Foreman Felt He Was 'Treated Like a Dog' in Zaire, Friend Recalls

Boxing publicist Bill Caplan has known George Foreman forever.

Caplan was there when an 19-year-old Foreman won the gold medal in the 1968 Olympics, and through Foreman's two stints as world heavyweight champion.

Caplan was there when a 45-year-old Foreman became the division's oldest champion by stopping Michael Moorer 15 years ago this coming Thursday. And of course, Caplan was there in Zaire, 35 years ago, when Foreman was dethroned by Muhammad Ali's "Rope-a-Dope" in Kinshasa, Zaire.

After the jump, Caplan, 74, talks about Foreman's journey to, and their experience in Zaire, and how it ties into his achievement against Moorer.

Madden 1974

Initially, George Foreman's training camp was 30 miles southeast of city of Oakland at the Alameda County Fair Grounds' Mineral and Gems building. John Madden was coach of Oakland Raiders at the time, and his wife was a school teacher at the nearby elementary school in Pleasanton.

"She would bring her entire fifth-grade class to watch George train. That would be a field trip," Caplan said. "It was known that John was a boxing fan, and, at one time, had an interest in a couple of fighters."

Dick Sadler is thought to be "maybe the first black manager/trainer of an undisputed heavyweight champion," said Caplan, adding that Foreman's assistant trainers were former light heavyweight champion, Archie Moore, and all-time great featherweight titlist, Sandy Saddler.

"Now, we're going to fly on 'Air Zaire,' which had three airplanes, all jumbo jets," Caplan said. "Whenever the dictator, Zaire's President, Mobutu Sese Seko, wanted to go someplace, he would cancel the schedule and take one of these three airplanes and say, 'fly me here or fly me there.'"

So Zaire's public airline, on any given day could be the dictator's private airline. "We had first class on an overnight flight. And they had an all-black crew, which we had never seen before," Caplan said.

Foreman's group of 20 or so "had the whole first-class section, and the cockpit door was left open for the whole flight," Caplan said. "We could go up into the cockpit any time we wanted, sit down with the pilots, and learn the technicalities of the jumbo jet."

About 6,000 boisterous people awaited Foreman at the break of dawn on the landing strip in Zaire. "Muhammad Ali had had come in just a few days earlier, and we were told that he had at least that many people, if not more, to greet him when he came in," Caplan said.

"When you look at the film that won the Academy Award, called, 'When We Were Kings', it shows this arrival," he said. "There were all of the people, George getting off of the plane, walking with his german shepard, and all of us getting off of the plane.

"They hated dogs," Caplan said, "because when the Belgians ruled their country, they used police dogs on the populace."

Royal Treatment for Ali; Stockade for Foreman

An illustrious area called N'sele, located some 35 miles outside of the capitol city, was where Muhammad Ali's team was housed.

"It was a place used by Zaire's dictator and president, Mobuto, when he had meetings of the hierarchy of the different African countries. Right along the Congo River, there were five villas -- really nice, beautiful homes lined up in a row," Caplan said. "Ali and his people had occupied those five villas, So where were they going to take the champion of the world? They took us up on a hill, above N'sele. We drove up kind of a dirt road."

The housing for Foreman's camp was replete with a guard shack, guard towers and army guards.

"They took us into this area that looked like a stockade, with a high, barbed-wire fence," Caplan said. "While Ali had these beautiful homes on the river that were usually occupied by presidents and dictators of the other African countries, we were, in effect, in jail."

Zaire is a nation split by the equator, "so needless to say, it's hot all of the time, and none of our bathrooms were equipped with showers -- only bathtubs," Caplan said.

"There were live lizards attached to the ceilings right above the bathtubs. And these lizards were about the size of a small cats. You knew that once you got into that bathtub, or filled it full of water, that's what those lizards were looking for. They would drop right down and share the bathtub with you."

Five days before the scheduled date of the fight, Foreman was injured during a sparring session with Bill McMurray, the California heavyweight champion.

"Bill was in a defensive mode, stuck his elbow up, and the elbow went up under George's headgear and gave him a severe cut," Caplan said. "George had never been cut, and this one was bleeding like crazy. We all rushed to the dressing room."

Sadler "tried to patch it up and to get the bleeding stopped. But George doesn't want stitches because stitches require a needle and thread," Caplan said. "So, George wouldn't allow it because of his fear of needles. So they made him put butterfly tapes on it to close up the wound."

The cut led to postponement discussions, which angered President Mobuto.

"Mobutu had put up the $10 million guarantee for the purses of $5 million for each fighter. They came back and said, 'The president wants the fight to go on anyway,' and when the president wants something, it's done," said Caplan.

"But Sadler had the [guts] to say, 'There's no way I'm going to let my fighter go into the ring in five days with this kind of a cut," Caplan said, "because the first time he gets any kind of a tap on that, he's likely to start bleeding during the referee's instructions before the fight.' "

Sadler got his way, for the fight -- originally slated for Sept. 24 -- was pushed back to Oct. 30.

"But because of George's cut, and the butterfly bandages, all of his sparring partners, from then on, could only hit George in the body, not the head," Caplan said. "So in that way, the training was somewhat limited."

Foreman Almost Left for Good

Foreman sent word to Mobutu and promoter, Don King, that he wanted to leave the country and train in Paris, and then return. In truth, "George had been so uncomfortable for the five days that we had been there, he simply wanted to leave," Caplan said.

"We were in an army stockade, and George felt like he was being treated like a dog. And one of the reasons is because they hated and feared these dogs."

Foreman was told, he couldn't leave the country, "because they knew that once George left, he wouldn't want to come back," Caplan said. "And you know what? They were right."

So Foreman stayed.

"It seemed like each day, Ali would ambush George's training sessions, standing outside with a guy playing the drum," Caplan said. "They would be yelling, 'The champ is here.' Ali would be the cheerleader for the people chanting, 'Ali bomaye!' which meant, 'Ali, kill him!' Ali was trying to get into George's head, and it was working."

Food was a constant mystery.

"The government would invite us to eat, periodically, in a big dining room. One day, they laid out this big buffet for us. We didn't know what anything was, but some of it was pretty exotic looking," Caplan said. "After we had eaten one day, we asked their publicity guy, 'what is this meat that we just had, because it's kind of tough,' And they all started laughing.

"So we asked them again, and they said, 'you just ate cousin.' " What was cousin? Monkey meat.

As the bell rang for Round 1, Foreman came out wailing on Ali.

That's when Ali started "The Rope-a-Dope," protecting himself -- his gloves around his head, and his elbows around his body as much as he could.

"Because of the humidity, the ropes had loosened. It wasn't something [Ali's trainer] Angelo Dundee had planned. Ali came up with the idea, spur of the moment, leaning way back on those loose ropes," Caplan said.

"End of the first round, George had clearly won the round. Second round, same thing. But at the end of the second round, I see George's punches slowing down. I screamed out loud, 'Oh my God, we're going to blow this fight!' "

"Now, all during the fight, Angelo Dundee and [cornerman] Bundini Brown are yelling for Ali," said Caplan, "They're telling him to 'Get off the ropes!' They didn't like what he was doing, but it appeared to be working."

Sure enough, as the rounds went by, the power and speed in Foreman's punches decreased.

"That was Ali's strategy. By the eighth round, George was entirely out of gas," Caplan said. "Ali hits George with a good left hook and a good straight right hand, and George goes down in a kind of a spiral."

Foreman arose, but referee, Zach Clayton, already had reached the count of 10.

The Legend of the 'Rope-a-Dope'

"There was a question of whether or not George had beaten the count," Caplan said. "But the real point was that he was completely gassed. So the 'Rope-a-Dope' will go down in history as this great strategy. When they counted 10, and the fight was over, I got into the ring rather quickly. I think I was the first guy to talk to George, because the cornermen were disgusted and weren't speaking to him.

"I said, 'George, don't worry about it, all great fighters lose fights. ... Joe Louis, one of your heroes, lost fights. The greatest fighter of all time, Sugar Ray Robinson, lost 19 fights.' "

George Foreman was speechless, but he heard Caplan.

"George was tired and stunned -- he had just been knocked out. But he listened, and he just nodded his head at me," Caplan said. "So I looked him in the eyes and said, 'this isn't the end of the world for you, George.' "

Indeed, George Foreman was not done.

For this Thursday, Nov. 5 -- just over 35 years after his devastating loss to Ali -- marks the 15-year anniversary of Foreman's knockout of Michael Moorer for the WBA and IBF crowns to become the oldest man (45) to win a heavyweight title.

"So as it turns out," Caplan said. "I was right."