THE SECOND FIGHT OF THE CENTURY
In this, the third in a series of 12 fights that shaped boxing history, I look back on one of the most anticipated events of the 20th century which divided a nation.
THE Greatest had been stripped of the world heavyweight title he had won so sensationally against Sonny Liston but it was the reason for that decision which added cultural significance to what would be a magnificent fight. Smokin’ Joe was the undefeated two-belt champion but it was this proud black man’s bizarre adoption by America’s conservative right which stoked the fires of society still further. Muhammad Ali had been banned from boxing for three-and-a-half years for refusing induction into the US military to fight in Vietnam — but as a consequence become the darling of the young, the black and the civil rights movement. Joe Frazier found himself unwittingly the standard-bearer for the white establishment. Ali fanned the flames by labelling the
JOE FRAZIER v MUHAMMAD ALI
March 8, 1971, Madison Square Garden, New York
simpler man who would become his arch-rival an ‘Uncle Tom’, the most wounding insult for an African American. There was a foretaste of the current scramble for Mayweather-Pacquiao tickets. Woody Allen was one of the very few celebrities given a complimentary seat and Frank Sinatra persuaded Life magazine to give him a camera and send him as their ringside photographer. This was one fight in which the action fully lived up to the hype and its place in history. Ali came out fast to dominate the first three rounds. Frazier, encouraged by catching Ali with the last punch of the third, launched an attack to the body in the fourth which gave him the ascendancy. Ali’s speed of hand, dancing feet and combination punching kept him in a fight in which he was taking increasing punishment — along with a little help from referee Arthur Mercante who declined to call a knockdown when Frazier sent him crashing in the eighth. Somehow, heroically, Ali survived the especially torrid 11th and 14th rounds. Still some good judges had it close going into the 15th and last round. There all argument was ended. Frazier caught Ali with the most wicked of all those trademark left hooks and this time there was no denying a count which appeared to edge a fraction longer than the stipulated 10 seconds. Ali rose to his feet. Unsteadily. His jaw grotesquely swollen. Again his courage carried him to the bell. The decision was unanimously in favour of Frazier, although both men went to hospital.