“You know I won. The judges know I won. So what do I got to do? Tell me, what the hell do I got to do to get out from under that man’s shadow?”
We were standing on a North Philadelphia street corner not far from the train station 50 years ago when Joe Frazier said that. It was 10 days after Frazier clearly had won what was billed as the Fight of the Century. But Muhammad Ali had won the battle of the late-night television talk shows. He had used them to convince the half of the country that desperately had wanted him to win, that just as the boxing commissions had conspired to strip him of his title three years earlier, his defeat on the judges’ scorecards was a robbery that was part racist and all politics.
Ali was wrong, but that was an easy sell aimed by the loser to the people who never even saw it. Yes, he had been robbed of his title earlier because he refused to serve in the Vietnam War. Yes, he had gone to hell and back trying to find a venue where he could fight. And yes, the part of America that already had deputized him as a folk hero agonized along with him during that long, painful journey for justice.
But he did not win the fight. Frazier won it by at least two and possibly three clear rounds.
Monday is the anniversary of the Fight of the Century, and the truth about that night in Madison Square Garden is that Ali and Frazier were cast into roles neither sought in a country divided as never before over a war 8,868 miles away. Their skills were overshadowed by the polar opposite views of Vietnam that turned the two into warriors delegated to defend the schizophrenic views of their constituencies.
The truth is that Ali-Frazier I was fought not as much for the combatants but for the symbols virtually all of America had made them into. No other fight in history carried within it the angry emotions on which both ends of its audience thrived. It was a morality play more than a fight. Ali had been three years away from his profession before he was hustled into the two fights that led up to the big one.
Forbid Gene Kelly to dance a single step for three years what would you expect his comeback movie to be like? Then throw in the attitude that Ali generated with Frazier’s psyche.
Ali called him a clumsy fighter, a coward and an Uncle Tom on Philly radio. Then, he banged on the windows of the Joe Frazier Gym and dared Frazier to come out. Frazier started toward the door when Yank Durham, his manager, put him in a headlock and wrestled him into a chair.
“Sit your ass down,” Yank shouted. “The Fight of the Century ain’t gonna take place on a side street in the North Philly twilight next to a train station. Not when we can make $2.5 million where it should happen.”
Think about the quote that begins the column. Frazier had won the battle inside Madison Square Garden ring, but Ali had won the battle of the airwaves. Now, we were standing outside a local deli, waiting for a go-fer to bring out sandwiches when three little Black kids ran toward us shouting, Joe Frazier! Joe Frazier!” Joe gave each an autographed picture. But the mood immediately soured when one of 8-year olds said:
“My daddy told me that Muhammad Ali was drugged.”
Frazier was furious. He got down on his knees so that his head was only three inches from the kid’s.
“Your Daddy was right,” he said. “Go home and tell him that [Ali] was drugged. I drug him with three left hooks like this one. He threw the famous Joe Frazier left hook in the air and the kids ran away. That’s when he spoke the words that were so prophetic they were a simile for the rest of his life: “What hell do I got to do to get out of his shadow?”
We went back to the gym, where there hung a floor-to-ceiling blowup of a photo with Ali on the floor and Frazier heading to a neutral corner.
“You didn’t waste much time,” I said. “I’m curious: Ali once asked me why I wrote that he talked in the ring. He furiously denied it.”
“Huh,” Frazier grunted. “He comes out for Round 15 and his corner has told him he needs a knockout. Jerry, he’s screaming at me: ‘Fool, fool, you got to fall. God says I will be champion. You can’t stand up to God.’
“Then I hit him — BANG with a left hook. As he’s goin’ down, I yell, ‘Well, God is gonna get his ass whipped tonight.’”
That was Ali Frazier I — the emotions dictated that it was fought more for America than for the fighters themselves.
Next came the rematch at the Garden. It was a terrible fight. Instead of waiting for it, Frazier fought Forman and lost his title. Both fighters were not interested this night. Each wanted Forman and not the other guy. If I didn’t have to work and it wasn’t Frazier and Ali, I would have walked out. Ali won a sloppy and boring fight.
That was Ali-Frazier II.
The third fight was the best heavyweight fight I ever saw during my 70 years in the business. The funny thing is that it happened almost by accident.
In 1974, I went to Africa and saw Ali stop George Foreman for the title. He wanted an easy fight next, so he went to Malasia and took on Joe Bugner, who was not a great fighter but had a great personal story. He and his mother had fled the Hungarian revolution and became British citizens. Two days before that fight, Ali summoned the eight American reporters in attendance and told us, “Fellas, I been fighting too long. I quit. This is my last fight. Now go write that.”
We raced to our typewriters and did it. Later, Dave Anderson from the New York Times and I were walking down a hotel hallway and head a familiar voice: “He cain’t fight. I’ll knock him out. He’s an old man.”
Ali’s door was open. We walked in and saw that he watching a tape of Frazier.
“Does this mean you have unretired,” we asked.
“Yeah, go write the story. ’’
“I’ll write it, but you damned well will fight Frazier next,” I said. “I ain’t writin’ three stories tonight.”
The Bugner fight was an easy no-hitter for him, and the third Ali-Frazier fight was announced because Ali, as he said, thought it would be easy.
Boy, was he wrong.
During the waiting period, Eddie Futch, now the manager as well as the trainer, hired middleweight George Benton for a secret mission.
“We both know Joe is a one-armed fighter,” Futch said. “I want to distract and even upset Ali. I want you to teach Joe to throw a right hand.”
Early in the fight, after Ali had built a lead, Joe hit him with a right hand.
Ali, puzzled, shouted, “You ain’t got no right hand.”
Frazier hollered back: “Go ask George Benton,” and hit him with another.
Ali had to think about that. It slowed him down. Suddenly, the lead went to Frazier. It kept swinging back and forth, which led to the incredible ebb and flow of each round. It went from tough to ferocious. Halfway through, we all knew we were watching the greatest heavyweight fight in history.
By the 12th round, Frazier’s eyes were swollen and he had to leave his usual crouch to see and that made a new target for Ali’s jab. They got worse. But Ali was taking a beating, too.
Both men were exhausted. I told Anderson, who was sitting next to me, “Nobody should lose this fight. They should tell them they both won and send them home.”
Very late in the fight there came a sequence I will never forget. Roughly two feet separated the fighters. Frazier’s legs quivered like wet spaghetti, his arms were down at his sides. All Ali had to do was walk the two feet and tap him and the fight over. Ali couldn’t do it.
After the fight, Ali limped up the aisle to the dressing room. He paused where Anderson and I were sitting, leaned in and said: “That’s the closest you will ever see to death.” Then he limped away.
The fight was over. Now our fight with the deadlines was just beginning. It wasn’t Pulitzer stuff but here’s the way I started:
“Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier did not come to Manila last night to fight for the WBC heavyweight title. Nor did they come here to fight for the championship of the planet. They fought last night as though they were in a telephone booth on a melting ice floe. That was all the space they needed. They were fighting for the prize that had always eluded them — the championship of each other. As far as I’m concerned they never settled it.”
Even the greatest heavyweight confrontation since Cain and Abel couldn’t do that.
