Thrilla in Manila revisited

If you haven't seen the documentary Thrilla in Manila, you have to. HBO's 90-minute documentation of the historic final fight between two of the greatest boxers in history, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, is worth the watch. Released in 2008, the documentary is presented from Frazier's perspective, and doesn't include any direct interviews from Ali beyond archival footage from 1969-1975, when the trilogy of fights were hosted after Ali's boxing license had been restored. Still, with commentary from the Ali camp, including his ringside doctor and Manila liaison, this is a pretty good account of their series of fights.

What everyone should easily remember is that Ali won that fight and has since been referred to as the "greatest boxer of all time." What many may have forgotten is how Ali's hunger for maximum publicity, beginning with the first fight, drove a wedge between the one-time friends. Frazier would never get the kind of fame or money that Ali was awarded, and at the time of the documentary was living in a shabby apartment on top of his boxing gym located in one of Philadelphia's poorest neighborhoods. To get a more in-depth or accurate synopsis of the documentary, you can go here.

Joe Frazier's only win against Muhammad Ali came in the first of their three fights.

I'm more enthralled by the courage and resolve of the two fighters on that day. When you watch highlights from the fight, it's clear why boxing was the biggest sport during that period. It was a period when the best wanted to go against each other. Frazier not only lobbied emphatically for Ali's license to be restored, he assisted Ali financially and helped stage some of the earlier publicized friction between the two (before Ali's 'Uncle Tom' and 'gorilla' taunts resulted in a broken friendship.) It's a far cry from today when the two biggest fighters currently in the sport, Manny Pacquaio and Floyd Mayweather, cannot come to terms to stage arguably the biggest fight since Thrilla. I was captivated by Ali and Frazier's ability to go toe-to-toe for 15 rounds of pure boxing; each taking explosive jabs and combos at each other unlike today's style of dancing around the ring for two of the three minutes allotted for a maximum 12 rounds.

By the time Frazier's corner threw in the towel at the start of the 15th round of the Thrilla fight, both fighters were barely standing upright. I feel like Ali's body had taken more beating of the two by the end; just as some–and I mean just some–of the analysts who called that fight had suggested. But Frazier's face, notably his right eye, had suffered the most external damage. We'll come to find out later that Frazier had been fighting with a partially blinded left eye for most of his major fights, and could barely see once his right eye was shut from swelling. It explains why though he appeared to be the more agile of the two, Frazier couldn't evade Ali's punches. He couldn't see. That alone was the reason his camp threw in the towel on the final round.

Ali won the brutal final fight between the two, sealing his place as boxing's greatest

"Would you have been willing to risk your life for that final round?" documentarian John Dower asked Frazier in an on-camera interview for the film. "Yes!" was Frazier's response, which he gave even before Dower was done asking. And I don't doubt that for a second. Frazier's trainer Eddie Futch was quoted as saying years after the fight that he had watched eight fighters die in a ring in his lifetime and didn't want to watch a ninth. Many have said Ali was set to win the fight based on punches landed regardless, unless he was knocked out. Some even speculated that Ali was also considering throwing in the towel, especially since he fell to the mat after the fight was ended. We may never know what Ali's strategy for the last round of his greatest fight would have been. Not that it matters now.

Sadly, both boxers continued to fight instead of ending their career on that iconic fight. Ali now struggles with Parkinson's disease. Both fighters endured years of friction, particularly from Frazier toward Ali because the former felt he never got a real apology. In 2001, Ali apologized in a story published in the New York Times, saying he regretted many of the words he called Frazier and had done it merely for publicity. Sadly, Frazier never did leave down some of those words. Being called an Uncle Tom, even though of the two, he was actually the one who had worked since he was a kid. And even though Ali had associated himself with the white supremacist group known as the Ku Klux Klan.

I assume HBO is re-airing the documentary now in light of the news that Frazier, 67, is battling liver cancer. BBC has reported that Ali, 69, has offered his prayer and support to his old friend. Many Frazier fans have offered their livers for a possible transplant to keep him alive, which I only hope will happen. But thanks to documentaries like this, sports fans like me get to relive historical matches, games and fights that we never could have witnessed.

**Update**

Unfortunately, Frazier passed away late Monday night from complications from his battle with liver cancer. R.I.P. Smokin' Joe!