- 2 days ago
Smokin' Joe, the first to beat Ali
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00I
00:30Gibson, swing, this is going to be an all-round, unbelievable, I don't believe what I just saw.
00:46Hello, I'm Chris Fowler for SportsCentury.
00:50In the most elemental of sports, Smoke and Joe Frazier.
00:53...no-frills laborer, whose fights with Muhammad Ali will forever be remembered as an epic trilogy of courage, savagery, and skill.
01:12Joe Frazier would come out smoking. If you hit him, he liked it. If you knocked him down, you only made him mad.
01:18BAM!
01:20Joe was a machine. That Philadelphia left hook has a life all its own.
01:25It's almost like it's got a brain, it's got desire, it's got hungers, it's got needs.
01:33I remember him lifting Dave Zegelowitz off the canvas with a left hook.
01:37Just literally lifting him into the air and deposited him like five feet away.
01:41You don't want to throw a right hand with Joe Frazier.
01:44The first jab box with him, I threw a right hand.
01:47When I threw it, he slipped and he hit me with a hook to the kidneys and a hook to the head.
01:51He doubled up. Bang, bang!
01:53If he hit you in the kidneys, you'd pass blood for a month.
01:56And if he'd hit you in the ribs, you wouldn't breathe right for six months.
02:00And if he hit you in the jaw, you were down.
02:03Joe's physique determined his thought.
02:05He had to get close to an opponent to do any damage.
02:08So he had to come straight ahead. He wasn't going to be a fancy finesse kind of fighter.
02:15All he did was just come at you.
02:17You know, he'd come at you. God damn it, he'd kill you.
02:21You know, he didn't even have the body of a heavyweight.
02:24All his weight was on his backside and his legs.
02:27He was greatly admired as a price fighter.
02:31That's where his power came from.
02:34He put his, he put all that into one arm.
02:39Because he was in the...
02:42You guys were willing to take whatever you could give them.
02:48One man gave him all he could handle and absorbed as much in return.
02:55Over five years, splattered with contempt, insult and bitterness,
03:00Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali engaged in what has been called a blood trilogy.
03:05The great heavyweight needs to be tested in a way that leaves no doubt.
03:10To bring out all his great gifts and Frazier did that with Ali.
03:14Ali was always center stage.
03:19Ali had the gift of gab.
03:21He had the lines.
03:23He had the charisma.
03:25All Joe Frazier can see all night is that left, that right.
03:29That's all Joe Frazier can see.
03:31I'm the king and the world's going to star of the king.
03:34Poor Joe was just overwhelmed by Ali.
03:38He just couldn't measure up.
03:40Ali was the son compared to everyone else being a light bulb.
03:46So it was natural that Joe Frazier didn't get the kind of attention that Ali did.
03:55Joe Frazier was fiery.
03:57He wasn't just a light bulb.
03:59What attention Frazier did get was that of a bull to a matador.
04:03Especially in the arena of public debate where the rules of engagement favored Ali's verbal skills.
04:10From 1971 to 1975, Frazier's psyche was peppered unmercifully with viperish acid-tipped jabs.
04:18Clones is ugly.
04:20Black-footed Joe Frazier.
04:22Keep it off.
04:24He branded Joe Frazier in a way that was very cruel.
04:29But it wasn't done by accident.
04:31It was done to gain a psychological advantage.
04:34The cruelty towards Frazier was, you know, just bad taste.
04:43Ali could be cruel in and out of the ring.
04:46He understood psychological warfare.
04:49He understood how you tried to build up an event.
04:54And, uh, to him it was all fun and games.
04:58It was the biggest fight because for the first time you've had a winning, quick, fast-talking heavyweight champ,
05:02when the most of them ask the question, how do you feel champ?
05:05Ali, at the same time, was a new kind of black man.
05:17He was one who certainly used his opponents as straight men,
05:22and did not hesitate to cast them in the roles of Uncle Toms.
05:28Frazier was certainly not that, and he did not see himself.
05:33He knew perfectly well that Joe was one of the blackest men in the universe.
05:38For him to be viewed as a white, sucking Uncle Tom kind of guy
05:43was the greatest insult you could give a guy who was nothing but raging black.
05:47Exactly.
05:48When he called Joe Frazier a gorilla, and he made fun of the darkness of his skin,
05:54and the wideness of his nose, and the bigness of his lips.
05:58Frazier, he's...
05:59It's ridiculous.
06:01How can you be a pro-black, a civil rights person, and then make fun of somebody's black features,
06:10just to sell a boxing match?
06:16Nose turned that way, ears turned that way.
06:22He was touching, you know, some real sore spots.
06:25And he was despised by a lot of African Americans.
06:29Muhammad Ali knew his audience.
06:31What he was doing was casting himself as blacker than thee.
06:34And for someone that came up son of a sharecropper, that had a cut very deeply with Joe.
06:43Joe saw himself for what he is.
06:44You know, he's a black man, and he's a proud black man.
06:47He didn't understand why there needed to be that particular division.
06:50The whole thing just baffled Joe.
06:52What is he doing?
06:53What is he talking about?
06:55And then, from that, came the anger, and the bitterness, and the resentment.
06:59For a time, you genuinely disliked this man.
07:02He still does.
07:03For all the hurtful things he said.
07:08That's not Joe.
07:10Oh, come on.
07:11Before you're quick to criticize him for holding a grudge as long as he has,
07:17and as deeply as he's held it, maybe it would be advisable for people
07:22to put themselves in his position and walk a mile in his shoes.
07:25A line was drawn in the sand.
07:27At some point, it stopped being a line in the sand.
07:29It was cast in concrete.
07:30At the 1996 Olympics that were in Atlanta, Ali, in a scene that lives on even now,
07:38showed up in this white suit to light the flame to begin the Olympics.
07:44Joe Frazier, and I were talking, and I said, did you see Ali?
07:48Yeah, I saw him.
07:49And, oh, the anger right away.
07:51He said, if it had been me, I'd have pushed him into the flame.
07:53I said, oh, Joe, you don't really me.
07:55Yeah, I do.
07:56The fact that Muhammad called Joe an Uncle Tom.
08:00The fact that he told him how ugly he was.
08:02The fact that he was going to get the gorilla in Manila.
08:05The fact that he was called a white man's champion.
08:08All those things were done and said, supposedly, to make those three fights happen as they did.
08:16They did.
08:17They did.
08:18They did.
08:19They did.
08:20But they hurt Joe.
08:22And they hurt deep.
08:23To this day.
08:25To this day.
08:27Joe Frazier still abhors Muhammad Ali.
08:36And it's pretty easy to understand where Joe gets most of this because there are a lot of blood feuds down there.
08:50Down there was coastal South Carolina where Joe Frazier was taught early and well about the differences between black and white.
09:04Born in January of 1944, Joe and ten siblings were raised by sharecropping parents who sweated every nickel and dime to put food on the table.
09:14When Joe Frazier was growing up in Buford, South Carolina, it was the hunger capital of America.
09:19And that's a fact.
09:20It had the highest infant mortality in America.
09:24There were holes in the roof and the rain used to pour through with the sunshine.
09:31And the outhouse was about a hundred yards away.
09:35There were hardly any lights there.
09:38The only light was moonlight.
09:40By 15, Joe, already known locally as a tough kid, had two jobs.
09:50One by day under the eye of the white man.
09:53The second under cover of darkness.
09:55He used to run moonshine, white lightning at night with his father through the swamps.
10:01And then work by day in the fields.
10:05So one day, he interfered with a field boss who was about to whip up on a black kid.
10:14And thereafter, he was in danger and made his way up to Brooklyn.
10:19But the big city posed a different set of pitfalls for the country boy.
10:24New York was more of like a rough life for me.
10:27Unfair, unkind.
10:29This wasn't gonna work.
10:31In 1961, he headed to Philadelphia and found work in a meat packing house.
10:36When Frazier wasn't lugging sides of beef, he was working out in the local gym.
10:41Joe was overweight, which is what brought him into the gym in the first place.
10:45Police Athletic League gym.
10:47Joe was like a guy who might not have had the greatest of skills but had a thousand percent work ethic.
10:55And was willing to learn.
10:57And worked that very hard.
11:01So hard, in fact, that in 1962, he won the first of three straight Middle Atlantic Golden Gloves titles.
11:08In the summer of 1964, Frazier replaced an injured Buster Mathis as heavyweight on the U.S. Olympic team in Tokyo.
11:16Hmm.
11:22He deserved that spot over Mathis.
11:25He beat Mathis to gain a portion of the heavyweight championship a few years later.
11:37Beating Germany's Hans Huber for the gold medal, Frazier won glory and little else except a broken left thumb.
11:44Joe Frazier came back from the Olympics in Tokyo with his thumb in a cast and busted it before the championship fight.
11:51Couldn't go back to work in the slaughterhouse.
11:53Cross Brothers pushing the sides of beef around.
11:56So here he was a hero with a gold medal and an empty bank account.
12:02He basically didn't have a job.
12:04He needed people to come in and basically save him because, you know, he couldn't pay his bills.
12:09I came home, hand broke, busted.
12:15Wasn't gonna have a Christmas for my kids.
12:18I was doing sports on WCAU radio and I thought what a bleak Christmas it would be for the kids.
12:27So I started a campaign encouraging the listeners to contribute toys for the kids.
12:33And we got a nice response and the kids had a decent Christmas.
12:38In 1964, Frazier received some bad news after an eye examination.
12:43A condition known as cataracts was clouding the lens of his left eye, seriously impairing his vision.
12:49So what I said to the doctors, would it get any better?
12:54They said it ain't gonna get no better.
12:56That's for sure.
12:57So it was really up to me.
12:59Whether he shared this with any, but I suspect he did not.
13:03When he took the vision test, they always routinely asked the right eye first, which is his best eye.
13:08So he would take his right hand and cover his left eye and read the chart with his right eye.
13:14Then they would ask him to read it with his left eye.
13:16So he would take his left hand, but cover his left eye and again, read it with his right eye.
13:22But by using the two different hands, they thought he was using different eyes.
13:25And that's how he fooled them.
13:27His own style was sort of built around this, built around this.
13:33He had to move his opponent always to his own right to get off that left hook and actually try to avoid getting hit on that left side.
13:45It's an extraordinary feat.
13:49Once more out of adversity, Frazier fought on, developing and strengthening his left hook into a battering ramp.
13:56Meanwhile, his financial prospects improved when some Philadelphia boxing fans bankrolled his future.
14:02They call themselves Cloverlay.
14:05They put out 80 shares of $250 a share, $20,000, so that he could devote all of his time to price fighting.
14:18I think Joe liked the idea of being able to have a steady job.
14:23The people were really reputable.
14:25So I think that would sway Joe to come along with Cloverlay.
14:29In from the financial cold, Frazier generated nothing but heat in the gym.
14:34But to reach the next level, he needed someone to direct and promote his career.
14:39That person was brash, self-styled Philly trainer Yank Durham, who took Frazier's life apart piece by piece.
14:46He was loud. He was sometimes obscene. He just had his own way about getting Joe to listen in the gym.
14:58Yank was gruff on the exterior, but he was very general and very paternalistic and also a brilliant mind as a boxer.
15:05He was his guru. He was the guy that taught him the rudiments of boxing.
15:11And from those rudiments, Frazier began to build himself into a title contender.
15:23In 1967, Frazier burned a hole through the heavyweight division until he stood ready to challenge Ali for the heavyweight crown.
15:31Then, history stepped in the way.
15:34Temporarily at least, it is all over for the heavyweight champion of the world, Muhammad Ali.
15:39He has rejected induction into the military service.
15:43What happens now to his title?
15:45With Ali disenfranchised, an eight-man elimination tournament was held to determine his successor.
15:52Frazier didn't want to go into the tournament.
15:54I think they were concerned, A, he might have to fight somebody they weren't ready to fight yet.
16:00And, B, that he would not get the lion's share of the gate, which he had already proven he was an attraction.
16:12Frazier, under Durham's advice, boycotted the elimination tournament and signed to fight Buster Mathis for the New York State championship.
16:19After disposing of Mathis with an 11th round knockout in March of 1968, Frazier owned a title, but not the crown.
16:28The only way they can take my title will be in the ring.
16:31And I've been telling the world for the past four years that I'm history's greatest prize fighter.
16:36And the only way they can prove that I'm not is to get me beat in the ring.
16:40Ali camp was moving all around the country and the world trying to get Ali licensed to box.
16:48Joe Frazier, you know, went to Washington to try to get him his license back.
16:53Joe Frazier helped him both privately and publicly.
16:55Frazier wanted to fight Ali.
16:57I'm not quite sure it was this magnanimous gesture of helping a fellow human being,
17:05which is why Joe Frazier was trying, wherever he could, to help Ali get a license.
17:13Whether he was dealing purely from his heart or had his eye on a huge payday,
17:18Frazier not only lobbied for the exiled Ali, but he helped him get through a lean moment or two.
17:24In either case, the payback was hurtful and confusing.
17:28Joe didn't understand why he, you know, after having that kind of Kodak moment, you know what I'm saying?
17:37All of a sudden, Ali goes from Jekyll to Hyde on him.
17:41If he befriends you and trusts you, I think that's what hurt him so much, I believe, with Ali.
17:47He gave him himself and was helping a friend that he thought was his friend.
17:52And then he, I believe, he got played.
17:55Ali used his mouth to dominate everything.
17:59He couldn't let you think you were dominating him.
18:02Joe had heard Ali over the radio call him ugly, a coward, an Uncle Tom.
18:08He was so shocked and stunned by it because he had just been talking about how Ali could do anything he wanted to in the ring.
18:15And what a great fighter he was that he threw down the radio and crushed it with his foot.
18:21And Joe goes to the window of his gym and just puts his fists and glares out the glares.
18:28Joe wanted to pick a tire iron up and he wanted to straighten it out right there.
18:32Traffic stops on Broad Street in Philadelphia.
18:37People are out their cars.
18:39In a street fight like that, Joe would have destroyed them utterly.
18:43I don't know what they were really thinking.
18:45I guess they thought they were going to really see Ali and Frasier maybe get the scuffling or tussling or something.
18:51The action itself was bravado because he knew that Frasier wasn't going to get involved in his tongue.
18:59I would say to my mom and mom, why is Mr. Ali saying these things about daddy?
19:04In school, I would get in a lot of trouble, man.
19:07I'd be fighting and, you know, because God said, man, your dad's a tongue.
19:10I said, what?
19:11Yo, we going to fight about that?
19:12You know, my dad's no tongue.
19:14Yeah, and considering Marcus Frasier became a pro boxer himself, he only had two losses and those were to peak Holmes and peak Tyson.
19:27So he beat everybody else.
19:29I assume those kids got the beating they deserved for that.
19:37You know, I had to get security, man, for my kids.
19:46That was unnecessary.
19:48I mean, it was only time to tackle that point of trying to threaten my sons and my daughters.
19:57In February of 1970, Frasier met Jimmy Ellis.
20:02He had won the elimination tournament Joe had spurned.
20:06Frasier registered a TKO in the fifth round.
20:09Still, in the eyes of many, Frasier had not yet climbed the mountain.
20:14He wins the New York title, and everybody says, yeah, where's Ali?
20:18He knocks out Jimmy Ellis, wins the WBA title, and they say, that's Ali's sparring partner.
20:23This is a terrible, frustrating thing for Joe Frasier.
20:26And I won't wait until, let's say, the fellow who said he was going to give a belt to somebody, I won't retire until he comes back.
20:32Eight months later, a new ring life was born for Ali.
20:36Licensed by Georgia, he dispatched Jerry Quarry in Atlanta.
20:40Six weeks later, he defeated Oscar Bonavina in New York.
20:44Meanwhile, Frasier was waiting.
20:46But when they signed on December 30th to fight for the title, a political maelstrom revolved around them.
20:53This is the 60s leading into the 70s, and America was totally polarized.
21:02And this polarized America, even a black-white fight, an American, anti-American fight.
21:09The whole country is in a frenzy about this thing.
21:11Ali was cast in a mantle, a mantle that said he stood for given things that were accepted by a lot of people.
21:21On the other side, Joe Frasier, who was just a hard-hat fighter, had been adopted by those who thought they could put their blessings and favoritism and rooting interest in a man who was going to support their side.
21:35It was black versus white, it was young versus old, it was right versus left, it was anti-war versus pro-war.
21:41That's what it was about. It wasn't about a fight.
21:48It's raw, and it's primal, and there's the smell of bloodlust, and it was thick and powerful that night.
21:56The Madison Square Garden crowd was more vocal than anything I have ever heard at any sporting event ever.
22:04No matter what its size, they never let up from the moment those two fighters came in view.
22:13It was the most electric moment I have ever experienced.
22:18And so, at last, on March 8, 1971, Frasier and Ali confronted each other before the world,
22:25each a symbol of opposing views on politics, race, and manhood.
22:30Even their boxing techniques were vastly different.
22:33Frasier only had one way of fighting, and that was volume of punches.
22:37Boom, boom, boom, boom, pour in, go straight ahead, take three punches to deliver one.
22:42Ali had to adjust to that.
22:45Ali wasn't our boxer.
22:47Don't you know I'm God? I said, God, you're in the wrong place tonight.
22:52I'm kicking butt and taking aim.
22:55Through the first eight rounds, the 27-year-old Frasier was ahead on two scorecards and even on the third.
23:03In the ninth round, suddenly Ali came alive and started flailing away with hard, lean combinations.
23:12And that sort of stopped Frasier in his tracks.
23:15In the 11th, the champion retaliated with a fusillade of left hooks.
23:20For the next three rounds, each fighter pounded the other with full weaponry
23:25to an almost levitating roar of 20,000.
23:28Then, in the last round, Frasier put Ali right where he wanted him.
23:32Joe Frasier leaped about, it seems, seven feet in the air and threw this left hook.
23:38What?
23:39And it was flush.
23:40And he caught him right on the chin.
23:43Right on his butt.
23:44March 8, 71, I cried my eyeballs out.
23:47Cried my eyeballs out.
23:50Not just because he lost, but because he symbolized so much.
23:55It wasn't about sports.
23:56It was about war.
23:57It was about race.
23:58It was about politics.
23:59It was about society.
24:00It was about generations.
24:02Add to that, that it was two undefeated heavyweight champions.
24:05Pretty big stuff.
24:07However satisfying, Frasier's victory would almost cost him his life.
24:13He goes to the hospital and within two days, my bones are banked with calls that he's dead.
24:19We thought Joe was in the hospital, in intensive care.
24:23His kidneys shut down.
24:26He said somebody came in the room and just touched his hand.
24:29And he said he never saw the person again.
24:31I never know.
24:32But he said he thought it was an angel that touched him and said, hey, it's going to be all right.
24:36This basically captured people's best and worst of all feelings.
24:44And maybe it was those people that were calling me who hoped he was dead because he destroyed their symbol.
24:50Ali had done an interview.
24:52The next day with his jaw swollen and said, look how pretty I am.
24:59Who do you think won that fight?
25:01They can call him the champion, but I'm the champion.
25:03I whooped him.
25:04I don't care what a few officials say.
25:05People said, well, maybe you won.
25:07Maybe you didn't.
25:08Problem is they didn't give Joe credit.
25:11Joe beat Muhammad Ali on that night.
25:14It's all it was to it.
25:15Period.
25:16He beat him.
25:17Now what are you guys going to say now?
25:18What are you going to say now?
25:19What are you going to say now?
25:20Huh?
25:21I mean, everybody's not a liar.
25:22I mean, everybody's not a believer.
25:24I whooped the butterfly.
25:26Back in the boxing ring, Frazier made short work of lesser lights Terry Daniels and Ron Stander.
25:33Waiting in the wings, however, was a man who stirred fear in the heart of the Frazier camp.
25:38Six foot three, 217 pound George Foreman.
25:43Conventional wisdom is that Joe took the fight over Yancy Durham's objections.
25:50That Yank didn't want him to fight Foreman and Joe's pride got in the way and he said, make the fight.
25:57But as a heavyweight champion, the undefeated heavyweight champion, you had to fight Foreman.
26:05You had to fight the top guy that doesn't have the time.
26:12Foreman had actually won more fights in his career than Frazier had to that point.
26:20But Frazier was going to the slaughterhouse.
26:26And they did.
26:29And the discrepancy in size and strength is obvious.
26:34He thought he could be George because George was never a great fighter.
26:41He was just a strong guy.
26:44Big son of a bitch and could punch.
26:46You saw the left hook land on Foreman.
26:48That's what he'll be working on all night.
26:50Joe was hitting him, but he couldn't hurt him.
26:53Down goes Frazier.
26:54Down goes Frazier.
26:55Down goes Frazier.
26:56Down goes Frazier.
26:57Down goes Frazier.
26:58When my father fell the first time, I started laughing, man.
27:03I was like, Daddy, stop playing, Daddy.
27:06Why are you playing?
27:07And then I could hear Cosella.
27:08Foreman is all over, Joe Frazier.
27:10Frazier is down again.
27:12When my father fell the second time, man, I got mad.
27:15I was like, Daddy, stop playing.
27:16Why are you playing, Daddy?
27:17Two knockdowns in the first round of Joe Frazier.
27:21Down again.
27:22And then the reality hit me after about three or four more times he fell.
27:27I was like, man, Daddy's not playing.
27:29And that was the first time in my life that I realized that my dad was human.
27:35Frazier's knees buckled.
27:36He is about, he is down.
27:38He is down for the fourth time in the fight.
27:41To have Joe Frazier down almost six times, probably the greatest moment of my professional career to that point.
27:48A quick left from Joe.
27:49Another.
27:50Another.
27:51Frazier is down for the fifth time in this fight.
27:54Couldn't believe it was happening.
27:55I just couldn't believe it.
27:56Joe is standing as, there he goes.
27:59And I kept knocking him down because I was afraid he was going to get up and get me.
28:02It is over.
28:03It is over.
28:04It is over in the second round.
28:07Joe is the champion of the world.
28:12Just like that.
28:14Seven months after his loss to Foreman in January of 1973,
28:18Frazier suffered another setback.
28:21His alter ego, mentor and manager, Yank Durham, died following a stroke.
28:26Although close friend and corner man Eddie Futch stepped in to fill the void, Frazier's desire seemed on the wane.
28:33But the coals within him stirred when he signed to fight Ali again and their dirty pre-fight dancing resumed.
28:39Why you think I'll be here?
28:41Sit down Joe.
28:42Sit down.
28:43Sit down quick Joe.
28:45Like, literally.
28:46Sit down quick Joe.
28:48Why you think I'll be here?
28:49Sorry, the brothers are here.
28:51Whatever happened, something happened and, and, and Frazier went crazy.
28:56Sit down quick Joe.
28:58Whoa.
28:59Whoa.
29:00Whoa.
29:02There are people that are still who think Cosell may have instigated the whole thing, but he didn't.
29:07I mean, Ali instigated the whole thing.
29:09It's not going to tell whether it's clowning or for real between the two fighters.
29:13I think Howard was astonished.
29:15He was absolutely astonished, and I think he thought it was real and somebody was going to get hurt.
29:20Maybe him.
29:21thing has been going on all along in terms of promotion of the fight and this time it seems
29:27to be for real here was real emotion and ali being ali and frazier being frazier it was quite a moment
29:35in contrast to the sound and fury of the promotion the 12 round bout was relatively
29:40uneventful as ali won by decision in january of 1974. ali rumbled in the jungle regaining his
29:49crown by knocking out foreman in kinshasa zaire in july of 1975 frazier and ali agreed to a third
29:57match each man had won one this was the tiebreaker this was the penultimate fight there was something
30:07much more important at stake muhammad ali and joe frazier were fighting for the heavyweight
30:14championship of each other they both understood that whoever won this fight well that's who
30:20history was going to recognize as the greater fighter unfair beat a steady tattoo on frazier's psyche
30:28it will be a killer and a chiller and a thriller when i get the gorilla in manila if you call a guy
30:35gorilla are you ugly you know are you an uncle tom that's not funny come on gorilla we in manila
30:46he knew that i was tough he couldn't frighten me with his words so he went with another attack of
30:55calling me a tom and then from tom i was ugly he's so ugly his face should be donated to the bureau of
31:04wildlife joe was in his hotel room and on the balcony and ali had gone there taunt him joe just stared at
31:13him while he's shouting epithets at him and joe uh finally disgusted just walked in and said that he
31:22fudge she said no matter what happens don't stop this fight we have nowhere to go i'm gonna take his
31:29heart out and squeeze it and just see the blood scored up with his hatred of ali brimming over
31:35frazier was blinded by more than rage at that time the vision in his right eye was 2050 which is okay
31:43not very good but the left eye was 2400 which was legally blind my thoughts were before the fight the
31:49thriller in manila was that he shouldn't fight if he had any damage to his good eye that would be the end
31:56of him
32:18on a sweltering morning of october 1st 1975 in quezon city just outside manila
32:25the last act of their blood trilogy played out before the world
32:29at 15 rounds the nearest round one it was a fight in three parts the first part ali is just whipping
32:37on frazier somehow in the middle rounds frazier comes frazier starts wailing he cuts off the ring
32:45he gets him on the ropes he was killing and then it turned again
32:50now they tried to regain the psychological edge by looking at him and saying joe frazier they told
32:59me you were washed up and frazier said they told you wrong pretty boy
33:04frazier is very strong and scoring heavily even though he took a lot in this round
33:09the closest to life and death i've ever seen to equally match fighters at the top of their form
33:18with an intense competitive edge on each other if not dislike actual hatred hatred if you will it
33:23didn't seem that you could survive that the kind of torture that ali and frazier dished out to each other
33:32in the heat of manila with everything that was at stake between them mentally and psychologically
33:38yeah i don't think near death is too hyperbolic a statement joe got hit with a right-hand shot that
33:43knocked his mouth piece about six feet back in the forehead frazier was gone joe could not see and ali
33:54could keep wailing away at will with that jab in his eyes his good eye the right eye was starting to
34:03close it was all puffed up and i knew he couldn't see hardly anything this fight was the last of the
34:12greatness from the 60s and 70s 60s in the 71 fight this was the last bit of greatness these guys could squeeze out
34:24out of his left eye you have somebody there who's just not able to protect themselves this is a very
34:30dangerous situation with one eye closed and the other all but sightless frazier was operating by sound
34:37touch and smell in the 14th round he wasn't picking up those right hands and he wasn't moving ali to his
34:44right so that eye was out there and ali kept banging away and digging into it and large islands
34:52seemed to emerge around that eye it looked like ali was going to have to quit in the corner because
35:01he was getting so beat up he couldn't breathe he said in the corner i feel like i'm dying this must
35:07be what death feels like in the opposite corner eddie fudge was caught in the grim reality of the moment
35:13fudge hesitated before that round the questions spun through his mind like a subway train out of
35:22control well i don't want to see him get hurt he's got a family he's a good kid you know i want him to
35:29walk away from this i said it's all over joe and he jumped up and i just tapped him my shoulder
35:37sit down i told him i said i got i can visualize it boom i don't want to he said no so i said okay
35:51shut it down i think it's gonna be over
36:00in the aftermath while both fighters tended to their injuries ali tried to bridge the gap he created with
36:06frazier by employing some secondhand diplomacy after the fight he asked for me say hey i just
36:13want uh you to know and uh you can tell your dad that those things i said about your dad i didn't
36:19i didn't mean those things but then i told my dad my papa said well he needs to come to me he said tell
36:24him to come and tell me ali's insults had cut too deep to be healed by anything less than a personal
36:30apology without it frazier carried his inner scars into a future fired by rage over the public theft
36:37of his dignity career spiraled downward after being knocked out by foreman eight months later
36:45smoke and joe ground to a halt he came back to fight once more in 1981 and finished with a 32
36:52four and one record his only losses were are we informing and uh finally the smoke was put out to
37:05just ash the jumbo cummings thing was a sin joe had no business getting back in the ring since that fight
37:15i had had seen joe coherent and bright-eyed and and uh full of good will and there are times when
37:25i've seen him slurring his words uh being surly not the normal joe frazier in 1985 he and his wife
37:35florence filed for divorce after more than 20 years and frazier eventually moved into a loft apartment above
37:41his gym where he trained local talent one was a member of his family he was not a promoter he was
37:48not a mainstream trainer but he was joe frazier the former heavyweight champion of the world who decided
37:55to become a trainer i started fighting because when my father lost to ali uh in 75 more than anything in
38:04the world i wanted to bring the heavyweight championship of the world back to the frazier family
38:11as i was standing in the middle ring with tears streaming down my cheeks
38:19i could see him walking through the ropes walking towards me he grabbed me and he said hey son
38:25don't worry about it daddy loves you my son i don't care if you've been knocked down i don't care if
38:31they call you a bum my son i love you when marvis were joe frazier at his peak joe frazier would have
38:43had a tough time with homes at his peak why would it be a good idea to send marvis in there
38:51hired in 1988 frazier tried to make a champion of joe jr but when he drifted into a life of crime and drugs
39:01his father with
39:04afflicted by cataracts diabetes and high blood pressure the great fighter had become an afterthought
39:10even in his hometown i think the total slap in the face was when they were going to put the rocky
39:15statue in philadelphia and not put a statue of joe the statue in the heart of the sporting district
39:22a boxer who was to signify the heart of boxing in philadelphia who was to signify the blue collar
39:33boxer and all the time all they had to do was to take that camera down the north broad street to joe
39:38frazier's gym and they would have had it right there the prototypical philly fighter is really joe frazier
39:44we didn't have too many rockies in our town that ever did what the rocky in the movie did but we did
39:49have a guy who came here and worked his way up from nothing and won the heavyweight championship of the
39:55world and should go down as one of the ten greatest heavyweight champions of all time and still probably
40:02won't
40:05in june of 2001 two fighters named ali and frazier squared off their first names were layla and jackie
40:14and the fact that both of these men were close to their children like that it's not hard to see
40:19that the children would feel the animosities and the tensions of the fathers ironically when they
40:25both decided to take the paths of their fathers and become boxers they didn't have to perpetrate
40:31or plan or or lay out a media format or a guideline because it was there joe frazier's attitude is
40:39my daughter wants to go for it let her go for it i actually think somewhere in the back of his mind
40:44he just would get a kick out of senior maybe beat lila ali that that's how far this this rivalry goes in
40:49his mind
40:53three months before their daughter's bout ali went public with an apology to frazier in the new york times
40:59smoke and joe rejected it saying he did not apologize to me
41:04ali's response was if you see frazier you tell him he's still a gorilla muhammad ali did not go to the
41:10fight between leila ali and jackie frazier a lot maybe at that particular point in time you know
41:17there might have been an opportunity to have some sort of reconciliation that's what everyone's going
41:24to want to say for them to just sit down and say look you know this thing's gone on long enough
41:30in february of 2002 the two met behind closed doors the night before the nba all-star game in
41:36philadelphia according to frazier's son marvis who was in the room they quote talked hugged and let
41:42bygones be bygones end quote after more than three decades the blood feud was over they gave the world
41:50three of the best fights you will ever see they did what they were supposed to do
41:54that was kick ass you don't kick ass and say i'm sorry
42:04for the fight of the century in madison square garden joe frazier explained why unlike ali he
42:10didn't seek media attention i don't need to be loved he said when i go out there to do my road work i'm
42:17alone when i get in the ring i'm alone in the after light of their blood feud trilogy ali basks
42:24in history much of it etched in his own public rhetoric while frazier remains alone and underappreciated
42:31if smoking joe has a legacy it is that of the gallant opponent for sports century i'm chris fowler
Comments