The Frazier-Ali trilogy was among his most famous fights. He came back for one more match in 1981, a draw against Floyd Cummings. This ended up being Frazier’s last fight for five years. Two of those last three losses came against Ali, and Frazier’s final loss of his career was another TKO defeat at the hands of Foreman in 1976. That loss put Frazier at 29-1, and he went 3-3-1 in his final seven fights after that loss. He would go on to start his career 29-0, with one of those wins a unanimous decision over Muhammad Ali in 1971.įrazier’s first loss came in 1973 when Foreman beat him by second-round TKO.
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He turned pro the following year, winning his debut fight by first-round TKO.
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Frazier died in 2011.RELATED: George Foreman Grew Up Poor and Angry But a TV Ad Changed His Lifeįrazier had a successful amateur career, winning the Golden Gloves heavyweight championship three straight years beginning in 1962, and he won the gold medal in the heavyweight division at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, America’s only boxing gold at those Games.
"Smokin' Joe" (32-4-1) fought only twice more after the Manila epic, being stopped by Foreman for a second time in 1976 before coming out of retirement five years later to draw with the unheralded Floyd Cummings over 10 rounds. The "Louisville Lip" died nearly four years ago after a long battle with Parkinson's disease.
He retired with a win-loss record of 56-5. He said that although Ali would defend his world title a further six times, and regain it in a rematch after losing to Leon Spinks in 1978, the self-styled "Greatest of All Time" never fully recovered from the "brutal beatdown" Frazier had inflicted.Īli would finally hang up his gloves in 1981 aged 39, following consecutive losses to Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick. "Round 14 was the closest I've seen somebody come to killing somebody," Ali's fight doctor Ferdie Pacheco told the documentary makers.īut after the Thrilla, "both men were never the same again", said Nick Giongco, a sports analyst at the Manila Bulletin. His biographer Thomas Hauser told the 2008 documentary that at the end of the round an Ali cornerman heard the champion telling trainer Angelo Dundee to "cut 'em (gloves) off". Later, it was revealed that Ali himself wanted to quit. His face soaked in blood, Frazier argued with his trainer Eddie Futch to let him come out for the 15th round, but Futch stopped the fight. "At 125 degrees - we were fighting each other (as well as) against the heat," Frazier said in the 2008 documentary "Thrilla in Manila".Īli's blows had swollen Frazier's right eye nearly shut, and he was nearly blind in his left due to a training injury. The fight in the tropics was staged in the daytime to suit US television audiences, but the crowd and TV lights overwhelmed the air-conditioning. In this photo Frazier is defeating Australian Joe Bugner in a close-fought. One Frazier punch sent Ali's mouthpiece flying into the fifth row, but neither fighter fell. Joe Frazier was one of the greatest boxers of his generation with a phenomenal record of 32 wins, 4 losses and 1 draw. On fight day the momentum swung back and forth between the men, who were in their third and final match-up. "It's gonna be a thrilla, and a chilla, and a killa, when I get the gorilla in Manila," Ali boasted, coining the nickname that still resonates today. Closest thing to dyin' that I know of," Ali later said of the bout.Īli set an acrimonious tone in the weeks leading to the fight, enraging Frazier, 31, by likening him to a giant ape. They battled inside the 25,000-seat Araneta Coliseum with such ferocity that spectators including Imelda Marcos, wife of then-Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, were spattered with blood. "Ali and Frazier would never be the same again, after pouring and spending practically all their power and durability in Manila," said Recah Trinidad, a Philippine boxing columnist.Īli, who had beaten George Foreman in the 'Rumble in the Jungle' in Zaire a year earlier, came into the fight at 33, his best years well behind him. But the fight came at a cost to both men. In the end, it was Frazier's trainer who threw in the towel to hand Ali victory on October 1, 1975, settling their head-to-head 2-1. When Muhammad Ali survived 14 brutal rounds with Joe Frazier in the 'Thrilla in Manila' 45 years ago, it wrote a page in boxing folklore but left both men forever diminished.įought in the Philippines' stifling daytime heat, with barely functioning air conditioning, Frazier was beaten nearly blind and Ali was on the verge of surrender.