For the past few weeks, Angelo Dundee, has busily provided on-site expertise to media members at Tampa's Fight Factory Gym, where WBO champ Miguel Cotto has been in training for his Nov. 14, welterweight clash with Manny Pacquiao.So it is no surprise that the 88-year-old Hall of Fame trainer wasn't aware that today is the 35th anniversary of Muhammad Ali's eighth-round knockout of George Foreman in "The Rumble In The Jungle" in Kinshasa, Zaire.
In fact, Dundee said that none of the many reporters clamoring for his opinion on Cotto-Pacquiao "has even mentioned it."
See what Dundee had to say about the historic bout during his Q&A after the jump.
FanHouse: Why weren't you as fearful of George Foreman as was most of the world, considering he had dominated Joe Frazier, who had given Muhammad Ali a much more difficult time?
Angelo Dundee: Because I knew Ali's talent, and that certain things beat certain people. I've known Ali since he was 16 years old. So I have a pretty good insight about an individual when I've known them that long.
The Foreman that we fought was a home run hitter. But if you could prevent him from landing the heavy punches, and not get the home run, you could beat him.
My guy was pliable, flexible, and could bend with the shots. Plus, we felt like he could give George distance, which would disturb George. He just had the style to beat Big George.
FH: What did you work on in training leading up to the fight?
Dundee: I made Ali work on quickness, because quickness beats a big guy. Especially a guy that tries to hit the home run. Because if you can keep him off the homerun, then you can beat him.
FH: What about the famous 'Rope-a-Dope?'
Dundee: Muhammad completely fooled me when he did the 'Rope-a-Dope' -- I had nothing to do with that. I figured that movement would bother George more than anything, so by the second round, I was asking Muhammad, 'What are you doing?'
I was afraid that George would hit him with a forearm and knock him out of the ring. In fact, when he came to my side of the ring, I actually slapped Muhammad in the butt to make him get off of the ropes.
God forbid he had fallen out of the ring -- it was like six feet in the air in the middle of a soccer field. There would have been no coming back, he'd have broken his back on a chair or something.
I was scared to death that he would fall out. But he felt like it was working. So he says, 'I know what I'm doing.' I'm like, 'you're nuts, you're going to go through the ropes and break your back, so get off of the ropes!'
But he was like, 'I know what I'm doing.' And I'm like, 'Get him out of there, what are you waiting on? What are you waiting on?' So he had this expression, 'I made him empty his gas tank.'
So he did know what he was doing. He was the smartest guy in the place. George really ran out of gas, the poor guy. The tank ran dry. So [Ali] was more genius than we realized.
FH: Why was the 'Rope-a-Dope' effective?
Dundee: Muhammad had a great, great ability to slide on punches and pull back from them, so that he didn't take the full affect of the blows. Because if he had taken the full affect of George Foreman's blows, he'd have been out of there.
He was blocking the punches any way that he could -- with his arms, shoulders, elbows. But he was quick with everything that he did. Even pulling back from the punches with his chin. That just shows the greatness of the man.
FH: Could Muhammad Ali have won the fight with your strategy?
Dundee: I think if he'd have been in the middle of the ring, I think he'd always have been better off being in the middle of the ring. I think he would have controlled George because he was the smartest guy in the arena.
He would have beaten Foreman. He had the technique and the style to beat George.
FH: What was the problem with the loose ropes?
Dundee: That was such a big controversy. I had tightened the ropes at four o'clock in the afternoon in Zaire. I was there with Bobby Goodman, who was doing the P.R. there.
We went there, and the ropes were loose -- I mean really loose -- for a 24-foot ring. What we did was we took them apart and we tightened them. I used a double-edged razor blade to cut the ropes.
The ring was also lopsided. It was a dirt field, and it was on an angle. So we leveled the ring to the best of our ability. Nobody was paying attention to that. The fight wasn't taking place until 4 a.m.
I had tightened the ropes, but what I hadn't taken into consideration was that the heat, which, by 4 a.m., had stretched the ropes again. Being loose, my guy [Ali] was so agile that he was able to lean back and not fall out of the ring.
FH: As I understand it, you were always a stickler about checking out the conditions of the ring?
Dundee: I'm big about checking the ring out days before. I did that in Maine for the Sonny Liston fight. They were using an old wrestling ring that was like a trampoline. So I changed that, and I made them bring in a ring from Baltimore.
FH: What psychological advantages did you feel Muhammad Ali had over George Foreman?
Dundee: For us, going into this fight was like going to a party. Muhammad went into it like he never could lose. You've got to realize that in Zaire, he was the hero and George Foreman was the hero.
George Foreman brought a police dog with him, and he didn't know that they were scared of police dogs. There were so many odds against the poor guy.
FH: Like what?
Dundee: George was training across the road from us in a much rougher situation than we were in. We were in a beautiful complex there, where [President Mobutu Sese Seko] entertained the African nations. We had villas facing the Congo River.
The Zairian people were so nice to us, because, you know, I was with the hero, Muhammad Ali. To Foreman, they were chanting, 'Ali, bomaye!' That meant, 'Ali, kill him!'
FH: How did you come to train George Foreman?
Dundee: I was in Las Vegas and he was there doing something for HBO. Me and my wife Helen were there having lunch as the Caesar's Palace. George jumped up to the table and said, 'Mrs. Dundee, do you know why your husband's working with me?'
And my wife, Helen, goes, 'No, he never told me.' So my wife thinks it's something I never told her, but I didn't really know where he was going with it. So then, George says, 'I was working Muhammad against the ropes and I was getting ready to hit him with a helluva right hand.'
'And this squeaky voice from the corner said, get outta there, and then, Muhammad Ali moves. And if he didn't move, I may have knocked him out. So anybody who can help a guy like that, I want him with me.' So that's a true story.
Ali would have had more trouble with older George, between you and I. That George was steady, steady, and didn't look for the homerun. He just worked into the homerun, like he did when he won the world title. He would pick, pick, pick, and then -- Bang! --and that was it."
FH: So how have you become involved with the Miguel Cotto camp?
Dundee: I went there because I want to be around boxing. I've been doing it for 60 years, and I heard that Cotto was there. The guy that runs that gym, Peter Fernandez, is a former fighter.
They had been asking me to come. I live in Oldsmar, and it's about 45 minutes from Tampa. I have a guy that drives me there.
FH: Is there any one thing that sticks out in your mind concerning the Ali-Foreman fight -- the food, the atmosphere -- that we have not addressed?
Dundee: This is a great story. We were eating buffet style, so I never knew what I was eating. I didn't find out what I was eating until I got a visit from two Cuban guys who were airplane pilots who flew Mobutu all over the country.
So I brought them to lunch. And we were eating the buffet style. The buffet style was like chicken. I picked up a piece, and I put it in my mouth, and I'm chewing on it. But there's no meat.
So I pull it out of my mouth, and I move my thumb -- eye socket. I move my other finger -- eye socket. It was a monkey head. I had been eating monkey all of that time and didn't know it.
It tasted like chicken. I'll tell ya, monkey meat's good.
