On January 22, 1973, Joe Frazier, then boxing’s undisputed heavyweight champion, and George Foreman met for a much-awaited title fight. The fight between two undefeated sluggers was dubbed “The Sunshine Showdown.” The fight was held in Kingston, Jamaica, primarily because the country’s government financially supported the event.
Frazier’s record was 29 — 0, having won multiple title fights, including the title stripped from Muhammad Ali in 1967 for his refusal to be inducted into the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. The undefeated Foreman had mowed through the competition, racking up almost forty victories over four years, making him the number one-ranked contender. This was his first chance at winning the title.
It was a time of closed-circuit television, so most of the country had no idea of the fight’s outcome until the replay on ABC’s Wide World of Sports.
It wasn’t Foreman’s second-round knockout or Ali’s eighth-round surprise victory. It was a simple question. One that, in the Before Times, would have been answered with ease. Instead, it turned what should have been a unanimous decision into a defeat.
To the surprise of all those who witnessed it, the fight was over before it began. Foreman put his opponent on the canvas three times before the referee intervened, stopping the match in the second round. The first time the champion tumbled to the mat, Howard Cosell, the fight’s announcer, responded with one of the most legendary exclamations in all of sport:
“Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!”
Source: YouTube
Two years later, legendary boxer Muhammad Ali faced Foreman hoping to reclaim the title. Held in Zaire (now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo) the epic clash was billed as “The Rumble in the Jungle.” The fight, which Grantland has called “arguably the greatest sporting event of the twentieth century,” was one of the most-watched televised events of its time.
Rather than face the Foreman head-on, Ali deployed what he described as a “rope-a-dope” strategy. He spent much of the fight leaning back against the ropes, baiting Foreman into throwing one haymaker after another. In the eighth round, Ali knocked an exhausted Foreman to the canvas, regaining the crown after seven years.
Five decades later, Cosell’s reaction to Frazier’s stunning defeat has reached meme and gif status. In popular culture, it signifies an epic failure or an unexpected turn of events. Likewise, “rope-a-dope” has evolved beyond pugilism to include any psychological strategy intended to manipulate an opponent or to turn a perceived weakness into a strength.
Roping-a-dope
It may not have been obvious to the casual observer. Still, Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris used a carefully constructed rope-a-dope strategy to derail Donald Trump during their debate.
Indeed, her approach to besting the former president was a cerebral equivalent of Ali’s method of defeating Foreman, as outlined in a recent piece entitled, “With Her Rope-a-Dope Strategy, Kamala Harris Baited Trump into Scaring Swing Voters” by The Nation’s Jeet Heer:
Harris dominated the debate, relying in particular on a masterful strategy of hitting topics that Trump is especially touchy about. This deliberate baiting of Trump threw him off message. Instead of pounding away on what he sees as his best topic (opposition to undocumented immigrants), Trump was goaded into defensive and aggrieved answers about crowd size, the January 6 attempted coup, and his response to the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017.
Pollster and political strategist Joshua Doss puts an even finer point on Harris’ meticulous debate preparation to dominate the debate. Here he describes the four-step formula Harris relied upon to throw Trump completely off his game.
Down goes the shapeshifter
While Harris vs Trump was the main attraction of the current election cycle, because it was the last encounter between either set of candidates before Election Day, the undercard meeting between Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Ohio Senator JD Vance had all the pressure of a championship bout.
Walz vs Vance featured two evenly matched opponents, albeit with dramatically distinctive styles. If Harris vs Trump was the Sunshine Showdown of debate, the vice presidential debate was its Rumble in the Jungle.
Underscoring his relative debate inexperience compared with Vance, Walz started slowly and appeared nervous. He missed several chances to draw blood, never using his signature “weird” jab, or bringing up Vance’s “childless cat lady” comment. He only mentioned Project 2025 once.
But despite a shaky start, by the commercial break at the debate’s midway point, Walz began to display glimmers of the form that got him on the ticket.
JD Vance was a more skilled opponent, displaying a level of discipline Trump lacks. Unlike his caustic approach on the stump, he presented yet another version of himself. This Vance expressed uncharacteristic concern for victims of school shootings and empathy for women who have died because of GOP abortion bans. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd describes the Vance metamorphosis:
Vance’s performance was chilling. Once I thought Trump would be an aberration for Republicans. But on Tuesday night, I saw the future of the party and it was lies piled on lies, and darkness swallowing darkness.
Vance seemed like a replicant. There was no sign of the smarmy right-wing troll who said Harris “can go to hell” and told CNN’s Dana Bash that he created stories about migrants eating cats and dogs to dramatize a narrative that helps the Republican ticket. (A racist narrative.)
His views against abortion are adamantine and, until recently, he was an I.V.F. opponent. He has a bizarre, degrading view of the role of women in American society.
But on Tuesday night, he put on a mask of likability and empathy. “Christ have mercy, it is awful,” Vance said, looking down and shaking his head, when Walz told of his teenage son witnessing a shooting.
The chameleon brought back the JD Vance who was the darling of Hollywood, when “Hillbilly Elegy” was made into a movie, before he ambitiously code-switched into a Trumper.
Vance’s uncanny ability to lie on demand was a performance worthy of an Academy Award. For example, he denied supporting a national abortion ban although plenty of evidence exists to the contrary. He referred to the United States, second only to China in carbon emissions, as “the cleanest economy in the entire world.” Vance even argued that the U.S. has not built a nuclear power plant in forty years. However, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), a new facility opened its doors in April of this year.
His spin on Trump’s previous term in office was just this side of delusional. He argued that Trump “salvaged Obamacare” when the only thing that stood in the way of him repealing the Affordable Care Act was a thumbs down from the late Senator John McCain.
Vance’s slick delivery almost worked. He presented a package just shiny enough to gloss over his rapid-fire lying. For viewers looking for an excuse to ignore his switch from referring to Trump as “America’s Hitler” to vice presidential wingman, Vance proved he was their huckleberry.
With minutes left in the debate, no one had thrown a knockout punch, and Vance was ahead on style points. Then, on the debate’s final question, it happened.
Source: YouTube
Given the several opportunities, Vance would not — or could not — say Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. In the MAGA-infected party of Trump, not even the smooth-talking Vance would dare take such a risk. From The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus:
Given the several opportunities, Vance would not — or could not — say Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. In the MAGA-infected party of Trump, not even the smooth-talking Vance would dare take such a risk. From The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus:
…Vance’s most disingenuous moment came as the debate neared a close, when — finally — the moderators got around to asking about the threat to democracy and the peaceful transfer of power.
In Vance’s airbrushed, jujitsu-ed reality, Trump “said that on Jan. 6, the protesters ought to protest peacefully. And on Jan. 20, what happened? Joe Biden became the president. Donald Trump left the White House. “The actual “threat to democracy,” he claimed, “is the threat of censorship,” in particular that “Kamala Harris is engaged in censorship at an industrial scale. She did it during covid, she’s done it over a number of other issues. And that, to me, is a much bigger threat to democracy than what Donald Trump said when he said that protesters should peacefully protest on Jan. 6.”
Vance wasn’t in the Senate yet on Jan. 6, 2021, but you might have thought he managed to catch some of the insurrection on TV. His capacity to make this claim with a straight face is astonishing.
Based on CNN’s post-debate polling, Vance edged out Walz by the thinnest of margins, with 51% saying he won and 49% picking Walz. Those who saw Vance’s performance gave him the edge, if for no other reason than its audacity.
On the other hand, Walz’s favorability jumped to 59% among viewers compared to only 41% who viewed Vance favorably. In the final analysis, Vance appears to have eked out a victory on points, but not even the Ohio senator’s most recent iteration of himself fooled those who witnessed the debate.
It wasn’t Foreman’s second-round knockout or Ali’s eighth-round surprise victory. It was a simple question. One that, in the Before Times, would have been answered with ease. Instead, it turned what should have been a unanimous decision into a defeat.
Tim Walz’s haymaker took almost ninety minutes to arrive, but it was no less of a body blow.