
Angela Davis was in a Marine County courtroom to stand trial.
That's how just like Muhammad Ali, Angela Davis.

Speaker 7 (14:08):
As a result, she became identified as this fearless warrior.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
This is when free Angela Davis shirts became a common sight.

Speaker 7 (14:18):
So everybody in America had free Angela Davis buttons, free
Angela Davis banners, but nobody was really concerned with freeing
Angela Davis. They all wanted to be part of the movement,
but they weren't really focused on her. And there was
a lot of that.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
But to young radicals like my pops, Angela Davis was
a political prisoner, and somewhat ironically, for them, this made
her stand apart from the rest of the inmates. And
then Attica changed all that.

Speaker 7 (14:48):
So then to have it happen inside of a prison
was beyond our ability to understand, because, like people look
at prisoners now differently than they did then in nineteen
if you were in prison, we expected you to have
earned your way there. There weren't a whole lot of
political prisoners that we saw in nineteen seventy.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
You see, at the time, ideas like systemic racism were
not yet common language.

Speaker 7 (15:14):
So in nineteen seventy one point Attaka hit, we were
just amazed that it was such an organized expression of
rebellion among people who we had not seen as a group.
We all learned from the things that came out, how
the state was in an organized way, really abusing selected

(15:35):
groups of prisoners.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Attka restored some dignity and humanity to how citizens imagined
the folks locked up. It also motivated Muhammad Ali to
put his pen to pad and write a poem about
the uprising.

Speaker 6 (15:50):
He said, better far from all I see to die
fighting to be free? What more fitting then could be?

Speaker 3 (15:58):
Better?

Speaker 6 (15:58):
Surely than in some where in broken health I'm led
lingering until I'm dead, Better than with prayers and please,
or in the clutch of some disease, wasting slowly by degrees,
Better than on heart attack or some dose of drug.
I lech let me die by being black.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
It's the first line of Ali's poem to me that's
perhaps the most telling, and provides the greatest insight into
the boxer and into the man. Better far from all
I see to die fighting to be free? One could
say those words were like Ali's mantra as the people's champ.
He lived by that statement, just like Angela Davis did,

(16:42):
just like many of their fellow freedom fighters did. In
the early seventies. Muhammad Ali and Angela Davis were powerful
symbols of this shared fight, their victories, their battles to
be free and to remain free, their righteous struggle against
immoral men like Nixon and Hoover. It became the people's fight.

(17:13):
November twenty third, nineteen seventy two, Thanksgiving Day, sing Sing Prison,
the ominous maximum security prison in Westchester, New York. The rusty,
old iron gate slides slowly open. A giant tour bus
pulls through the gate into the prison and outsteps the
one and only BB King. The Blues Man is there

(17:40):
that day to perform for the men locked up inside.
Also arriving that day.

Speaker 9 (17:45):
Is David Hoffmann. Eighty three year old documentary filmmaker.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
David Hoffman was there in sing Sing in seventy two
as part of a prison project he'd organized with inmates
to film and document what was going down unseen behind
the prison wall.

Speaker 9 (18:00):
We were teaching a course on filmmaking and on storytelling,
and about fifty inmates came. We did that as a
result of Atakon. Seeing the horror of Atakan, we felt
we should do something. Lived in Austining, went into the prison,
started teaching the class and came up with the idea
of a concert.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
And for the prison concert. The first name that came
to mind.

Speaker 9 (18:24):
We contacted the agent for BB King for the voices
of East Harlem. Lawren's also in the film.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
They also had a connection with a folk music icon.

Speaker 9 (18:34):
We knew Joan Baez from another film we had made
on Earl Scruggs, so we asked them whether they'd come
to the prison.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
Surprisingly, they both said yes, But when the day came
to step inside Sing Sing Prison.

Speaker 9 (18:47):
They were scared. They weren't comfortable.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
For the show's opener, Hoffman hires the comedian Jimmy Walker
later of Good Time's fame Think Dinah Might. He's counted
on to keep things cool with the convicts. Plus there's
the recent cultural precedent.

Speaker 9 (19:03):
Johnny Cash had done Johnny Cash at Fullsom Prison. The
problem was he just spoke to the audience from the stage.
There was never any real stuff with the inmates.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
However, curiosity is only part of what Hoffman was feeling.
He's also fully taking part in an active experience of solidarity.

Speaker 9 (19:22):
It wasn't that I was pro inmate. I didn't even
know who the inmates were. I didn't know anybody was
in the prison. Most of us didn't. Ninety nine percent
of us didn't like today. Nobody knows who's in the
joint today really, and nobody knows what's going on in there,
even though there are a fair amount of social programs.
So Attika provoked me and it provoked a lot of

(19:45):
people to try and figure out was something wrong there,
what was going on with the inmates mistreated.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
The documentary film by David Hoffman, is recorded over two
days by seven cameras, with the intent to bring the
viewer not only inside the prison's walls, but up close
and personal with the prisoner's lived experience.

Speaker 9 (20:05):
Well on November twenty second and twenty thirty in nineteen
seventy two, my team and I seven cameramen all directors,
really filmed this concert.

Speaker 1 (20:16):
And as my Pops remembers it, the big story was
BB King and John Baez because John Bias had been
close to Bob Dylan, you know, and they had just
gone their separate ways. However, the inmates and sing sing
didn't share my Pop's love for Joan Biez.

Speaker 7 (20:33):
All the prisoners wanted to see BB King, they weren't
so sure about John Bayev.

Speaker 9 (20:39):
He introduced Joan in a kind way. Joan and the
audience did not connect. They did not connect.

Speaker 1 (20:46):
Joan Biaz was fiercely political. Her ideals quite literally rang
out in her songs with that lasting vibrato, but in
sing Sing prison, it seemed that her operatic singing voice
just didn't really jive with that audience. When BB King
took the stage, he was casual with the inmates. He
joked that many of them might recognize one of his
band members, as if he'd once been inside.

Speaker 7 (21:09):
Like I know all y'all. He based this, saying, all
y'all in here, but we could all be in here
me too.

Speaker 9 (21:16):
A concert blew up. BB King was shocked, and we
were shocked for.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
The ones locked up in sing saying that Thanksgiving and
lucky enough to hear BB King's blues echo inside the
prison's walls. The high point was when he played and
sang how Blue can You Get? You could say the
blues was born in juke joints and Delta nightclubs, but
it also feels equally at home inside a prison. The

(21:40):
men listening could feel the ache of BB King's lyrics,
and they could feel it in ways the rest of
us can never fully grasp.

Speaker 9 (21:48):
We spent the day before filming inmates. Nobody'd have filmed inmates.
It's no earlier film, seeing them in the joint, hearing
what they think. Going to death row. I met guys
who had been in sings for thirty years.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
When BB King reaches the finale of his show, he
sings directly to his audience.

Speaker 9 (22:07):
Some of their faces are in one of the scenes
in my film where BB King sings someone Really Loves You.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
The full title is someone really loves You Guess who?
BB King kroons and points his index finger back at
his own heart. The documentary film cameras catch this sublime
moment as they scanned the crowd of prisoners. Some of
the prison hardened men can be seen wiping tears from
their eyes.

Speaker 9 (22:36):
I cut two faces of inmates just looking out at
the bars, and those faces you see, Wow, they're just
kind of left there.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
The footage is astounding. The men's faces stay with you.
You can feel the walls of the prison, and when
BB King is on stage, you can feel his heart
right there in his guitar playing and hear it in
his voice.

Speaker 9 (22:59):
I think that every time one saw BB King, one
felt the greatness of America. He went to that place
like Martin Luther King did where he didn't feel outside
of it, you felt inside of it. He made you
feel inside. Isn't that brilliant? He didn't do that, in

(23:19):
my view, he didn't plan that as a performance act.
That's how he was as a great human.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
Years later, BB King would call his show in Sing
Sing that Thanksgiving Day quote his best performance to date.

Speaker 9 (23:33):
That was a hell of a response that audience gave
bb He did not expect that. He had not had
that at other joints. It's nothing like what he did
at Sing Sing.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
BB King is now known to many as a blues ambassador,
as in he brought blues music into the mainstream blues.

Speaker 9 (23:50):
I didn't have blues like he experienced it. I didn't
grow up that way. I didn't have those hardships. But
I sure saw it as a new kind of folk music.
This wasn't the British invasion of the Beatles, although they
were popular too. This was American music. Blues was as
American as apple Pie, it seems.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
As you may remember. Fred Wesley is the former band
leader for James Brown. He was also a horn player
for Iicantina Turner and for George Clinton's Parliament Funkadelic, so
the dude knows good music. Back when he was a
young and driven musician, Fred was lucky enough to get
his start with the proudly independent blues Ambassador BB King.

Speaker 11 (24:32):
Bbking was the first big name artist that I had
ever played with.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
Wesley got that first gig because, luckily for him, BB
King's bus broke down in Tennessee. Stuck on the road,
the blues man had to act fast and find some
replacement players.

Speaker 11 (24:49):
They had a gig in a guff Boat, Mississippi, which
is about fifty miles from my hometown, Mobile, Alabama. So
he called one of his ex base players, Marshall Yawk.
I can't remember that, you know, to put a band
together to come to Gulfport, Mississippi to play with him,

(25:10):
you know. So Barshall Yacht called me and asked me
if I wanted to go play with B. B.

Speaker 12 (25:14):
King. I said, oh, yeah, sure.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
Fred Wesley was young, still somewhat green at this point,
playing big band style jazz, which is what it sounds like,
lots of horns, a big sound from a large orchestra
of instruments.

Speaker 11 (25:27):
I was really taking aback because most of the tunes
were in E the key of E and A, and
I had never played in those kids do seriously, you know.
But anyway, when the gig was over, he paid me
twenty eight dollars.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
At the time, that was a pretty penny to earn
for a night's work as a musician.

Speaker 11 (25:47):
This was done a time when the top gig, the Mobile,
would pay eight dollars a night. You know, he gave
me twenty eight dollars and I was scared to go home,
and I said, it's gonna be I know, it gonna
be an accident from going back to Mobile because it's
too much money to have.

Speaker 12 (26:02):
You know.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
After the lucky and overpaid start, Fred Wesley began his
long career as a big time professional musician. It also
marked the beginning of his equally long friendship with B. B.

Speaker 12 (26:15):
King.

Speaker 1 (26:16):
Years later, the two men would share the same stage
at the Zaire seventy four Music Festival, and when Fred
heard his old friend BB King would be there, in kinshasa.

Speaker 11 (26:27):
I can't believe, they'd say, BB King, the jazz Crusaders,
the Spinners. I said, I don't see how you gonna
get all these people together at one time to do
the music festival In Africa.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
You know that would be a challenge, but that would
come later. For the moment, it's nineteen seventy two, an
election year, and that thanksgiving. BB King sings to the
men locked up inside sing Sing prison. Meanwhile, the up
and coming heavyweight contender George Foreman is staying busy kicking
all kind ass his record undefeated thirty two to zero.

(27:04):
Foreman is now the number one contender to challenge for
the title of heavyweight Champion of the World. It takes
him a minute, but eventually the reigning champ, smoking Joe Fraser,
entertains the idea of fighting Foreman. At the moment, Fraser
is the only undefeated heavyweight champion in the world ever
since he defeated Muhammad Ali in their Fight of the Century.

(27:25):
Now feeling confident after he bested Ali in the ring
and ready for a test of his reign as the
new champ, Joe Fraser agrees to fight Foreman. The upcoming
Fraser Foreman fight starts a new trend, a title bout
set in an exotic location. The two men agree to
hold their fight in Kingston, Jamaica, scheduled for January of

(27:47):
nineteen seventy three. The interesting thing about the choice of
holding a prize fight in Jamaica is that in nineteen
seventy two, Jamaica was not the spot to go to.
That's why the Prime Minister of Jamaica, Michael Manley, negotiated
to host the heavyweight prize fight in Kingston. He wanted
to promote Jamaica as this hip new travel destination, and

(28:09):
his strategy of hyping his country to tourists by subsidizing
a heavyweight title fight became the blueprint that Zaiir would
later replicate for the Rumble in the Jungle. Meanwhile, back
in America, the Fraser Foreman heavyweight title fight was raising
a very curious cultural question. If Mohammad Ali isn't fighting,

(28:30):
then who will Black America root for. Oddly enough, even
without Ali and the ring, both heavyweight fighters still had
to live inside Ali's narrative part of the hype he
spins like flies stuck in a spider's web. When the
Fraser Foreman title fight is announced and scheduled, most Black
folks seem prime to root against the champ, Joe Fraser.

(28:53):
But the people aren't necessarily for George Foreman. All that
matters is that Foreman is not Joe Free. This is
the power of Ali's narrative. It looms over this fight.

Speaker 13 (29:06):
Ever since Fraser defeated Muhammad Ali, he has become a
villain in the black community. Foreman was identified with Ali
for last night's fight, although the two boxers present a
vivid contrast, Ali the proud black Muslim who refused to
be inducted into the US Army and Foreman, the Olympic
hero who was remembered because he waived a miniature US
flag after his victory at the nineteen sixty eight Games

(29:28):
in Mexico City.

Speaker 10 (29:30):
As fight writer Mark Kriegel puts it, Foreman comes into
this fight, He's almost an abstraction. He's an archetype. He's
sunny listed waving an American flag.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
On January twenty second, nineteen seventy three, the Fraser Foreman
fight was broadcast by ABC's Wide World of Sports, which
also means it's quite famously called by Howard Cosell. The
legendary broadcaster is a key part of the cultural memory
of this fight. A fellow sports broad longtime host and
brand ambassador for the X Games, Selma Masekela, has mad

(30:06):
respect for Howard Cosell. And what he brought to the
fight game.

Speaker 14 (30:10):
Cosselle was like he was a flawed bag, but I
mean Coselle to me, like, especially as a kid, was
the greatest setter of stage that ever lived in sports.
To this day, no one really amplified the stakes and

(30:31):
put it into a perspective that someone who was not
a sports fan had no choice but to pay attention
to Like he could draw these cultural comparisons in what
was going on in the world at the time that
made this, this fight or this event as important that
anything else is going on on the planet. So even

(30:53):
if you don't fuck with this, if this is not
your first language, you need.

Speaker 12 (30:56):
To be here.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
Cosell was the greatest at his game because he knew
the story.

Speaker 14 (31:02):
And that was Cosell at the I mean, at the
highest level. And I don't I really do not think
that anyone has existed like him or ever will again.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
And like Ali, he could infuse a narrative with a
sense of grandeur make the stakes obvious to anyone.

Speaker 14 (31:20):
Coselle just like told the story, and he told the
story so eloquently that you didn't have a choice but
to care.

Speaker 7 (31:29):
He was probably the most fair sports announcement that we
had in terms of being open, like when Ali changed
his name. So you say, they say your name, Muhammad Ali,
you annoying his casher's claims. What's your name? He said, uh,
Muhammad Ali. He took Muhammed it is, and he called
that from then on, you know, and then after that
everybody else started calling Muhammad.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
The Fraser Foreman Heavyweight title, about short as it was,
is a spectacle of brutality. Joe Fraser comes into the
fight at five eleven two hundred and fourteen pounds. That's
eight pounds heavier than when he beat Ali. George Foreman
enters the ring weighing in at two hundred and seventeen pounds,
and he's in super human shape. Plus. Foreman enjoys about

(32:15):
three inches of height over Joe Fraser, and he has
the reach advantage as well. Yet Joe Fraser is still
the three to one favorite to win their title. Bout
no fear in either man.

Speaker 8 (32:27):
There is no fear with George Foreman. He's grown enormously
in his confidence of speech and presence as well as
in boxing.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
Round one, the favorite, the champ. Smoking Joe Fraser comes
out swinging and bobbing and weaving, eager to get to hitting.
Joe Fraser plans to get inside of Foreman's powerful punches,
then work the body of the big man, get him
to lower his gloves, and once Foreman has worn out,
Fraser will unload his left hook. But there's one problem

(32:57):
with Joe Fraser's plan.

Speaker 8 (32:58):
Historically, Fraser it has not been a good first round fighter.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
Foreman takes advantage of that fact. The big man pushes
the smaller fighter around the ring. He keeps Fraser off balance.
It's like watching an enormous lion paw at a hyena
who's dumb enough to come challenge him.

Speaker 8 (33:15):
But historically he has been a tremendous, tremendous fighter, a
great champion. You saw the left hook land on Foreman.
That's what he'll be working on all night.

Speaker 1 (33:27):
Unfortunately, it's a short night for Joe Fraser. One and
a half minutes into the first round.

Speaker 8 (33:34):
There's another left by George. He's getting into Fraser's head.
We'll find out tonight just how good George Foreman is
at punching and taking a punch.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
As if scripted, George Foreman answers Howard Cosell's question with
a punishing right to Fraser's head. Foreman follows that with
more brutal lefts and finally a right uppercut that could
kill a normal man.

Speaker 8 (33:56):
I think he hurt Joe Fraser. I think Joe is hurt.
Angie Dundee, Polly's trainer right next to me is saying it.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
Before Cosell can finish that thought, George Foreman catches Joe
Fraser with a short right uppercut to the head. It's
a devastating blow. That's when Howard Cosell explodes in enthusiasm.
He gives the world his famous call.

Speaker 8 (34:15):
Down Goes Fraser. Down, Goes Fraser, Down, goes Fraser.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
But the champ is not down long. He manages to
scramble back up to his feet.

Speaker 3 (34:24):
However, when I got up, my legs were jelly.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
There's still a minute left in the first round, but
the fight is essentially over. Foreman puts Fraser down on
the canvas six times in just one and a half
rounds of boxing. That's six times in four and a
half minutes. Boxing writer Mark Kriegel recalls.

Speaker 10 (34:46):
How in the middle of it, Foreman yells to yank
dum in Fraser's corner like, hey, stop it, I'm gonna
kill this guy, and he wasn't kidding.

Speaker 3 (34:54):
I can remember at one point late in the fight,
Foreman turned it to my corner and shouting something. I
could see Joe was hurt and I was hoping I
wouldn't have to hit him anymore. I just kept throwing punches.
I had to do my job. After the third knockdown
in the first round, I looked over at Yancey in
the corner and with my eyes begged him to stop it.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
Luckily for Joe Fraser, after his sixth knockdown, the ref
stops the fight. Joe was likely to die fighting in
that ring, and George Foreman knew it, but he felt
it wasn't his job to stop himself. His job is
to beat a man senseless until he's crowned the victor.

(35:45):
When their title fight is over and done, George Foreman
feels badly about what he's just done to Joe Fraser.
The violence unsettles him, and when asked about Fraser, the
new heavyweight champion of the world, George Foreman is respectfully
kind to the now former champ, a stark contrast to
the ugliness between Fraser and Ali.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
I was afraid of Joe Frasier for the first time
entering into the ring in a fight, I was afraid
of a god.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
Equally, Joe Fraser speaks respectfully of the new champ.

Speaker 12 (36:16):
I knew George Foreman was big and strong, but I
didn't realize he was that strong. I started to fight
back when I should have bobbed and weaped. I was
anxious to get at him.

Speaker 13 (36:27):
I should have laid back and let my head clear.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
Afterwards, in Joe Fraser's dressing room, his trainer, Yank Durham,
answers questions from the press. Smoking, Joe says nothing, his
face swollen, his spirit broken. He looks like a potato
gone rotten. Eventually, after the press leaves, there's a long
silence in Fraser's dressing room, and then Joe Fraser looks

(36:49):
up at Yank Durham, looks him dead in the eye,
and he says, in a voice humbled by George Foreman,
I'm sorry I tried. Era is officially over. There is
a new heavyweight champion of the world, and his name
is George Foreman. After he wins the heavyweight championship title,

(37:12):
Foreman retires to his hotel room. He calls his mother
and tells her what he's done. Next, he calls his
wife Adrian and tells her he's the new champion of
the world. According to a sparring partner there in the
hotel room with Foreman after the fight, once he phones
the two women he loves, George Quote drank four glasses
of orange juice and then stood looking out the hotel

(37:33):
window at Kingston. After all his wild teenage years of
smoking and drinking down in pills, getting into gang fights,
mugging decent folk, and evading the law, Foreman has finally
done it the unexpected. He's made something of himself. This
makes him immensely proud. A glass of orange juice is
how he celebrates just how far he's come. The same night,

(37:56):
George Foreman wins his heavyweight championship, President Lyndon Baines Johnson
passes away. Foreman considered LBJ to be a great man,
and it was thanks to lbj's program, The Job Corps,
that Foreman's life radically changed. Sadly, LBJ does not live
to see Foreman become champion of the world. In his place,

(38:17):
his widow first Lady Lady Bird Johnson wrote to Foreman
to congratulate him. But now that George Foreman's the new
heavyweight champion of the world, his wife Adrian is possibly
the most thrilled.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Maybe the biggest change is just having the fight over.
When we finally signed, my wife and I sat down
and talked about it, and we both admitted that Joel
Fraser was one tough man. There were a lot of
nights after that, times when I'd be frustrated that we'd
end up in the middle of the room with her
Plan Fraser. She'd come at me kind of like Joe does,

(38:50):
and I'd show her how I was gonna handle him.
That night, I remember calling her after I won. The
first thing she said was, thank God, God, it's over.
I don't have to play Joe Fraser anymore.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
Thanks to jet travel in the early seventies, the world
is growing both smaller and more international by the day. Consequently,
Madison Square Garden is no longer the expectant home for
the next heavyweight title fight, not the way it had
been for close to a century, ever since boxers first
put on gloves. The reason is one man, the same

(39:27):
notorious boxing promoter there that night in Kingston Jamaica at
the National Stadium when Joe Fraser lost his title, his
name Don King, and he could see the future of boxing.

Speaker 10 (39:41):
King's point of entry is Jamaica at Fraser Forming.

Speaker 1 (39:45):
Don King rode to the fight beside the chap Joe
Fraser there in his limo, but later when the fight
skipped off the track of what everyone had expected. The
story is.

Speaker 10 (39:55):
That he starts out sitting near Fraser's corner, and as
the fight progresses, he moves very quickly to Foreman's corner.
He came in Fraser's limo and goes home in Foreman's
limos and he brags about it. I came with the
champion and I left with the champion.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
From that point on, Don King becomes a satellite orbiting
whoever is the heavyweight champion of the world. That's also
how he's able to orchestrate the most renowned fight in history,
the Rumble in the Jungle. Muhammad Ali's cornerman Bundini Brown
was also there at the National Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica,

(40:32):
there for the Fraser Foreman fight. Afterwards, Bundini gave his
man Ali all the credit for Foreman's victory over Joe Fraser,
He reminded reporters, Ali put Fraser in the hospital for
a month. As Bundini put it, quote, Mahammad Ali made
Joe Fraser drunk, and anybody can mug a drunk. There
is a truth in Bundini's words, but the more powerful

(40:55):
implication is that now Ali must square up against this
new champ, that is, if he wants to win back
his title. Meanwhile, George Foreman just wants to go home
to go see his family and maybe speak to some
school kids.

Speaker 3 (41:08):
I am not thinking about any big fights now. I
want a long rest. I want to go home and
see my daughter. After that, I want to go all
around the country to Houston and cities like that and
talk to kids. I want to tell them they can
do anything they want if they try. I am an example.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
At this point, Muhammad Ali has spent years waiting to
regain his title, but he feels he has unfinished business
with Joe Fraser. Yet, after the world witness George Foreman
absolutely demolished Joe Fraser in less than two rounds, Smart
Money no longer seemed to think that the aging Ali
could possibly beat George the Giant. Yet somehow, the old

(41:51):
Ali myth still holds strong. Impressive as that Fraser Foreman
title fight was, it doesn't take the boxing press long
to begin to question the new champ for one simple
reason He's yet to fight Muhammad Ali. Plus, the sports
writers are somewhat annoyed by the fact that the new
champ is no dream for someone working on a deadline.

(42:12):
For one, he's nowhere near as quotable as Ali. Foreman
just isn't as charming. He doesn't drum up the drama,
nor does he create scenes and fresh headlines like Ali does.
At least smoking Joe Frasier was a fun champ, but
Foreman he certainly can't match wits with Ali. Instead, George
Foreman tends to say things like.

Speaker 3 (42:33):
You know, I've come out sometimes before saying the American
system is a system you cannot knock. People say, be quiet.
Why look at these kids. They're all colors, all creeds,
and they're involved in the cleanest thing there is sports.
There's no life without sports. You look at these kids

(42:55):
and what they're doing, and it makes you proud of
the American system.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
In the ongoing culture fight, George Foreman chooses a side
the status quo the first time Foreman defends his world
heavyweight title. It's against the contender, Ken Norton. He's a
young heavy hitter. The Foreman Norton title fight takes place
on March twenty sixth, nineteen seventy four, down in Caracas, Venezuela.

(43:21):
It's yet another exotic location, the new trend for title fights.
George Foreman's first defense of his title. It doesn't last long.
Foreman dismantles Norton in two rounds, same as he did
with Joe Frasier. He wins his title fight against Norton easily,
but then, in a strange plot twist, the Venezuelan authorities

(43:44):
allege that Foreman didn't pay his tax bill on his
prize money from the fight. The government claims the tax
bill is due immediately after his championship bout, but then
Foreman refuses to pay. He believes it's the promoter's responsibility.
So Foreman tries to flee Venezuela, drives out to the airport,
tries to make his escape, but at the airport, Foreman

(44:04):
is met by armed soldiers. They tell the new champ
he will pay his Venezuelan taxes.

Speaker 3 (44:10):
Last Thursday, when they took me away from the airport.
I had the feeling that if I tried to board
the plane, I'd have been shot.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
Foremans held prisoner in Venezuela at gunpoint until he coughs
up cash to the Venezuelan government.

Speaker 3 (44:25):
I was gangsted. For the world heavyweight champion to be
treated like a tramp isn't a good feeling. For the
first time in my life, I felt like a prison.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
Foreman remains a captive down there until the promoter for
the fight, Don King, arranges his release. While it might
seem like he's protecting his fighter, Nope, it's more like
he's protecting his next big fight. You see, just one
day before the title fight against Ken Norton, Don King
announced it as George Foreman's next title fight defense. It

(44:59):
would be a super fight against Muhammad Ali, and that's
why he paid money to free Foreman. Once Foreman is
liberated from Venezuela and he's back home in the USA,
the date for this next great Championship title fight is set.

Speaker 3 (45:15):
What's my understanding that the fight will be held in Africa,
and that is more fitting. That way, I can knock
him all over the jungle on the next episode of Rumble.

Speaker 13 (45:38):
Don King is the newest strong man in fight promotion.

Speaker 10 (45:41):
Rumbling the Jungle does not get made without his immense
ego and ambition.

Speaker 1 (45:47):
This was his major hustle.

Speaker 9 (45:48):
He just did an incredible job bringing the two of
them together.

Speaker 4 (45:51):
In the handsome pages of blank paper at George Foreman
goes for it. He just signs all of these blank
sheets of paper.

Speaker 12 (45:57):
It was all done with a handshake. All involved contracts,
no lawyers. It was man against man, Blacks and blacks trust,
just trust.

Speaker 15 (46:14):
Rumbell is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.
Rumbell is written and hosted by Zaren Burnett. The third
produced and directed by Julia Chriscau. Sound designed and scoring
by Jesse Niswanger. Original music composed by Jordan Manley and T. J. Merritt.
Series concept by Gary Stromberg. Executive producers are Jason English,

(46:37):
Sean Titone, Gary Stromberg, Virginia Prescott, L. C. Crowley, and
Brandon barr Our. Senior producer is Amelia Brock, Production manager
Daisy Church, fact checker Savannah Hugley. Legal services provided by
Canoell Hanley PC. Additional production by Claire Keating and John Washington.
Casting director Julia Chriscau. Support services provided by Breakdown Express.

(47:03):
Episode five cast John Washington as Sonny Liston, Anthony Brandon
Walker as George Foreman, Abraham Amka as Mohammad Ali, Arthur
Dent as Joe Frasier, Wayne j As Howard Cosell, Julia
Chriscau as news reporter. Special thanks to Lewis Ehrenberg. Check

(47:23):
out his book Rumble in the Jungle. It's a great resource.
Also thanks to Jonathan I for his book Ali a Life.
And finally thanks to Zaren's pops Zeek, who grounds this
material like no one else.

Speaker 13 (47:37):
If you like the show, let us know.

Speaker 15 (47:39):
Like subscribe, leave five star reviews.

Speaker 13 (47:42):
It really helps.

Speaker 15 (47:43):
Also check out our show notes for a full list
of reference materials.
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Host

Robert Greenfield

Robert Greenfield

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