Fight of the Century - It was 40 years ago today.

The Fight of The Century between Muhammad Ali and reigning champion 'Smokin' Joe Frazier was a lazy 40 years ago today.

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The world stopped and watched as Ali, on the comeback trail following his recess due to 'draft' issues, took on the undefeated and reigning WBC & WBA champ Joe Frazier.

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Who's old enough to remember this great event around here?

I certainly remember it like it was yesterday, and there's never been a bout since that had anywhere near the amount of interest.

 

Saw this in the other forum:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olaZUjFaZLU&feature=player_embedded[/ame]



...well worth a watch, and if you liked it enough there's 3 more parts to it on Youtube.

 

These 2 gave us some Great battles,there hatred of each other was evident every time they fought,Ali was undefeated until Joe defeated him on this day,great memories.!!!!

 

ali - frazier against klitschko - haye , the whole world watched in awe against no ******* gives a toss who wins.

 

Too true.

Ali vs Frazier was front page news. Klit vs Haye will get some space in the sports pages I guess.

 

It hasn't always been this way. Much of it is down to how pathetic the division is. When Tyson and Holyfield were fighting, there were pages of information about it. Same with the Lewis fights. Things go in cycles. When the division is strong again and has fighters that capture the public's imagination, it'll receive more press. I think this fight will do fairly well.

 

The division is not only thin, it is uninteresting to fight fans, let alone the general public.

There's just a tad of the old 'great white hope' about challenger's taking titles from the dominant and clinically boring Klitschkos.

No doubt the English tabuloids will go nuts about their boy Haye's chances. But it won't get front of the paper type coverage here unless Haye actually pulls off the upset.

 

I'm not saying it's need's a Tyson for his 'outside of the ring' antics, (he was like a car wreck at times, but you just had to keep watching!) but the HW division needs a one man wrecking machine like Tyson was in his prime to come along again and truly excite the division, the fans and the TV networks (unfortunately, this will have to make him American).

 

If Haye did happen to KO Wlad the UK would go into a frenzy, and I think it'd be fairly big sports news here too.

You're right though, the Yanks interest will be moderate until it's one of their own.

 

Good story taken from ESPN Boxing.com (Most of this is context from Angelo Dundee / Bert Sugar's book which is a great read also -

The day boxing's 'mothership' landed

By Kieran Mulvaney

Forty years ago Tuesday, hours before the bell rang for "The Fight of the Century," Muhammad Ali and his trainer, Angelo Dundee, paced around the empty arena at Madison Square Garden, counting the seats.

Back then, weigh-ins took place on the morning of the fight; under normal circumstances, both fighters would stand on the scale, get dressed, walk across the street to the hotel where they were staying and then return to the Garden to prepare for the contest.

Ali got the better of the action early, but Joe Frazier eventually wore down the challenger and put him on the canvas in Round 14.

But these were not normal circumstances.

"The arena was completely surrounded by humanity," Dundee recalled. "Joe Frazier left, and he could walk right through them; they wouldn't bother him. But my guy, they wouldn't let loose. So I told [Ali friend and adviser] Drew Brown: 'Go back to the hotel, get all the equipment and bring it back. We're going to stay here.' We never left the arena. They fed us at the Sporting Club there. I let him lay down on the rub-down table. And we walked around the arena to walk off the food."

"It was chock-a-block," said boxing historian Bert Sugar, at that time the publisher of Boxing Illustrated magazine. "Everybody who was anybody was there. They were scalping hundred-dollar tickets for a thousand dollars outside. I saw one lady hold up her hand with her ticket to come in, and somebody grabbed it from her and ran. There were people coming in with white ermine coats and matching hats, and that was just the guys. Limousines lined up at Madison Square Garden for what seemed like 50 blocks."

Helping feed the frenzy in the buildup to the clash was the Garden's brilliant public relations man, John Condon, who took full advantage of Ali's willingness to engage in pre-fight hype.

"John Condon was a great PR guy. He was fantastic, but he had us doing everything except shining shoes on the street corner," Dundee said, chuckling. "The Poetry Society wanted to talk to us. The UFO Society wanted to talk to us. [Ali had once claimed to see a UFO when jogging in Central Park.] It was a joy, but let me tell you, that final week in New York was hazardous. We had people around us every minute of the day. Imagine going to Central Park and all the UFO people were there, wanting to talk to him: the mothership, the mothership. There was supposedly a mothership circling the Earth, and they wanted to talk to him about it."

At one point, Condon even hatched a plan for Ali to announce that he would be running for president in 1976. Ali loved the idea, but the idea was nixed by the Nation of Islam on the grounds that none of its members, including Ali, were allowed to run for public office -- or even pretend to for publicity purposes.

By the time the fight was ready to begin, the atmosphere in the arena was electric and unprecedented in the amount of celebrity attention it had attracted.

"There was Frank Sinatra shooting photographs for Life magazine," Sugar said. "There was Burt Lancaster doing commentary for closed circuit, because [the fight's promoter] Jerry Perenchio was his agent. Diana Ross was in the row down from me. Former vice president Hubert Humphrey was in the third row of the balcony. And you couldn't even hear the introductions for all the screaming and hollering."

Frazier, the defending champion, was a 7-5 favorite over Ali, who had looked unexceptional the previous year in his first two bouts since returning from an enforced 3½-year fistic exile for refusing induction into the armed forces. But in the early going, it was "The Greatest" who held the upper hand.

"The early rounds were all Muhammad," Dundee said. "He taunted the guy. He was playing with the guy early, patting him on the head and everything. I was giving him hell."

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But Frazier would prove a relentless force, barreling forward, backing Ali to the ropes, ripping his trademark left hooks to Ali's body and head. On this night, even Ali's taunting, which had bedeviled Frazier during the buildup, had met its match.

"God wants you to lose," Ali said during a clinch.

"Tell your God he's in the wrong house tonight," Frazier said, resuming his assault.

The fight was in the balance until a crunching Frazier left hook staggered Ali in the 11th -- although "Smokin' Joe" may not have immediately realized the extent to which he had hurt his foe.

"Ali was playing to the house so much that when Frazier hurt him in the 11th round and his legs wobbled, Frazier thought he was fooling him," Sugar said.

"I don't know how he survived that 11th round, I swear to God," Dundee said.

Survive Ali did, and he even managed to stage a rally in the 14th, but another crunching hook dropped him in the final round. Although Ali hauled himself to his feet, Frazier had secured the win.

Ali and Frazier would meet twice more, their trilogy concluding in a stifling indoor arena in the Philippines, Ali prevailing after 14 rounds in what may well have been the greatest heavyweight fight of all time.

As an event, however, nothing since has touched their first contest.

There are multiple reasons March 8, 1971, plays such a memorable role in boxing history. The fight involved two undefeated heavyweight champions, of course, one of whom was perhaps the most electrifying and polarizing personality in the history of professional sports. But more importantly were the broader social issues, the schisms in the country over civil rights and the conflict in Vietnam that for 59 minutes were played out in proxy by two men -- one of whom was the draft-refusing Muslim convert and one of whom was supported by "the establishment" simply because he was not -- in the center of a ring in midtown Manhattan.

It is difficult to conceive of a scenario today in which a fight could possibly assume such immense societal significance. Dundee, whose legendary 5th Street Gym in Miami recently reopened, chuckles as he imagines the one situation that could possibly eclipse that night 40 years ago.

"I'm looking for the green man that comes from Mars and challenges for the title," he said with a laugh. "I want to handle that sucker."

 

Mate, you know what the Yanks are like, nothing happens outside of America!

Look at the smear campaign/fear mongering the Mayweathers have to resort to over Pacquiao...

If the Yanks can't be the best at it, there simply is no interest in it then, or it's just not possible, simply because someone else maybe better!

 

Another great piece from the Sydney Morning Herald -


40 years on, Ali and Joe still a classic

Tim Dahlberg

March 8, 2011

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Joe Frazier is directed to the ropes by after knocking down Muhammad Ali during the 15th round of their title bout in Madison Square Garden in New York City.
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In his hotel room the morning after, Muhammad Ali nursed a swollen jaw as the waiter arrived with breakfast and good wishes for the man he called champ.

"I'm not the champ," Ali corrected him. "Joe Frazier is the champ."

Indeed he was, and if anyone needed a reminder the morning papers provided it with a picture as shocking to Ali's adoring fans as his defeat the night before.

There was Ali glassy-eyed and struggling to get up from the canvas in the 15th round as Frazier walked to a neutral corner more certain than ever of victory.

"There were a couple of knockdowns really," Frazier said, chuckling at the thought.

"They called the first one a slip. But it was the left hook that made him slip."

It was 40 years ago on Tuesday that Ali and Frazier met at Madison Square Garden in a fight so big it was simply referred to as "The Fight".

It was Frazier's heavyweight title that was on the line, but a lot of boxing fans still considered Ali the champion because he was stripped of the title and sent into boxing exile for refusing to be drafted.

Frazier was undefeated and in his prime, a relentless aggressor with a vicious left hook.

Ali, in just his third fight since the three-year layoff, was a polarising figure who was hated by some just as much as he was loved by others.

"A lot of 'em want me whipped because of the draft," Ali said before the fight.

"A lot of 'em want me whipped because of religion. A lot of 'em want me whipped because I'm black ... and for other reasons that I might not even know about."

They would go on to meet two more times, including the memorable Thrilla in Manilla.

But nothing could match the stakes that March night at the Garden, where Frank Sinatra shot pictures at ringside, celebrities jockeyed for prime seats, and almost as many men as women wore full-length fur coats.

Prime seats were $150 - an astonishing sum at the time - and they could have sold them for twice that price.

Tickets were so scarce that Frank Costello, reputed boss of the Luciano crime family and a fight regular, could only get two seats instead of his usual four.

There seemed no way the fight could live up to the hype. But Ali and Frazier made sure it did.

Frazier was on the attack the whole night, stalking Ali and hitting him with left hooks anytime he got close.

Ali clowned at times, but his jab kept finding the mark and he landed some right hands to the head that would have dropped other fighters.

Frazier, though, was not going to be denied. He hurt Ali badly in the 11th round - the same round Ali slipped on a wet spot and went to the canvas - and landed a crushing left hook 25 seconds into the 15th round that put Ali down for real.

Ali got up and finished the fight, but his jaw was swollen like a grapefruit and, when the scorecards were announced, Frazier had won a unanimous decision.

"Ali lost but it was still one of his greatest moments," said retired Associated Press boxing writer Ed Schuyler Jr., who was ringside.

"He had fought only twice after coming back from more than three years off and he went 15 rounds with a guy at the top of his game."

That Ali wasn't quite the fighter he was before his layoff may not have made a difference.

Ali still had the skills to beat almost every other fighter, but he couldn't overcome Frazier's sheer determination.

"If Joe Frazier would have fought King Kong he would have knocked him out that night," said Gene Kilroy, who was a friend of both men and later became Ali's business manager.

"Nothing was going to stop Joe Frazier."

Ali is 69 now, living in Arizona and suffering from the debilitating effects of Parkinson's syndrome, a movement disorder causing tremors of the hands, arms and legs and stiffness.

Frazier, who slurs his words at times, is 67 and lives in Philadelphia, where, on a recent day, he answered the phone after doing 25 minutes on an exercise bicycle.

Frazier said he planned to go to parties in New York and Philadelphia to celebrate the night that still defines his life today.

"I can't go nowhere where it's not mentioned," Frazier said. "That was the greatest thing that ever happened in my life."

Not that all his moments with The Greatest were all that great.

Frazier was bitter over things Ali said about him while promoting their fights, and he carried a grudge for many years.

But he says he's moved on.

"I forgive him," Frazier said. "He's in a bad way."

Asked what they would talk about if they met, Frazier just laughed.

They would, of course, talk about the same thing everyone wants to talk to Joe Frazier about.

The greatest night of his life.

And a fight so great it remains The Fight.

 

A couple of great articles there Contendo.

Ali wrote the script for boxing promotion - yes there champions before and some promoted themselves well - but Ali was certainly 'The Man', 'The Greatest'.

Crazy days indeed!

 

I like Joe's quote(many years later) about Ali in Joes' book,'Smokin' Joe'...."I wanna rumble that sucker....tear him apart piece by piece and send him back to jesus"...not all that forgiving..haha

 

Ali got a lot right. But IMO one thing he got wrong was not embracing 'Smokin' Joe after they'd retired, and Joe was certainly bitter as a result.