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The epic 1975 boxing match between Muhammad Aliand Smokin’ Joe Frazier – the Thriller in Manila – wasfamously brutal both inside and outside the ring, as a newdocumentary shows. Neither man truly recovered, and nordid their friendship. At 64, Frazier shows no signs of forgetting– but can he ever forgive?

COLD AND DARK,THE BIG BUILDING ONNorth Broad Street in Philadelphia is closed now, thebattered blue canvas ring inside empty and unusedfor the first time in more than 40 years. On theoutside, the boxing glove motifs and the black lettersthat spell out the words ‘Joe Frazier’s Gym’ in castconcrete are partly covered by a ‘For Sale’ banner.

‘It’s shut down,’ Frazier tells me,‘and I’m goingto sell it.The highest bidder’s got it.’The gym iswhere Frazier trained before becoming WorldHeavyweight Champion in 1970; later, it would alsobe his home: for 23 years he lived alone, upstairs, ina three-storey loft apartment. But in the end, he says,he just got sick of paying for the place. It cost him$150,000 a year in electricity alone. He spent yearstraining young fighters, only to have them turn theirbacks on him, and sign with big-name managers,when it came time to turn professional.‘And I’m lefthere trying to build another fighting champion.AndI didn’t think it was right.’

At 64, Joe is cheerful and sharply dressed, in ablack suit and cowboy hat, matched with a broadtie bearing a geometric design in gold lamé.Thesedays, he says he’s bearing up well:‘Not bad for anold guy. Not bad for an old guy at all.’And yet,when he speaks, Frazier is frequently difficult tounderstand; words come out mushy and mangled.

Inside the gym, the walls around the ring are stillhung with framed pictures and memorabilia ofSmokin’ Joe Frazier’s decades in boxing. On onewall hangs a dusty row of giant boxing glovespainted with names and dates commemoratingFrazier’s bouts with some of the most famousnames in heavyweight boxing: Frazier v JerryQuarry, Madison Square Garden, 23 June, 1969;Frazier v George Foreman, Nassau Coliseum, NY,15 June, 1976; Frazier v Muhammad Ali, Manila,1 October, 1975. But it is Ali, who now lives in theArizona desert – surrounded by experts to treat thesymptoms of the Parkinson’s disease he suffers as aresult of the traumatic punches he took to the headduring his years in the ring – with whom Frazierwill always be linked.

Over the course of four years during the goldenera of heavyweight boxing, the two men met threetimes.The final bout – the ‘Thrilla in Manila’ – wasone of the greatest and most brutal boxing matchesof all time, and ended with Frazier’s defeat.Thefights and the public spectacle that surrounded themresulted in a bitter and personal enmity, which droveone of the longest-running feuds in sporting history.When I suggest to Frazier that, in all his years asa fighter,Ali was one of only two men whosucceeded in beating him, Smokin’ Joe is quick tocorrect me.‘He didn’t beat me … Look at him,’ hesays.‘Look at me now. How did he beat me?’

Frazier’s route to the heavyweight championship

of the world, like that of Ali – born Cassius Clayin Kentucky – began in the segregated heartlandof the Deep South. Born in 1944, Frazier grewup on 10 acres of unyielding farmland in ruralSouth Carolina, the 11th of 12 children raised ina six-room house with a tin roof and no runningwater.As a boy, he played dice and cards and taughthimself to box, dreaming of being the next JoeLouis. In 1961, at 17, he moved to Philadelphia.Frazier was taken in by an aunt, and talkedhis way into a job at Cross Brothers, a kosherslaughterhouse.There, he worked on the killingfloor, where the cattle were chained up, headsraised so that the rabbi could slit their throats, andin the cold store, where he practised his punching,the split sides of beef hanging overhead standing infor a heavy bag.

Years later, Sylvester Stallone would incorporatethis – and Frazier’s subsequent habit of running upand down the steps of the Philadelphia art museum– into the script of Rocky, forever cementingelements of Frazier’s life into a cliché of theunderdog fighter. But for Frazier, already marriedby 19, with the first of an eventual 11 children tosupport, the struggle was real enough, and inboxing he glimpsed a chance of escaping a life ofexhausting manual labour and borderline poverty.

At only 5ft 11in, Frazier was small for aheavyweight fighter, with a short reach that madeit difficult for him to bring taller opponents withineffective range of his punishing left hook. But hemade up for it by developing a relentless, aggressivestyle.Today, Frazier says it was his unremitting,high-volume punching technique that led hismanager,Yank Durham, to coin Smokin’ Joe’snickname:‘He’d always say,“All right, goddammit!I want you to go out and make smoke come fromthem gloves, understand?’’’

In the summer of 1964, Frazier qualified for theUS Olympic boxing team and went on to wingold in the heavyweight finals in Tokyo.When hegot back to America, he turned pro.At the end ofhis first fight, he took home $125.

Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali first met inMarch 1967 at Madison Square Garden, the nightafter Ali’s ninth successful defence of his worldheavyweight title in just three years. Frazier wasemerging as a serious contender for thechampionship, but Durham was in no hurry tohave him meet Ali in the ring.Ali was at his peak –apparently unbeatable – and had already establishedhis reputation as ‘The Greatest’.When the twowere introduced,Ali snapped Frazier’s braces andtold him he was too small for him – ‘but we’llmake some money anyway’.Ali began talking up apotential match to the press, telling anyone whowould listen that Smokin’ Joe wanted to take his

WORDS ADAM HIGGINBOTHAM PORTRAIT STEFAN RUIZ

MUHAMMAD ALI

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‘Not bad for an old guy’ Despite his battle scars,

Joe Frazier says he’s bearing up well

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title.Today, Frazier says he was unmoved by this:‘He was a noisemaker ... I look at it this way – anempty wagon goin’ down a road makes a lot ofnoise; ain’t nothin’ in it. So I didn’t pay noattention to him. I really think that he was afraidof me, the way he carried on.’

But by the time of that first meeting,Ali was alsoat the centre of a national controversy over hisrefusal to accept the US Army draft to fight inVietnam, and a month later, he was charged witha felony, and stripped of his title and his boxinglicence; so began what would become a three-yearexile from the sport.

In his absence, Frazier embarked upon a series offights that would allow him to compete for thenow-vacant title, and on 16 February, 1970, he beatAli’s former sparring partner Jimmy Ellis by atechnical knock-out to become the heavyweightchampion of the world.Watching the fight onclosed-circuit television in a Philadelphia cinema,Ali leapt into the aisle and began shadowboxing forthe crowd:‘I want that Joe Frazier!’ he shouted.‘I’m starting my comeback now!’

But in the meantime, Frazier and the exiled

Madison Square Garden, and there was everyreason to expect it to fulfil its billing as ‘The Fightof the Century’. Both fighters had been undefeatedin the ring, and both could justly claim to be worldheavyweight champion:Ali had left in 1967 as oneof the fastest and most mesmerising heavyweightsof all time, and Frazier had since built a reputationas a terrifying puncher – his last opponent hadbeen knocked out with such force that he returnedto the dressing-room unable to remember that he’dbeen in the fight at all. But by the time the firstAli-Frazier bout took place, the fighters had also

Afterwards,Ali immediately went to have hisswollen jaw X-rayed. Frazier, who had sufferedfrom high blood pressure before the fight, couldneither stand, eat nor drink and was checked intohospital, where he lay on a bed of ice for 24 hoursand remained in a critical condition for weeks. Butit was an astonishing upset:Ali had been beaten forthe first time in his career, and Frazier could finallysay that he was the undisputed heavyweightchampion of the world.At the post-fight pressconference, he was asked if he would fight Aliagain.‘I’ve got to live a little, man,’ he replied.‘I’vebeen working for 10 long years.’

With the $2.5 million he earned from the fight,Frazier bought an abandoned plantation houseback in South Carolina, and another home with aswimming pool shaped like a boxing glove. InPhiladelphia, the city hosted ‘Joe Frazier Day’. ButFrazier had little opportunity to enjoy his title.While Ali privately acknowledged that he hadbeen badly beaten, in public he successfully

champion had become friends – or something likeit.‘Well – I wouldn’t say friends,’ says Frazier now.‘We were talkin’ buddies. Because I helped him gethis licence back.’

While Ali continued to fight the BoxingCommission’s decision through the courts, Fraziertells me he petitioned President Nixon on Ali’sbehalf.‘I went to the White House and had coffeewith him and the wife and the kids. I asked him,would he please give Muhammad his licence? Andhe said,“Well, Joe, do you think you can takehim?” I said,“I’ve got him in my back pocket.Allyou have to do is give him a licence”.’

Ali moved to Philadelphia for a time and Frazierlent him money when he needed it; the two alsodiscussed how, when Ali returned to boxing, theywould finally meet in the ring for a big payday, andsplit the purse straight down the middle. But wellbefore he was finally permitted to return to boxing,in October 1970,Ali’s publicity-seeking agitationfor a fight with Frazier grew more heated. In 1969Ali appeared on local radio in Philadelphia, callingFrazier a clumsy fighter, a coward and an UncleTom.When Ali called him out to meet at the PALgym, to have a fight then and there, Frazier rushedacross town to find Ali surrounded by a crowd of1,000 people. Frazier tore off his shirt to fight,before the police and then Yank Durhamintervened. Smokin’ Joe was furious at beinghumiliated in his hometown.

Ali and Frazier’s contest for the heavyweightchampionship was scheduled for 8 March, 1971, at

come to representopposing sides in thepolitical and socialconflict that hadpolarised America since Ali went into exile.Aspopular opposition to the war in Vietnam grew,Ali’s once-extreme pacifist stance was viewed withincreasing sympathy, and made him an icon ofblack radicalism and white counterculture.Unwittingly, Frazier – more because of who hewas against than of what he was for – became asymbol of black conservatism,‘hard-hat’ patriotismand support for the bloodbath in Southeast Asia.

In the run-up to the fight, Frazier receivedanonymous threats that he would be murdered ifhe beat Ali, and he and his family were givenpolice protection.

The night itself was a celebrity-packed spectaclethat brought New York to a halt. Burt Lancastercommentated, Frank Sinatra attended as aphotographer for Life magazine; it attracted a globaltelevision audience of about 300 million in 50countries.The referee later described the fight asthe most vicious he had ever seen. During theconversations I have with Frazier, it’s only whendiscussing this initial bout with Ali that, his eyesflashing with excitement, he becomes trulyanimated.‘It wasn’t one punch – it was two punches,’he says, recalling the moment when he knocked Alidown for only the third time in his career.

That 15th-round knock-down clinched the fightfor Frazier, who won by a unanimous decision.

undermined Joe’s victory, claiming that he hadbeen robbed of a win by a bad decision and thewhite establishment. Months after the fight, BlackSports magazine carried a cover story entitled,‘IsJoe Frazier a white champion in black skin?’

IN JANUARY 1973,AFTER FACING Afurther four title challengers, Frazier met the24-year-old George Foreman, who specialised inknocking out opponents in the second round.It proved a cruel mismatch of styles: Foremanbattered Frazier down six times in the opening tworounds. Foreman was heard to shout,‘Stop it, orI’m going to kill him’, before the fight was broughtto an end. Smokin’ Joe had been relieved of hisheavyweight title in just four minutes and35 seconds.

It was almost exactly a year later that Frazier andAli met in the ring for the second time, and bythen both were damaged goods:Ali had beenbeaten again, by ex-US Marine Ken Norton, andhad his jaw broken in the process. But theantagonism between the two remained real andundiminished: five days before the fight, during anappearance on a television sports programme, Alicalled Frazier ‘ignorant’, and Frazier grappled himto the floor before they were separated.Therematch itself was scrappy and, justly, uncelebrated:

Ali undermined Joe’svictory, claiming hehad been robbed by abad decision and thewhite establishment

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one prospect after another to the drugs and crimeon the streets of Philadelphia – including his ownson, Joe Junior.

Ferdie Pacheco told Ali that he should quit afterManila, but he wouldn’t listen.Ali fought on, facinganother 10 opponents – eventually losing andregaining the world title for a third time. Later,when the boxing-related symptoms of Parkinson’sbegan to slowly rob him of movement and speech,he explicitly blamed his decline on blows to thehead he took that day in the Philippines.

But Frazier had no sympathy for his formeropponent. For decades he nursed a corrosivegrudge over the way he had been treated – by Aliand by history.The depth of Frazier’s loathingbecame public in 1996, when he published hisautobiography, in which he referred to Ali by his‘slave name’, Clay, throughout, and concluded:‘People ask me if I feel sorry for him. Nope. Fact is,I don’t give a damn.They want me to love him,

but I’ll open up the graveyard and bury his asswhen the Lord chooses to take him.’ In aninterview that same year, he cocked his left armand announced that Ali was suffering from ‘JoeFrazier-itis’; and when a trembling Ali reached outto light the flame at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics,Frazier said that he wished Ali had lit the torch andthen fallen in.

But over the years,Ali offered repeated apologiesto Frazier in print and, in 2002, more than threedecades after their first fight, the two men wereseen sitting together at an NBA All-Star basketballgame in Philadelphia.And when Ali had troublestanding up, Frazier supported him.

Today, Frazier himself suffers from diabetes andhigh blood pressure. He walks with difficulty, usinga steel cane – the handle topped with a cast of aChinese dragon – as a result of a car accident in2003, in which he fractured his spine. But he stillmakes it to the gym a couple of times a week:‘I’mas strong as two bulls!’When I ask him if, finally, hehas truly forgiven Ali, he’s clear and enthusiastic.‘Oh yes, oh yes,’ he says.‘I forgive him, sure.’

As to whether he still believes, as he certainlyonce did, that Ali’s voice has been silenced indivine punishment for the things he once said,Smokin’ Joe is more circumspect.‘Well ... I’m notsure ... God works in a mysterious way.’

‘True Stories:Thriller in Manila’ is on More4,Tuesday,10pm

champion dropped the apparently invincibleGeorge Foreman in a sensational eighth-roundknockout to win the world heavyweight title forthe second time in his career. By the time heagreed to meet Frazier for a third fight, scheduledfor 1 October, 1975, in the Philippines,Ali hadbecome one of the most recognised and well-lovedcelebrities on Earth.And yet, today, the way hetreated Frazier in the prelude to the ‘Thrilla inManila’ – as presented in a new documentarydirected by John Dower – is uncomfortable towatch, shot through with race hatred:Ali begansaying that Frazier was no more than an ape, anugly, lumbering idiot who brought shame on blackAmericans. For the benefit of television cameras,he produced a small rubber gorilla doll which hebattered with his fist.

Attended by 28,000 people, the fight wasscheduled at 10am for the benefit of a globalaudience viewing it live via satellite; thetemperature inside the stadium reached more than100F, heat of such energy-sapping ferocity that theboxers’ gloves became waterlogged, sloshing withtheir own sweat. In the opening rounds, thechampion dominated, hitting Frazier with sharpjabs to the head. But, grinning and snorting, Frazierkept coming back with the implacable persistenceof a mechanical toy.

For four more rounds, Frazier had the better ofAli.‘It wasn’t a boxing match, it was a sluggingmatch,’ says Dr Ferdie Pacheco, Ali’s fight doctorBE

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‘Sit down, son,’ histrainer told Frazier.‘It’s over. No onewill forget what youdid here today’

Ali won by a decision, but spent much of his timeholding Frazier behind the head to smother hispunching.‘The only thing he did is hold – hug andhold, all night long. But he had – or his managerhad – a way of getting closer to the referees andthe judges, you know?’ Frazier mutters.‘That’s whyhe won that fight.’

Afterwards, Frazier was widely thought to befinished as a fighter, and expected to retire; he hadjust turned 30. His physical decline wascomplicated by the results of an accident he hadsuffered a decade earlier: as he worked on a speedbag in Philadelphia, a broken bolt threw tiny shardsof metal into his eyes.The incident was kept secretto allow him to continue fighting, but the resultingscar tissue developed into cataracts, and by 1974Frazier had become practically blind in his left eye.

By contrast,Ali’s next fight would fix him foreverin the public imagination as an astonishing athleteand a master of showmanship: at the ‘Rumble inthe Jungle’ in Zaire, the 32-year-old former

Winners and losers From left, Ali and Frazier get personal, 1970; on the cover of ‘Life’; Frazier triumphant, 1971; in Manila, 1975 – Ali connects in the ninth

for 15 years, who was in his corner that morning.As the fight wore on, Frazier rained shudderingblows into Ali’s body: the title seemed certain to behis. But both fighters, sagging with exhaustion,staggered on – until the 12th round, whensuddenly Ali’s combinations began repeatedlyfinding Frazier’s head. In the 13th,Ali knockedFrazier’s mouthpiece into the press row.The 14thremains one of the most savage rounds ever fought.With his entire face a deformed atlas of angry redcontusions, Frazier’s left eye began to close, but hecontinued to walk into a withering hail of blows,any one of which might have proved lethal.‘I wasafraid that we were going to kill him,’ says Pacheco.‘He was taking such punishment – and he had nodefence. He couldn’t see out of one eye and...everything that was thrown on that side landed.’

At the end of the 14th, before Frazier couldgo into the final three minutes of the fight, histrainer, Eddie Futch, decided to stop the fight.‘Sit

down, son,’ he famously told Frazier.‘It’s over. Noone will forget what you did here today.’ In hiscorner,Ali looked up to see what was happeningand then collapsed, shattered, to the canvas.Thedocumentary claims that Ali himself had been onthe verge of conceding, but Pacheco won’t hear ofit:‘It wasn’t Ali that was taking a beating.Ali wasin gear.’ Frazier says he isn’t sorry Futch threw inthe towel.‘I could see, a little bit. I could see to getthrough the three minutes. But Eddie said no. Hedidn’t want to take that chance... God bless him.He’s gone on.All the good guys have gone, in thefight game.’

‘We went to Manila as champions, Joe and me,’Ali would say years later,‘and we came back as oldmen.’Afterwards, Frazier would fight just twicemore before he finally retired, in 1981. He touredthe country with a band, performing in theSmokin’ Joe Revue, and at one point even had arecord contract; he started a limousine business andopened a restaurant. He bought the gym on NorthBroad Street and began training fighters, but lost

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