Thrilla in Manila

I watched the third Ali versus Frazier fight tonight on ESPN Classic, the Thrilla in Manila from 1975. I saw it through a prism that cast several different colors.

Ali and Frazier are two of the greatest fighters of all time. Both came into the fight in peak condition. Frazier pursued his relentless in-fighting style. Letting Ali dance around the ring and throw long jabs meant having his face cut up as if someone had taken a switchblade to it. Ali weathered the storm. The last two rounds Frazier, from sheer exhaustion, gave Ali the opening Ali was looking for. Ali danced, threw his jabs, and landed hard combinations. That was enough for Ali to win it.

Frazier did not answer the bell after those two rounds. His manager threw in the towel after round 14. That hardly tells the story about the physical courage of the two men. They stood toe to toe exchanging nonstop punishment for the whole fight. It defies the imagination how they did it for that long in the hot and humid conditions of Manila. Frazier did not answer the bell, but Ali gave his post-fight interview sitting on his stool unable to hold his head up. If you did not see the fight, you would not know who the winner was.

By the time 1975 rolled around politics had tainted the fight. Ali was cast as the hero conscientious objector and Frazier was cast as a sort of Uncle Tom. The unfairness to both men is almost inconceivable. Both men would have been content spending their lives as professional fighters trying to be the best of all time if politics and public events had not gotten in the way.

We know what the objective of boxing is. It's all about trying to cause as much trauma to the brain of one's opponent as possible, thereby rendering the opponent unconscious. The accumulation of brain trauma over the years causes a callous to form around the outer brain tissue, thus destroying cognitive capacity.

I watched a bit of the movie Gladiator last night. Boxing is the remnant of that time twenty-five hundred years ago.