When We Were Kings When We Were Kings When We Were Kings is a 1996 Academy Award winning documentary film directed by Leon Gast about the famous "Rumble in the Jungle" heavyweight championship match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. The fight was held in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) on October 30, 1974. The film features a number of celebrities, including James Brown, Jim Brown, B.B. King, Norman Mailer, George Plimpton, Spike Lee and Thomas Hauser. "When We Were Kings" was released in 1996 to strong reviews, and won the 1996 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It took Gast
The Rumble in the Jungle coming in as a 41 underdog against the unbeaten, heavy-hitting Foreman. The fight is famous for Ali's introduction of the rope-a-dope tactic. The fight was watched by a record estimated television audience of 1billion viewers worldwide, becoming the world's most-watched live television broadcast at the time. This included a record estimated 50million viewers watching the fight pay-per-view on closed-circuit theatre TV. The fight grossed an estimated $100million (inflation-adjusted $million) in worldwide revenue. Don King arranged this fight with the music businessman Jerry Masucci, who took his famed musicians, Fania All Stars, to play at the venue. King managed to get