Selecting boxing’s greatest fighter is difficult enough; choosing the sport’s greatest victory is an even tougher task. Tony Bellew, however, appeared to have little hesitation when offering his own verdict on New Year’s Eve.
The former cruiserweight world champion, now a familiar face on DAZN’s boxing coverage as a pundit, looked not to the modern era — nor even the 21st century — but instead cast his mind back more than half a century.
Responding on X to a clip shared by Vinny’s Corner of Muhammad Ali’s legendary clash with George Foreman in The Rumble in the Jungle, Bellew delivered a succinct verdict.
“The greatest victory in boxing history [in my opinion]!”
By the time Ali arrived in Kinshasa, Zaire, in October 1974, many believed the former heavyweight king was finished. At 32 years of age, and having been written off against the seemingly unstoppable Foreman, Ali instead produced one of the most audacious and intelligent performances the sport has ever seen.
For much of the contest, Ali stationed himself against the ropes, inviting Foreman to unload his fearsome power. Punch after punch thudded into Ali’s body and arms, but the challenger’s movement, guile and revolutionary “rope-a-dope” tactic gradually sapped the champion’s strength. When Foreman finally slowed, Ali seized his moment, unleashing a devastating combination in the eighth round to reclaim the heavyweight title he had lost to Joe Frazier three years earlier in The Fight of the Century.
The psychological edge was as important as the physical one. Foreman would later reveal that during exchanges Ali taunted him repeatedly.
“Is that all you got, George?”
“It was a nightmare cos that all I had.”
Ali went on to make several more title defences before losing to Leon Spinks in 1978, only to defy logic once more by reclaiming the heavyweight championship in their rematch later that year — becoming the first man to win the title three times. Subsequent defeats to Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick eventually brought an overdue end to a glorious, era-defining career.
Foreman, meanwhile, would author his own chapter of boxing immortality two decades later. In 1994, he stunned the world by knocking out Michael Moorer to become the oldest heavyweight champion in history — a fitting epilogue to a rivalry that produced one of boxing’s greatest nights.
Foreman’s late-career redemption only adds further weight to Bellew’s claim, but nothing that followed ever eclipsed that night in Kinshasa — when Muhammad Ali outthought, outlasted and ultimately overwhelmed the most feared heavyweight on the planet to produce a victory that still defines boxing greatness half a century on.
The greatest victory in boxing history imo! #RumbleInTheJunglepic.twitter.com/2ro4ZRRjTr
— Tony Bellew (@TonyBellew) December 31, 2025
