MMA/BoxingSports & Race

The Most Important Round Of Joe Frazier’s Life

On the night of March 8th, 1971, Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali met in Madison Square Garden. It was billed as the “Fight of the Century,” and followed months of Ali calling Joe “ugly” and a “gorilla” and an “Uncle Tom.”

By the time they met in New York City, the quiet, lumbering Frazier, juxtaposed against the radical, bombastic Ali, had somehow become the “White Man’s Champion.” He wasn’t, of course — he had come from extremely humble beginnings in South Carolina, where he had dealt with his fair share of racism — but Ali, a genius at media strategy, had pigeonholed his opponent. This was black vs. white. Young vs. old. The new order vs. the Establishment.

The abuse Frazier took from Ali in the lead-ups to their legendary fights was something he’d hold onto for decades, and many believe, up until his death last night from liver cancer, he hadn’t fully forgiven him.

Ali made fun of Frazier’s nose. He called him stupid. He said Frazier was “a different type of Negro.” Basically, he said every possible hurtful thing a black man in the 70s could say to another black man. It probably wasn’t totally personal: Ali was promoting a fight, and employing a psychological type of gamesmanship in a sport where the mental edge is important. But it was also abuse, because his opponent wasn’t as good at a comeback as he (although no one was, Frazier was particularly bad), and couldn’t fight back. Joe, unable to respond to being called an Uncle Tom, could only grow angrier and quieter.

Which is why, when Joe Frazier went back and looked at tapes of his most historic moments, Round 15 of his fight with Muhammad Ali was probably his proudest. It was Ali’s first defeat, and the only time Frazier would ever beat The Greatest. But look closely at the end of that round, as the final bell sounds and the referee steps in between them. Frazier, who at that moment knows he’s won, says something to Ali.

And Ali, tired and defeated, couldn’t come up with a comeback.

[Ali-Frazier trash talk taken from "Smokin' Joe," by Cynthia Vance]