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
Hunter S. Thompson right now, in the belly of a hammerhead shark.' There was however one passion shared by Thompson and Nixon: a love of football, discussed in "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72". Thompson's journalistic work began to seriously suffer after his trip to Africa to cover "The Rumble in the Jungle"—the world heavyweight boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali—in 1974. He missed the match while intoxicated at his hotel, and did not submit a story to the magazine. As Wenner put it to the film critic Roger Ebert in the 2008 documentary "Gonzo: The Life and Work