BGM #6 ALI vs FOREMAN

BGM #6 ALI vs FOREMAN
Don King arranged the fight with music businessman Jerry Masucci, who took his record label's showcase group, the Fania All-Stars, to play at the venue. King managed to get Ali and Foreman to sign separate contracts saying they would fight for him if he could get a $5 million purse. Such an amount of money, quite enormous for those days, was purported to prevent other top boxing promoters from attempts to arrange a Foreman vs. Ali match. However, as King did not have the money, and was not welcomed to stage an event of such a profile in the United States, he began seeking an outside country to stage and sponsor the event. Fred Weymar, an American advisor to Zaire's dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, persuaded Mobutu that the publicity such a high-profile event would generate would help his regime, and Mobutu agreed for the fight to be held in his country. In a TV interview, King stated that Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was involved in making the payment for the purse money for the athletes and other major expenses, although the precise process was not made clear.[12]
King had pulled together a consortium that included Risnelia Investment from Panama; the Hemdale Film Corporation, a British company founded by film producer John Daly and the actor David Hemmings; Video Techniques Incorporated of New York; and Don King Productions. Although King is most closely associated with the fight, Hemdale and Video Techniques Inc., with whom King was a director, were the bout's official co-promoters. The fight was broadcast on closed-circuit television in theaters in the United States and on over-the-air television throughout the world. The play-by-play commentary was done by "Colonel" Bob Sheridan. Color commentary was done by Jim Brown, David Frost, and Joe Frazier.