The Fight by Norman Mailer

Moore smiled benignly as though to reply, “Not saying which turkey.”
    Ali went back to the ropes. Williams hit him in the stomach. Ali sank to one knee. A trainer, Walter Youngblood, jumped into the ring and counted to eight. Ali got up and staggered about. He and Williams now looked equal to two sumo wrestlers with sand in their eyes. “He goin’ for my gut,” grunted Ali in a sad plantation voice and on the next punch to the stomach went down again. “The man been knocked down twice,” cried Ali, and leaped to his feet. Sparring continued. So did more knockdowns. Each was occasion for a speech. After the fourth — or was it the fifth? — knockdown Ali stayed down. To everybody’s surprise, Walter Youngblood counted to ten. The mood was awful. It was as if somebody had told an absolutely filthy joke that absolutely didn’t work. A devil’s fart. The air was ruined. From the floor, Ali said: “Well, The Lip has been shut. He’s had his mouth shut for the last time. George Foreman is the greatest. Too strong,” said Ali sadly. “He hit too hard. Now, a defeated Ali leaves the ring. George Foreman is undisputed champion of the world.”
    The Africans in the rear of the hall were stricken. A silence, not without dread, was rising from them. Nobody believed Ali had been hurt — they were afraid of something worse. By way of this charade, Ali had given a tilt to the field of forces surrounding the fight. As a dead man had he spoken from the floor. Like a member of a chorus had he offered the comment: “He’s had his mouth shut for thelast time.” The African audience reacted uneasily, as if his words could excite unseen forces. There was hardly a Zairois in the audience who did not know that Mobutu, good president, was not only a dictator but a doctor of the occult with a pygmy for his own private conjuror, (distinguished must that pygmy be!). If, however, Mobutu had his
féticheur
, who among these Africans would not believe Ali was also a powerful voice in the fearful and magical zone between the living and the dead. The hush which fell on the crowd (like the silence in a forest after the echo of a rifle) was at the unmitigated horror of what Ali might be doing if he did not know what he had done. A man should not offer his limbs to sorcery any more than he might encourage his soul to slip into the mists. When every word reverberates to the end of the earth, a weak word can bring back an echo to punish the man who spoke; a weak action guarantee defeat. Therefore, a man must not play with his dignity unless he is adept in the arts of transformation. Did Ali really know what he was doing? Was he foolishly trying to burn away some taint in his soul and thereby daring disaster, or was he purposefully arousing the forces working for the victory of Foreman in order to disturb them? Who could know?
    Ali now leaped to his feet and reassured the crowd. “Tell them,” he said to the interpreter, “that this is only a treat. The people will not see it ever in real life. Tell the people to cheer up. No man is strong enough or great enough to knock me out.
Ali boma yé
,” he said. “Tell them to
boma yé
.” The translation came. Wan cheers. The shock would demand its time for recovery. The Africans were numb. Donot try to think until thought returns, their mood may have said. Nonetheless, they cried out
“Boma yé.”
Who had ever heard such confidence as one heard from the man in the ring? The laws of highest magic might be in his employ.
    “Jive suckers,” said Ali crooning to the press, “hear what I say. When you see me rapping like this, please don’t bet against me.”
    Big Black tapped the conga drum, and Foreman passed at this moment on the walk outside. “There’s a war going on,” cried Ali, and so speaking, got out of the ring and moved off to his quarters. One had time to recall Ali’s dream announced those many weeks ago when he first arrived in Zaïre. He had said then that Foreman’s eye