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 age 45 — at that time, the oldest man ever to win the title. Foreman and Ali became friends after the fight. Ali had trouble walking to the stage at the 1996 Oscars to be part of the group receiving the Oscar for "When We Were Kings" (1996), a documentary of the fight in Zaire, due to his Parkinson's syndrome. George Foreman helped him up the steps to receive the Oscar. Over the years, George Foreman revised his opinions on Muhammad Ali and on The Rumble in the Jungle, on several accounts. In 2012, "The Telegraph" reported Foreman's declaration: "We