The Associated Press

It was 40 years ago that two men met just before dawn on Oct. 30, 1974, to earn $5 million in the Rumble in the Jungle.

In one of boxing’s most memorable moments, Muhammad Ali stopped the fearsome George Foreman to recapture the heavyweight title in the impoverished African nation of Zaire.

The day before the fight in Kinshasa, Foreman and Ali made separate trips to the presidential palace to pay homage to Mobutu Sese Seko, the brutal dictator who wanted to put his country (now Congo) on the world map. The fight would finally unfold in the steamy darkness of equatorial Africa at 4 a.m., with machine gun-carrying soldiers watching the crowd from ringside and Joe Frazier among the interested spectators.

Late in the eighth round, Ali landed a combination with a final right hand that seemed to crumple Foreman in pieces, ending the fight with a knockout.

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