The Thrilla in Manila 1-2

The plan:
(subject to change)
The man called Joe Frazier
The Frazier-Ali feud
The sad tale of Patterson I
Joe Frazier: In the beginning
Muhammad Ali: In the beginning
The Frazier-Foreman fight
The sad tale of Patterson II
The sad tale of Patterson III
The Thrilla in Manila
Frazier: life goes on
Ali, Liston and Malcolm X
Mike Tyson goes to war
The sad tale of Teddy Atlas



Ali went into his packed gym for a workout, and if there was any doubt of his mellowing toward Frazier it was dispelled. He hit the gym like a kid bent on chasing the boredom of a late summer afternoon; burn the insect or slowly dissect it of wing and leg? Of all the meanness, racial and personal, directed at Frazier over the years, this one was without duplication. As soon as he climbed into the ring, the crowd chanted his name, and he moved to the edge of the ring as if he were going
to explain the finer parts of a seminar. Gypsy Joe Harris, back in Frazier’s good graces, stood next to me and watched as Ali let the crowd fall to a hush.



The Thrilla in Manila 1-2
The Heavyweights
A series of threads about Frazier, Ali, Patterson and Tyson

​

Frazier

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“Eddie, listen up! Whatever you do, whatever happens,
don’t stop the fight! We got nowhere to go after this. I’m gonna eat
this half-breed’s heart right out of his chest.”
“Joe . . .” Futch said.
“I mean it,” Joe said. “This is the end of him or me.”


“Who am I?” he finally asked. “You know who I am?” “The greatest!” Bundini shouted. “The king of all he see!” The crowd began to chant, responding like one of those crowds that used to greet some Duke of Doo-Wop: “The greatest! The greatest!” It continued until Ali spread his hands for silence. “Gorilla,” he then said. He waited, then came at them with a louder “Gorilla.”
“Joe Frazier!” a guy in the back shouted, looking like an arriviste Hell’s Angel.
“No!” a young white woman with a pasty face, blond hair like
straw, and the decolletage of a barmaid shouted at ringside. “The ape man! Ape! Ape!”
Ali stared above the gathering into infinity, his mouth angry, eyes blank, then screamed: “Joe Frazier should give his face to the Wildlife Fund! He so ugly, blind men go the other way!” Bundini slapped his thighs, the comic in love with his own lines.

“Ugly! Ugly! Ugly!”
Ali went on, then added: “He not only looks bad! You can smell him in another country!” He held his nose. “What will the people in Manila think? We can’t have a gorilla for a champ. They’re gonna think,lookin’ at him, that all black brothers are animals. Ignorant. Stupid.Ugly. If he’s champ again, other nations will laugh at us.” “Call us pig farmers!” the Hell’s Angel bleated. “Can’t have it!” “Jist ******s!” a black guy screamed, tossing a grenade from the rear that extracted a sad expression from Ali. “Ain’t that the truth,” he said. “Jist *****hs and freaks. They gonna say that ’bout me?”
“Nooooooo!” the crowd roared in unison.

“Right on!” Ali agreed, then prepared for his parting shot. “Gorilla,” he said. “Ugly and smelly!” He then dropped low, on his haunches,splayed his feet, knuckles waving by his knees, and turned his nose flat and gross as he mimicked an ape. He jumped frantically around the ring, snorting and puzzled like an ape. The crowd chanted his name, mindless, nearly out of hand and, with Frazier not there to trample to death, it pushed toward the ring. Ali held his hands up, then dropped
one finger to crush his nose again and said: “Settle down now. Be back in a few minutes and show ya how I’m gonna destroy the *****h.”

“Smoke ain’t gonna like this,” Gypsy said, shaking his head.
Did he have to tell him?
“Why you think I’m here?” he said. “Smoke wants to know everything.”
According to Gypsy, he reported back to Joe, who was getting
dressed after a workout. A neat man, he was meticulous about the
way he dressed and appeared. Music was playing, he splashed lotion
on his face, and he was in a high mood.
“What you got, Gyp?” Joe asked.
“He ready to be a corpse,” Gyp said. “Not much left. The right
hand slow. If you ask me.”
“He never looks good in training,” Joe said. “Was he hangin’ on the
ropes like usual?”
“Yeah, you know how he is. Lets them big guys tear at him.”
Joe looked at Futch.
“He won’t be there in Manila,” Futch said.
“What else happenin’?” Joe asked. Gypsy did a little shuffle with
his feet, looked at Eddie.
“Well?”
Joe listened to the abuse Ali had poured on him, then said: “Ya
hear that, Eddie? He’s always after your manhood! Anything else?”
“Well, Smoke,” Gyp started. He hesitated, and Joe snapped at
him, saying: “Gimme it!” Gyp said: “It was a big crowd. Couldn’t
move in the place. He hopped ’round like an ape. Said you not fit to
be champ. And you smell so bad they can smell you in another country.”
Joe turned, gunned a hole in the thin wood of the wall, then
flipped over his desk. Futch tried to calm him. Joe, rubbing his hand,
finally said: “Eddie, listen up! Whatever you do, whatever happens,
don’t stop the fight! We got nowhere to go after this. I’m gonna eat
this half-breed’s heart right out of his chest.”
“Joe . . .” Futch said.
“I mean it,” Joe said. “This is the end of him or me.”
​

Ali

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“I don’t hate Frazier,” he said. “But I don’t like him, either. He’s
got an idea he’s my equal.”


“Why do you pick on black fighters?” he was asked as the jet
slogged on to Manila.
“I pick on everybody,” he said.
“No you don’t. You didn’t have much to say about George
Chuvalo, Jerry Quarry.”
“They behaved themselves,” he said.
“All right, I’ll give you Sonny Liston. He was open season. But
Patterson, Ernie Terrell, what did they do for you to go nuts? You’re
brutal with Frazier.”
“They called me by my slave name, Clay,” he said. “That’s why I
mussed them up so bad.”
“Only after you disrespected them so much.” There was silence.
“Maybe you had to show them you were the Muslim superman, the
cream of the race, not just another get-along black like the rest.”
“We’re stronger, for sure,” he said. “We let you honkies know
where you stand, and the blacks with you.”
“Why’s Frazier so personal to you? Give him a break. He’s just
out there earning a buck. Never said he was the greatest anything.”
“I don’t hate Frazier,” he said. “But I don’t like him, either. He’s
got an idea he’s my equal.” Did Frazier scare him? “Not fear fear.
Only ’cause he ain’t normal. That bothers me. Man takes punches to
the head like him can’t be normal. Too stupid to be normal. Look at
my face. I’m not stupid. I look normal. I’m way too smart for an animal
like him. Nobody wants a champ like him.”
“So why fight him again? For the money?”
“Yeah,” he said. “But mostly ’cause I got to.”
“Herbert?”
“No. Just me, it’s personal,” he said,​

 

Herbert

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I was doing a profile of Herbert in Munich.
He wanted no part of it, with punctuated emphasis from Durham while we shared a taxi to a workout. “Stay away from Herbert,” he said. “Do yourself a favor.” Why? “You want some bad-ass trouble?”
Durham asked.
​

“I find it all rather regrettable,” he said, frowning at the peon trying to turn a buck. Herbert had little use for Ali’s entourage. “You don’t have to be brilliant to hustle Ali,” he said. “He’s a setup.” Who would know that better than he and the Muslims? Over the years, Herbert turned out to be the most proficient harvester of Ali’s sweat and pain. He got 50
percent of Ali’s earnings, and cut Don King, the promoter of many of his fights, 50 percent. King, no soft touch himself or stranger to the bent deal, gave it up to stay in business. He’d go anthropomorphic about Herbert, sometimes with a crazed look in his eyes, and likened him to every overfed animal in the kingdom; out of breath, he settled on Herbert being the king of wayward swag—everyone else’s. Herbert was a subatomic particle in Ali’s life, a certain lethal kind that cannot be seen even under a powerful microscope, their existence known only by their effects. With Herbert, sometimes you
thought you saw something, but look back and all you had was a three-piece suit, a hat, brim up and down over his eyes. Others thought of him as a pudgy member of the old Our Gang cast, and still others viewed him as an insatiable King Farouk. Far too jolly company for a description of the son of Elijah. He fancied white women and rich cuisine. He was the hatchet man for his father and was in New York, perhaps only a coincidence, when Malcolm X was killed. The entourage gave him a wide berth. Ali paid obsequious homage to him, the body in constant bow to the grave digger. Herbert held up the publication of Ali’s autobiography, not content with his subdued role in it; he was forever caught between wanting recognition—and invisibility. He was the architect of the book, and Richard Durham, the Muslim propagandist, was the writer; the editor was Toni Morrison, who it was rumored fingered the pages wearing gloves. I was doing a profile of Herbert in Munich.
He wanted no part of it, with punctuated emphasis from Durham while we shared a taxi to a workout. “Stay away from Herbert,” he said. “Do yourself a favor.” Why? “You want some bad-ass trouble?”
Durham asked.

Don King

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“Eddie ****ed me,​

Eddie Futch confronted Don King over the selection of the referee. But King would rather face public and media jeers than the
wrath of Herbert for a bungle; Herbert, through King, wanted every edge. He had three refs and some judges waiting as guests for Futch’s choice. Marcos had invited members from each camp to visit. Right off, Eddie could see the president was proud of this fight and that he wanted no hitches. Afterward, Futch collared the principal administrator of the fight and said: “Look, this event puts the Philippines in the world spotlight. You need a ref who can control the fight, or else the world will laugh at you.” He told him how Tony Perez had marred the second fight. He got a Filipino referee and judges, while King argued that Filipinos were too small to handle big men, not the best line of attack. Futch extracted even more: Ali’s trunks, per ring specifications, had to be worn below his belly button, and the ropes tightened (so Ali would have no mobility on them). “I want that belly button in plain sight,” Eddie warned again. Chalk up King’s defeat to inexperience, for he was not yet the Satan of loopholes. “Eddie ****ed me,” King would moan at ringside.

Marcos

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I remarked on Ali’s reception at the airport. “If he was Filipino,” he said
dryly, “I’d have to kill him. So popular.” He then said: “That’s a joke
now, of course.”
​

Marcos was with Ali and Frazier only once before the fight, during
a press affair at the palace. It was a sumptuous dwelling, with
marble that echoed to the step blending with rich, crafted wood, and
prominent was a portrait of Imelda set in Mikimoto pearls. Marcos
stood between the pair when something was exchanged between
them, and Frazier said loudly: “I’m gonna whup your half-breed ass
once and for all!” He then abruptly took his leave. Marcos seemed
startled for a moment; he was not used to the naked vow of violence,
just the delivery of it.
​

The Thrilla in Manila 2-2
http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showthread.php?t=327632

next:
Joe Frazier: Life goes on
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Thanks, but the credit belongs to Mark Kram writer of the Ghosts of Manila

 

Your welcome

 

Frazier represented an aspect of himself that he didn't like.

 

Thanks
I never got around to finishing them there are still two more left

Its the side of ali that his fans dont like to deal with

 

I think so. I do know that he really did hate him.