Last fall I was in Roswell, New Mexico, covering the launch of daredevil Felix Baumgartner’s Red Bull Stratos mission. While taking in some fresh desert air during one of the numerous launch delays, I spied a familiar watch on the wrist of a man standing nearby. It happened to be the same watch I was wearing, an old Rolex GMT-Master with the iconic red and blue “Pepsi” bezel. I sidled over to him, trying not to appear too threatening or strange, and said, “nice watch,” brandishing my own wrist with its identical timepiece. He smiled, said, “Thanks,” and we got to talking about this iconic timepiece.

While we spoke, I realized that though his GMT was far more beat up than mine—battered, faded, and barely clinging to its stretched-out riveted bracelet—it was definitely the more desirable of the two. And I was jealous. Not of his watch, but of him.

You see, he was that guy I will never be: the guy who wears one watch, and only one watch, all the time. He took off his Rolex and handed it to me, apologizing for its condition and telling me that his wife had been urging him for years to replace it. Meanwhile, I gushed over it, babbling on in watchnerd-speak about the rising value of this particular model and how Brasso could take the scratches out of the plastic crystal. I asked him how long he had owned this watch, and he smiled and told me to flip it over.

On the badly scratched caseback I could barely make out an engraving. It said “Kinshasa 1974.” The man, who I found out was a producer for National Geographic (in Roswell to make a documentary film), asked me if I knew the significance. I thought for a while and then recalled the famous “Rumble in the Jungle,” the boxing match that pitted Muhammad Ali against George Foreman in the tropical heat of what was then the capital of Zaire. He told me that he and a buddy went to Africa in the early 70s to do the “jungle thing” - some aid work, filmmaking, and perhaps various mercenary shenanigans.

They were there that night when Ali knocked out Foreman and regained his title. and to commemorate it, he bought this Rolex and had it engraved. It has accompanied him on adventures ever since and it looks every bit the part.