Breaking A Date For The Dance

Broadus said, barely audibly, "He can't dance."

"What's he say?"

"George Foreman's man says he can't dance."

Ali feigned incredulity, and then he began to laugh. All around the room his people began to smile, most of them almost sheepishly, as if high spirits were not appropriate to what lay ahead.

Ferdie Pacheco, Ali's physician, came back from watching Foreman's hands being taped. "Man, is it tense in there," he said. "Not a sound. They got Foreman covered in towels so you can just see his eyes looking out."

"He's getting warmed up for the Big Dance," Ali said. "Are we going to dance with him?" he called out.

"All night long," replied Bundini.

The mental image of Ali dancing was what everyone carried out onto the field where the great crowd stood up to see him arrive. Not one person in Kinshasa or the watching world, except for Ali himself, had the slightest suspicion that in the first seconds of the fight, indeed at the sound of the opening bell, he would take a few flat-footed steps toward the center of the ring and then back himself into a corner—with Foreman, scarcely believing his eyes, coming swiftly in after him.

For one sickening moment it looked as if a fix were on, that since the challenger was to succumb in the first round it would be best if he went quickly and mutely to a corner so the champion could go to work on him. It was either that or Ali was going through the odd penitential rite he seems to insist on for each fight, letting himself suffer the best his opponent has to offer. In either case, the consequences were appalling to consider. Ali's cornermen rose as one and, in the shrieks reserved for warning someone walking blindly toward the edge of a cliff, they urged their man to stop what he was doing and start dancing.

Far from obliging, Ali moved from the corner to the ropes—traditionally a sort of halfway house to the canvas for the exhausted fighter who hopes perhaps the referee will take pity on him and stop things. Here was Ali in the same spot, his feet square to his opponent, leaning far back out over the seats, his eyes popping wide as if at the temerity of what he was doing, while Foreman stood in front of him and began to punch—huge heavy blows thrown from down around the hips, street-fighter style, telegraphed so that Ali was able to slip and block many of them. Then, with the bell coming up for the end of the round, Ali came off the ropes. While Foreman's arms were down in punching position Ali hit him with a series of quick, smart punches in the face, the best of them a right hand lead that knocked the sweat flying in a halo. The vast crowd roared, and perhaps there were a few who began to sense that they were not in for a night of lunacy after all. Angelo Dundee noticed that almost immediately Foreman's face began to puff up.