JUNGLE FEVER

IT is 50 years on Wednesday since The Rumble in the Jungle... when Muhammad Ali shocked the world to knock out George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire, to regain his world heavyweight crown 10 years after first winning it. Half a century on, CHRIS MCKENNA speaks to two people who were there that night and recall how Ali became champion again against the odds.

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"WHEN you ask older people 'Where were you when John F Kennedy was assassinated?' they can tell you.

"And when you ask them where they were when Muhammad Ali won the fight in Zaire they can tell you too.

"It is the most significant fight of his career and the most significant fight in boxing history."

So says Gene Kilroy, who knew Ali better than most. He was first man in the ring to congratulate Ali when George Foreman was counted out in The Rumble in the Jungle.

"To me it felt like I'd come back from the dead myself," said Kilroy. "I was so happy. I knew we didn't have to go to hospital."

Streetwise Kilroy, now in his 80s and living in Las Vegas, was one of Ali's confidants. He was his business manager and made sure everything worked smoothly in the camp.

He would go on to become a Las Vegas fixer for the casinos on The Strip.

That night his main concern was not that his friend would lose to feared puncher Foreman - who had just flattened Joe Frazier and Ken Norton - but what would happen if they needed to go to hospital. "The medicine was not advanced over there," said Kilroy.