Pele: Genius ‘Who Built The World Cup’

 By Banji Ojewale

When boxer Muhammed Ali passed on in 2016, George Foreman, one of the sport’s fiercest demolition experts, was approached by CBS This Morning crew in the United States of America to speak on his old ring foe. Knocked out by Ali in their unforgettable Rumble in the Jungle duel in Kinshasa, Zaïre, in 1974, Foreman said what the sport had experienced of Ali defied all known approbatory allusions.

*Pele 

It wasn’t enough to describe the man born as Cassius Marcellus Clay as the “best fighter’’, he said. According to Foreman: “…To say he (Ali) was the greatest boxer is a put-down…He was bigger than boxing. He was bigger than anything…I got into the ring with him…He didn’t have the best power…the best anything…But his presence…His greatest power was his presence…Nothing like him…’’

Since the death in December of another sports colossus, Pele of Brazil, the world is experiencing the same dilemma: a dearth of expressions to convey Pele into history. Is it adequate to see him as a legend? These days even flash-in-the-plan celebrities get the tag. How about merely dubbing him the greatest in the field?

Remembering The 'Rumble In The Jungle'

By Banji Ojewale

Forty years ago on October 30 1974, the world was rocked by the celebrated fight between Muhammad Ali, ex-heavyweight boxing champion of the world and George Foreman, the title holder. The colorful Ali aptly called the bout the Rumble in the jungle because it took place in thickly forested Zaire, now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Muhammad Ali

(pix: Reuters)

It was a huge, larger-than-life affair put together by an imperial president Mobutu Sese Seko with many unprecedented features. It was the first heavyweight championship contest in Africa; it brought together two of the planet’s greatest pugilists; it saw Mubutu budget more than ten million dollars to promote the show; it gave the fighters their biggest ever earnings; finally, it offered Africa the rare opportunity to see two of its eminent sons battle for supremacy on their own soil. They had always been forced to do it away from “home”.

The African leader was said to have traveled this expensive route in order to cover up for years of his corrupt era, egregious human rights abuse and misrule, all of which pauperized the country. He did not succeed. He failed to exploit the potential salutary public relations of the fight to improve the lot of the people. Actually it would appear Zaire got the rough end of the stick, because two years later in 1976, the country gave the international community the dreaded Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).