Last week (October 30th), the Paley Center for Media in New York City commemorated the 50th anniversary of Muhammad Ali’s Rumble in the Jungle boxing fight, with a special panel discussion that included Ali’s daughter Khaliah Ali, his son-in-law music executive Jason Flom, Olympic boxer Roy Jones Jr., former WBO Featherweight champ Heather Hardy and Undisputed video game creator, Steel City Interactive CEO Ash Habib. The discussion was moderated by Showtime Championship Boxing Anchor Brian Custer.
On October 30, 1974, George Foreman and Muhammad Ali faced off in the boxing ring at Stade Tata RaphaΓ«l (formerly 20th of May Stadium) in Zaire, in which the match was dubbed ‘The Rumble in the Jungle.’ The event had an attendance of 60,000 spectators, and Ali ultimately won against Foreman. Fifty years later the match and Ali still impact boxing and American culture. When asked by Custer what is it about Ali that makes his presence still felt eight years after his passing, his daughter Khaliah said, “The thing that stands out most to me today, and it’s a gift that keeps giving long after my father is off this earth was kindness, his love for himself that he was able to see the beauty in everything and everyone around him, and as his adult child, it’s an extraordinary experience to continue to witness that gift in so many manifestations.” Jones also expressed his feelings in regards to Ali’s lasting legacy and how he was directly influenced by Ali stating, “He didn’t fight for himself, he didn’t fight for money, he fought for the people.” “I learned from watching him and those around him at that time that you don’t go out there to try to make the most money, you go out there try to show the world what God gave you because when you die, what matters is what did you do with what God gave you, and he was the epitome of that”, he added.
“I can’t think of anything in modern times that rivals it, nobody was talking about anything else, and it was on the cover of every newspaper. I was in grade school at the time, and everybody had an opinion. Everybody was rooting for one or the other. Everybody was talking about it, and the city was on fire. It was electric, right, but I was thinking about how everyone looked up to this man, but he never looked down [on anyone]. That, to me, is the definition of the greatness of a person, and I would just say too, that his courage in the ring was unmatched against any odds, but his courage in life was greater”, Flom who received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Awards said during the panel discussion.
As part of honoring Ali’s legacy, he has been immortalized in the Undisputed video game by Steel City Interactive. In the game, Ali is a playable character. The game’s creator Ash Habib spoke about developing the game discussing choosing to depict Ali in what he felt was the boxer’s prime and capturing Ali’s swag. Habib hopes that the game will inspire young players. “There are fighters now that still try, and I’m not gonna say imitate, but you know, like the clips that go viral on whether it’s Tik Tok or whatever, with fighters, showboating and doing things, Ali was the original guy that did all of that. So it’s great to be able to, show this to kids who might not have watched or seen Muhammad Ali fights, but then when they can see him move like he does in Undisputed, then I hope that at least, even for five people, or 50,000, if it makes them go and watch an actual Ali fight, I feel like we’ve done our job right”, he said. The game features 70 boxers which aside from Ali include Jones and Hardy.
Hardy spoke on the motion capture process of adapting her moves for the game.
Speaking on his reaction about being in the game, Jones said, ” I enjoyed being in the first game I was in Fight Night, that was awesome. So when they said they was gonna do a new game and update everything about it, that really grabbed my attention right away. But then, when I did the first run, I came back, I see all this shoulder move crap, I said ‘what’s going that’s not Roy Jones’. So they got me back over to UK to redo it, you know, with these bad knees and everything, it was tough, but I wanted to give people the real or close to reality I can get. With that being said, I think it turned out phenomenal. I love the game. I’m not even a big gamer, but I love and when you see things like this, it relates to younger guys who don’t know, or young girls who don’t know make them sometimes go back and research who these people really are, and pay attention to where they come from.”
After the panel discussion, Jones sat down to play matches in the Undisputed game with select attendees. Undisputed is available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Microsoft Windows.
