"It's a Thrilla"
Smokin' Joe Finally Takes Center RingHBO aires 'Thrilla in Manilla' as told through Frazier's eyes... Listening to Joe Frazier talk about his legendary third bout against arch-rival Muhammad Ali on that sweltering morning in the Phillipines back in 1975, you get the impression that he's still upset about the controversial decision. Many still contest the outcome, saying Frazier was the clear victor. However, the judges along with much of the world, saw things differently as they watched the two galant men battle together (nearly to the death) inside the humid capital city's Araneta Coliseum. "I really didn't watch the fight because I didn't like the way it finished," Frazier remarked when asked why he never bothered to watch the footage until now. "God marks it down," Frazier
This furiously paced contest between Frazier, the heavy-handed slugger with the devastating left hook and the ever kinetic Ali, ended with both combatants brutally battered and barely able to move about for days afterwards. Frazier claims that he never forgave his trainer and cornerman, Eddie Futch, for stopping the fight at the end of the 14th round. With one of Frazier's eyes completely swollen shut by then, Futch made a rational choice to throw in the towl for his fighter. Meanwhile, Ali was suffering in his corner from all the intense punishment that Frazier had relentlessly inflicted to his body. "It'll be a thriller, and a killer, and a chiller when I get that gorilla in Manilla," Ali
Fueled by Ali's "showboating" of repeated insults and verbal mockery towards Frazier all the way up to the bell as well as during the fight, their rivalry ensued for decades. This always frustrated Frazier who remembers defending Ali at a time when the charasmatic fighter was forced to relinquish his Championship Belt after refusing to register for the draft during the Vietnam War. At another time, Frazier claims he even loaned a down-and-out Ali some money to help him get by. When asked why he'd be so generous to the man who once mocked him as a "gorilla" Frazier solemly replied in his trademark gravelly tone,"That's what being a M-A-N is about. I'm not like those new fighters where the man is down, you kick him around." "We were the kind of guys that brought out the best in all the fights," Frazier
The last fight between Smokin' Joe Frazier and the always charismatic Ali is the subject of a new documentary called "Thrilla in Manila" making its debut on HBO, an in-depth look inside the backstory of a historical championship boxing match between the two icons. "Thrilla in Manilla" details Frazier's true first-hand accountings leading up to the vicious 1975 fight, including his views on Ali's over-the-top media personality and Frazier's own impoverished background, which some claim may have helped to split public opinons along social and racial lines among many Boxing fans at the time. "Thrilla in Manilla" hits upon much of the well-hyped controversy surrounding the fight and its two colorful central rival charactors, while it effectively displays the contradictions in each of their personas. The documentary, directed by John Dower and narrated by Liev Schreiber, also depicts the contrasts between the very different circumstances of the two ex-champions today. Ali suffering from advanced Parkinson's disease, remains a beloved figure, while Frazier lives rather modestly in a backroom of the building where he's owned a gym, still exuberantly training young fighters, in Philadelphia. |
