Ali-Frazier saga ends in one of roughest heavy-weight bouts ever

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33963, 2 October 1975, Page 26

Ali-Frazier saga ends in one of roughest heavy-weight bouts ever

(By

RED SMITH,

of the "New York Times," through N.Z.P.A.)

MANILA.

When time has cooled the violent passions of the sweltering day and the definitive history is written of the five-year war between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, the objective historian will remember that Joe was still coming in at the finish.

For more than 40 minutes, the former heavy-weight champion of the world who was now the challenger attacked the two - time champion with abandoned. almost joyous, ferocity.

For seven rounds in a row he bludgeoned his man with hooks, hounding him into comers, nailing him to the ropes. And then when Ali seemed hopelessly beaten, he came on like the good champion he is.

In the twelfth round, the thirteenth and all through a cruel fourteenth he punched the shapeless, grinning mask that pursued him until Frazier’s trainer, Eddie Futch, could take no more.

After 14 rounds of one of the roughest matches ever fought for the heavy-weight championship, Futch gave up. At this signal, the referee stopped the fight, with Ali still champion. All three Filipino officials had Ali leading on points at the end, but in the “New York Times” book, Futch snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

On the “Times’s” two scorecards, Frazier had won eight of the first 13 rounds when he walked into the blows that beat him stupid. He lost while winning, yet little Eddie was right to negotiate the surrender. Frazier’s SUS2m guarantee wasn’t enough to compensate him for another round.

So now the saga is ended. It began on March 8, 1971, when Ali and Frazier met for the first time, both undefeated as professionals, both with valid claims to the championship, both in the glory and strength of youth. That time Frazier won it all. They fought again on January 28, 1974, when both were ex-champions and Ali got a debatable decision. Today’s might have been debatable, too, if a decision has been needed.

Record gate It has been a series both men can remember with pride — and pride has been the spur for both. All three meetings were happenings, memorable chapters in the annals of the ring, and in many respects this was the best of the three. It will be some time before anybody knows whether the gross revenue from the live gate, closed-circuit and home television around the world will equal the SUS2Om drawn for their first encounter, but this day’s business in the Philippines Coliseum

may have broken all records for an indoor fight.

Attendance was estimated at 27,000 with a gate of something like sl.sm. If a price can be put on the suffering of brave men, this returned a dollar in pain for every dollar involved. Curiously, the winner’s suffering was the greater. Not many men could have stood up under the punishment Ali took from the fifth round through to the eleventh. Yet Ali not only endured, when he had taken all that Frazier could deliver, he still had enough to win. Say what one will about this noisy extrovert, this swaggering, preening, play-acting slice of theatrical ham: the man is a gladiator. He was a callow braggart of 22 when Sonny Liston surrendered the title to him 11 years ago. At the ripe age of 33, he is a champion of genuine quality.

Joe remorseless He has been saying he would have one more fight, probably with George Foreman, and then retire as the greatest of all-time. It is not wise to accept his promises or faith, but he must take his leave some day. When he does, he will be remembered as one of the good ones.

Whatever can be said to Ali’s credit must be said with equal emphasis about Joe Frazier, This man was a good champion in his own right. He is the best man Ali ever fought, an opponent who searched Ali’s inner depths and brought out qualities Ali never had to reveal to any other man. It was Joe, rather then Muhammad, who made this a great fight. In the early rounds Ali made half-hearted attempts to strut and posture the way he has done against men like Joe Bugner and Chuck Wepner, but Frazier’s persistent advance brooked no such nonsense. Ali’s faster hands and circling retreat held Joe off for a while. Joe was remorseless, though, and single-minded. He rushed pawing gloves aside, rolled in under punches, bore straight ahead and slugged, and by the fifth round he was getting the message across.

It was hook, hook, hook — into the belly to draw Ali’s hands down, then up to the head against the ropes. He beat the everlasting whey out of Ali. His attack would have reduced another man to putty. The guy in the White trunks was not another man. He was the

champion, and this time he proved it.

From the fifth to the eleventh rounds, Frazier had the best of it, jolting Ali with lefts and rights to the body and occasional bombs to the head, Associated Press reports. Ali desperately tried to find a solution to the relentless pursuit of the man he lost to in the first of their three fights. But Frazier kept charging. . Then, with his title seemingly slipping away, Ali, who has risen so many times in his spectacular and controversial career, went for Frazier’s head. And it worked.

At the opening of the twelfth round, the 33-year-old champion, who had looked every bit his age in the six previous rounds, drilled, six shots to Frazier’s head. After Frazier drove him into the ropes, Ali ripped eight more clean shots to Frazier’s head and Joe was on his way to his last hurrah. In the thirteenth round, Frazier opened with a body attack, but by now his punches were lacking their earlier steam. Ali seemed to sense it.

The champion fired a onetwo to Frazier’s head and another hard right to the head and then came back with a series of five straight head punches. After a brief pause, Ali buckled Frazier’s knees with a left-right to the head.

Ali might have done more damage then, but he slipped and briefly lost the initiative.

But in the fourteenth round, it was all Ali. It went like this:

A left right to the head, a right to the head, a one-two, and after a body punch by Frazier, Ali fired a series of head shots with lightning speed that had the challenger reeling around the ring.

It seemed as if Frazier was about to go down, but the bell saved him from further punishment and at the same time sent him into retirement.