4 ideas
Ali, a heavy underdog against the younger, harder-punching Foreman, abandoned the dancing style everyone expected and lay back on unusually loose ropes. He let Foreman throw hundreds of power punches to arms and body until Foreman was exhausted, then knocked him out in the eighth round. Ali won by absorbing punishment as a deliberate plan, not by avoiding it.
Mailer writes himself in the third person, as 'Norman', and treats his own fear, vanity, fatigue and envy as part of the data. The observer's distortions are shown openly, so the reader can correct for them, rather than hidden behind a claim of neutrality. The account becomes a record of what the event did to one sensibility as much as a record of the event.
Ali's boasts, poems and theatrical taunts were not decoration. They were a working system that built his own will and got inside his opponent's head, turning Foreman into the villain in front of a crowd chanting 'Ali, boma ye' ('Ali, kill him'). Belief in one's own legend is presented as a physical resource that can be spent in the ring.
Mobutu funded the fight's roughly $10 million purse to buy international prestige and a modern image for Zaire. Behind the stadium, his regime was jailing and reportedly executing criminals to make Kinshasa look safe for visitors. The spectacle works because foreign attention certifies the ruler while hiding the coercion that makes it possible.