Thriller in Manilla, C4 last Monday night. Anyone see this?

Great documentary, very well made. Ali seems to have a toxic personality. It was biased towards Frazier but it told the story in an interesting and insighttful way.

 

For people to watch this documentry and it to change their mind on how they view Ali is pretty poor. Couple of things about the doc to see how heavily biased it was to Frazier.

See how many people they had to speak about the fight were with Ali, one i believe. At least 5-6 people spoke from Frazier's camp, son, trainer etc. To show an unbias, fair comparison at least get the number near equal.

Also one guy, i think a journalist, was scoring the final fight and had it equal i where all judges had him up by 5 or more, but they had to choose that guy!Even if there was favouritism towards a fighter then judges only have the fighter up by a round or two. The commentry on the fight also suggested that frazier completely dominated the fight, talked very briefly on the beginning of the fight, when Ali was in complete control.

There was very little talk of the second fight, and that done, blasted Ali for holding to win the fight, which is not true, watch the fight, yes he did hold but he won the fight fairly and it was a very good performance.

Ali talked like that about all his opponents, was it right of him to do so...well it was Ali, it was what made him so unique I enjoyed it and still enjoy it now, when fighters do it, but none as good as him, it what makes a fight, to point this out as a malicous attack on Frazier is wrong, it was just Ali being Ali.

The doc didn't make me sway towards Frazier's favour as it was supposed to but made me a stronger supporter of Ali and made me dislike Frazier even more. After Ali apologised many times for what he said to Frazier and announced his respect to Frazier but Frazier still doesn't accept it, not only that is happy to see Ali in the condition he is now and to say he did it is digusting. Ali fought all the greats of his era in their prime (Liston, Cooper, Foreman, Frazier) and still IS THE GREATEST!! They should rename the doc Thriller in Manilla:Frazier's perspective.

 

i thought the program was awesome really felt sorry for smokin joe deserved better from ali i think if ali watches that he would be ashamed of what he did to joe the thing that had me wanting to punch holes in the t.v was freddie pocheco i think his name is calls himself the fight doctor what a ***** showed no respect to frazier at all some of his comments got me very angry then when he called frazier dumb and said he didnt understand why joe got so upset when ali called him a gorilla and was laughing about it hes a ***** thats been using his connection with ali to earn a few quid for the last 30 years if hes been in boxing for so long he should at least have a ounce of respect for the fighters that line his pockets the mans a disgrace rant over sorry about the grammer im doing my best!

 

Right at the start of the doc, the narrator basically said, this was about Frazier, his story of the FOTC, told from his perspective, they were quite open and up-front about this. I think its because they were working under the assumption that Ali's story had been told, his perspective had already been heard...

That was the angle they approached it at.

 

if you are angry now curtis try reading any of pachechos books! He's a twat of the highest order! A complete tosser who is totally self involved

 

What Ali did was wrong. No denying it. This whole documentary though was shot for the purpose of looking at it from Fraziers perspective, not Ali's. Ali has said he's sorry, obviously it's hard to forgive for Joe but if he regrets it I'm not going to sit here calling him a ****.

I remember a few years ago on BBC they had a program about big fights from the past and I didn't know very much about boxing at the time. There was one on this fight and I didn't know who won at the time, in the pre fight stuff Ali came across as the bad guy to me so I remember getting really upset seeing smokin Joe lose How anyone can say Ali was overrated is beyond me though.

 

Ali, to me, is the greatest HW of all time. He won the title at 22, defended it until he was 27, got his prime years taken away from him and then returned to prove himself the best of the next, and probably the best ever, generation of heavyweights after a 3 year layoff.

He had to employ 2 distinct styles to do this, he was unable to rely on the movement of his youth that had been one of his main attributes when he returned to the ring but was still able to beat the best of the younger fighters.

Alis second reign after the Foreman fights was a case of "muddling through", he didn't train as hard as he could for some fights like Wepner and, I agree, Norton just seemed to have his number but to criticise Ali for any percieved shortcomings after the Foreman fight is to miss the point that he'd done something that no other heavyweight in history had done just to be the champion and beating these guys at his age and after the layoff he'd had.

Ali-Louis is a classic fantasy fight but I don't see 1967 (and still not prime) Ali having any trouble at all outpointing Louis, who had some "iffy" defences himself even with the benefit of staying active throughout his prime.

I agree with you that their was a "cult of personality" surrounding Ali but it was backed up by what he did in the ring over a number of years. H2H against the other 'greats' of the division is always open to question but on accomplishments alone I don't think any other heavyweight in history comes close to Ali.

 

the show is very biased towards fraizer, saying that its normally the other way round

 

If thats the big Walrus dude , then im in.............kept saying this and that devoid of Frazier............He talked of the fight like he was on cash payment !!!!

It was, thaa doctor dude, he seems bitter, i dunno why. Sure he talked of "why he get upset being called a ******"

I cant say or know,i aint black,but a blackman wont accept this, as lineage and respect has shown


nice call

Cheers

 

yep, thats fair enough. I've no problem with Frazier getting his side across, he deserves the opportunity, but that docu shouldn't be held up as a true, unbiased version of events and be reason enough to rip Ali to bits. Besides anything else they were very strange times in America and its easy to sit back now and say what was right or wrong but this was in the middle of the civil rights movement, Malcolm X, the Vietman war, Martin Luthur King being assasinated etc.

 

really good programme, felt bad for joe, Ali was a bit of a wrong un...the fight itself was well covered too, brutal fight..

 

TBH mate the fight wasn't well covered. Ali was winning on all the cards and had just dominated the last 3-4 rounds, the program was very sketchy on those important details.

 

Just finished watching this doc. I thought it was very good. It did seem to be biased towards Frazier but then Ali's has been known for the attitude represented in the documentary. The Nation of Islam used him for propoganda and he didn't seem to realise this. He just wanted to belong to a society after the US had turned it's back on him due to the Vietnam stuff and Elijah Muhammed played on this. It doesn't excuse the way he acted towards Frazier and other opponents though. The documentary made me post a thread about Ferdie Pacheco. I came away from watching the Thrilla in Manila thinking the man is the most self absorbed wanker I've heard in a long time. Just plain obnoxious.

 

I sky plussed it and watched it on Friday night.

Really enjoyed it, I've lost a bit more respect for Ali though after watching it.