A question to those who were alive during Ali-Frazier I

Dempsey and Ali were considered unpopular in their time weren't they?

As for Louis, it was the 30's and there really wasn't anything at the time. It was the dark ages so these people were downright desperate for hope of any kind to get their minds off of reality.

 

Longhorne, do you have the footage of the fight from Sunday Night theatre version? It covers interviews with Yank Duraham, Cooke, Archie Moore, and Burt Lancaster who insisted on cleaning Fraziers hat. Added bonus was Frazier's sparring session with Holmes.

 

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1. It dwarfed anything at the time including any World Series or Super Bowl

2. Gosh I sound old saying this...There was no cable TV or internet for the “average” fan to be informed or to build up hype, but as the fight got closer it was the big sports conversation with everybody.

3. No Superfight since has ever been bigger considering the fighters backgrounds and the time. Plus it was in my lifetime it was my first Superfight. And like anything you love, your first is always special.

4. All the guys my Dad would talk to (VFW, American Legion, etc) all seemed to have a dislike for Ali. (Most still called him Clay)I was only 12 but I knew their narrow minded views were wrong and my father would laugh when I would do my Ali imitation.

5. The closest Closed Circuit telecast was 45 miles away and I knew my Dad couldn’t afford it so I just waited to hear the next day.

6. Watching it later (Wide World of Sports??) I thought at times the only thing keeping him from going down was the fact that Joe was still punching him.

 

He was not recognized as that big by many fans and boxing people, but did have a big following among celebrities and sportwriters. Dempsey bought sport into mainstream, it was not as followed before him.


Ali being known on all corners of earth is something press always put out here in States. When my family was in Spain during his rematch with Spinks, they had to keep asking people who won, and it was not covered that much in papers. Yet press over here kept saying 'all over the world people are in suspense, and fllowing closley..."


He is more famous now than Louis and Dempsey, that is due to passage of time, and politics.

 

That and having a modern media to exploit, which Ali was VERY good at. He was also a great boxer, however, so it was a combination of the two.

 

Red Rooster....thanks for the "heads-up" on the Sunday Night
theatre version....I would like to have seen it.

I think Burt Lancaster was one of those "calling the fight".

 

I was at the fight with my wife and we had pretty good seats. I still have the ticket stubs. I was 31 at the time and had been to many fights before that. Lots of those fights were at MSG. The fight that had the closest emotional level to Ali/Frazier but prior to Ali/Frazier was Patterson/Chuvalo in 1965. There was electricity in the air at the 1971 Ali/Frazier fight. You could feel. It was like you were one of about 20,000 people in a world of people that wanted to be there. It turned out to be the greatest important fight i ever went to. There were other fights that were just as good but the worlds attention was not on those fights. About a month or so before the fight, I went up to Concord Hotel in the Liberty N.Y. area and watched Frazier train. You could immediately see his intensity. He wore a rubber sweat suit and eeven as the took his gloves off after sparring, he was bending from left to right at the hips so he would not be idle even for a moment ot two. I said to myself right there, " this guy is ready to win". He was clearly a driven man. Shortly after my visit to the concord, Frazier changed his training camp to i think Florida. The reason was that there was so much snow at the concord, that he coulddn't get his road work in. I had my binoculars with me at the fight (still have them and always say these binoculars were at the 1st Ali/Frazier fight) With those binoculars, i looked around at all the celebs like Sinatra and Burt Lancaster and many others. It was the whole package that made it so memorable. I rooted for Frazier and was very happy for him. However, Frazier took the more severe beating that night. He wound up in the hospital for about a week with some kidney problems. He was still good after that fight but never in my view atleast, quite the same fighter.

 

Frank, glad to see that another poster besides me was at that fight in 1971. What a night to remember. I sat in the end balcony with my binoculars,rooting for Joe Frazier whom I saw in the Olympics finals against Buster Mathis in 1964 at the World's Fair site in Flushing, NY. I remember walking into the MSG, and seeing all those wild fur coats on the spectators, and most of them on MEN. A wild and exciting night to remember, second only to the great fight I saw between Ray Robinson and Randy Turpin in their return bout in the old Polo Grounds,Sept,1951. I was sitting about 10 rows in back of Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Ah memories....

 

It was one of biggest events I can remember. It had everyone glued to radios unless they were at fight, I can't remember if they had closed circuit for it. News stations were doing updates.

 

****, you are pathetic.

 

I was three months shy of my sixteenth birthday,and already a big Ali fan.
Yes,it was the biggest thing ever to have been played out on the planet,as far as sports went. I wanted Ali to win,although I was already boxing savvy enough to realise that Muhammad still needed one or two more fights before he was ready. Lewis-Tyson was nothing compared to this. Most of us knew that Tyson was shot by this time,and with Ali-Frazier it was apparent that Joe was at his very best,and Muhammad was still a very dangerous figure,albeit ring rusty. Even non boxing fans were talking about this fight.

 

I respect your point,Conteh but look at it as payback for Ali being villified all those years for having the balls to stand up for what he believed in. Yes,a lot of casual fans have become Ali nuthuggers in recent years,but those of the same mentality hated him up until the early seventies or so.

 

Yeah. The fights occured within days of each other,did n't they ? I recall Harry Carpenter making some comment about boxing legends being eclipsed !

 

So it takes "balls",for a person not to serve your country as every law abiding citizen did ? Only a naive person would believe such nonsense, when the fact that he was under the influence of the Nation of Islam who swayed Cassius Clay. A law breaker is a law breaker, plain and simple. Do you not realize that another shnook who observed the law had to take his darn place ? What country can long exist if everyone decided to serve only the war's they deemed justified ? We would have anarchy eventually.That's
what !.Ali is your hero, not mine,or millions of others who had the mindset of my hero's,of the second world war,who seved even though they would have relished the idea os staying home with their loved one's, I included.
In the second world war ,there was a famous actor Lew Ayres. He became a
conscientious objector who volunteered for Ambulance service, thus not having to kill anyone in battle. He drove an ambulance in many battles in Europe in WW2,and saved lives. He Lew Ayres was a true patriot, not an Ali,who didn't serve his country under the guise of his "religion",whilst
trying to maim opponents in the ring for money.
I have seen Cassius Clay/Ali fight and he was a brave soul in the ring,
and feel sorry for his condition today, but he was no hero in the nation for millions of ex serviceman who served,and who most all of us lost someone they knew in WW2 and after. Obey the law,and if you don't like the law,
vote the bum's out. That is democracy in action.
I believe in what the immortal Winston Churchill so aptly said
"democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the other forms"
and what is good enough for Sir Winston ,is good enough for me...Cheers.

 

I'm always saying that,against each other,Frazier was obviously at his best in the first one,and Ali was at his in fight number 2.

A year or so ago I did a thread featuring the 1971 Frazier v the 1974 Ali.