Muhammad Ali (right) vs. Joe Frazier. Photo courtesy of Corbis/The Bettman Archive
It was billed as the thrilling end to a trilogy between two all-time greats.
It ended up being much more than that.
The grueling, exciting and wonderful “Thrilla in Manila” happened 49 years ago today.
Their first meeting was billed as the “Fight of the Century”, and it did not disappoint. In it legendary fight that took place on March 8, 1971 at New York’s Madison Square Garden, the rivalry between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier came to life in dramatic fashion, with the returning Ali being stopped in the final round as Frazier scored a career-defining victory on boxing’s biggest stage ever.
The battle screamed for a rematch, and it happened one minute too late in January 1974after Frazier lost his belt to George Foreman in Jamaica and Ali broke his jaw and his pride was hurt Know Norton in two great battles.
The rematch lacked the drama of the first fight. But soon enough, the final act of their trilogy would upstage all its predecessors.
Scheduled for October 1975, the fight found its unlikely venue in the Philippines, where dictator Ferdinand Marcos saw an opportunity to whitewash the country’s shaky image by hosting a major sporting event, an idea that would be borrowed by Zaire’s strongman Mobutu Sese Seko and his “Rumble in the Jungle” the following year.
Ali’s penchant for provoking his enemies by using offensive rhymes (inaugurated with his “that ain’t no jive…Cooper will go in five” back in his early days before taking on England’s Henry Cooper) was also put to good use on this occasion. when he promised that “it will be a killa and a thrilla and a chilla when I get the gorilla in Manila.” Already used to Ali’s disparaging remarks, Frazier initially dismissed Ali’s tasteless characterization of him as a monkey, but it only took a few rounds of Ali hitting a toy gorilla at press appearances for the whole situation to go under Smokin’ Joe’s skin to come.
The stage was then set for a historic confrontation between two bitter enemies and their Hall of Fame cornermen (Angelo Dundee in Ali’s case, Eddie Futch in Joe Frazier’s). As it turns out, the ring prowess and boxing IQ of these two gentlemen would be put to the test in a chess match that has been given new life in short social media videos over the past few years.
There is almost nothing that hasn’t been written about that fight. The intense heat (as high as 120 F/50 C inside the ring), the devastating pace of the fight, the murderous 12st round, and Ali’s surge in the 13st and 14st as the fight nears its dramatic conclusion are some of the things that have become part of boxing lore over the past half century.
However, the ending itself requires a full chapter of its own.
Frazier had been nearly blind in his left eye since his pre-championship years, and Ali had beaten the right side of his face to a swollen pulp. With his vision severely impaired, Frazier took an unusual amount of punishment in rounds 13 and 14. And when Eddie Futch looked at him before the start of the 15st and last round, Frazier’s vision was as limited as his energy under the brutal and humid heat of the Araneta Coliseum.
In the opposite corner, a similar drama was unfolding, with Ali asking Dundee to “cut up his gloves” in the hope of generating a delaying tactic reminiscent of an episode in the Cooper fight, in which a cut was found on Ali’s glove just after Cooper knocked Ali down. Dundee took his time replacing that glove in that fight, allowing Ali to regain his strength and then stop Cooper in the next round.
But Dundee didn’t want it this time. As he prepared to physically lift Ali off his chair and push him to the center of the ring to expend the last remaining energy of his body in the final round, Futch approached referee Carlos Padilla and waved his hands which Denoting Frazier’s inability to continue. Both men could barely rise to salute each other in the center of the ring, and one of the most extraordinary fights of all time met one of the most dramatic ends in boxing history.
Ali-Frazier III was named Fight of the Year by The Ring, and its 12st round received Round of the Year honours.
However, the place it occupies in history can hardly be measured by the number of awards or articles written about it.
Diego M. Morilla has written for The Ring since 2013. He has also written for HBO.com, ESPN.com and many other magazines, websites, newspapers and outlets since 1993. He is a full member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and a voter for the International Boxing Hall of Fame. He has won two first-place awards in the BWAA’s annual writing contest, and he is the moderator of The Ring’s Women’s Rating Panel. He served as copy editor for the second era of The Ring en Español (2018-2020) and is currently a writer and editor for RingTV.com.
