Visual Description: Rumble in the Jungle!
BYOHB = HOBBY, RCTTA = TRACT, FSLEUU = USEFUL, PAOITU = UTOPIA — Giving us: OBBTATUUOA
Clue/Question: When Ali knocked out Foreman in Zaire in 1974, the newspaper story was – – –
Answer: ABOUT A BOUT
(Naturally! But not just A bout, it was THE bout . . . of the century. The young George Foreman, “Big George”, was the destroyer of men. Much like the later Mike Tyson, Foreman could devastate anyone with a single punch. That’s how powerful he was. George shocked the world by annihilating the – previously undefeated – heavyweight champion, Joe Frazier, in the second round, to take his crown. And, believe me, Smokin’ Joe was no slouch. He was strong as a bull, and could take most punches from just about any boxer. But Joe pretty much had only one gear: Forward. Plus, being the undefeated champ, he was WAY too confident in his abilities. This led to him walking straight into the Foreman sledge-hammer punches. The fight was broadcast on ABC’s Wide World of Sports, and Howard Cosell’s frenzied call of “Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!” will stay with me to my dying day! So, for nearly two years George was the baddest man on the planet. Considering that Ali was seven years older than Foreman, and Ali had lost a decision to Frazier nearly three years earlier, everyone thought that Foreman was going to demolish Ali. Everyone except Muhammad Ali . . . and perhaps Angelo Dundee, Ali’s trainer. As skilled as a boxer that Ali was, he knew that he couldn’t trade punches with Foreman, and he couldn’t risk getting tagged by George by using his trademarked fancy footwork. Of course, he started out with some of his classic jabs and footwork, but that was pretty much just to make George mad. Ali quickly fell back against the ropes, and put his arms and hands up in a defensive stance, and just let George give it all he had. Everyone thought that this would be the end of Muhammad Ali, but he was able to block the majority of the punches with his arms and hands. Ali would taunt George verbally too. This made George madder, and he was bound and determined to really hurt Ali. But Ali used the ropes to lean away from most of Foreman’s biggest bombs, decreasing their effectiveness to an extent. Occasionally, Ali would counter with some straight punches to George’s face, but he mostly just let George punch himself out. In the eighth round Ali saw that George was frustrated and arm weary, and he became the Muhammad Ali that everyone knew. He threw several hooks and combinations that George couldn’t defend against, and finally Ali landed a hard right to George’s face, that sent him to the canvas. George was starting to get up, but the referee saw how disoriented he was and stopped the fight. And, Ali was the World Heavyweight Champion once again. Besides being a consummate boxer, Ali’s genius allowed him to out think, and psyche out, his opponents. Neither he, nor the media, used the acronym G.O.A.T. back then, but he definitely convinced me that he was the Greatest Of All Time!
It’s no surprise that all of today’s clue words have been used before. All of their jumbles came up as new though. The only one that gave me trouble was “paoitu”. Words with more vowels than consonants can be very tricky. The answer letter layout was a taut ten letter jumble. It did a decent job of disguising the final answer.
Fun cartoon of guys – maybe father and son – with 1970’s Afros! Of course Jeff had to make the newspaper The Trib! Zaire is now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Leading up to – and during – the fight the people of Zaire were very pro Ali. They would chant “Ali boma ye”, which meant Ali kill him! It’s always great to have the fans in your corner. Be well and do good, friends.) — YUR
Images courtesy of Google
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