Meanwhile, the heavily muscled Foreman had quickly risen from a gold medal victory at the 1968 Olympics to the top ranks of professional heavyweights.
A three-night-long music festival to hype the fight, Zaire 74, took place as scheduled, September 22-24, including performances by James Brown, Celia Cruz and the Fania All-Stars, B.B. King, Miriam Makeba, The Spinners, Bill Withers, The Crusaders, and Manu Dibango, as documented in the 2008 film Soul Power [REF].