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Ali, Frazier, and me
by William Rivers Pitt
9/8/01
"That was always the difference between Muhammad Ali and the rest of us. He came, he saw, and if he didn’t entirely conquer—he came as close as anybody we are likely to see in the lifetime of this doomed generation."
- Hunter S. Thompson
It is difficult to put the blood feud between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier into any form of acceptable modern context.
Certainly, there have been duels in sport since those two behemoths traded blows. Boxing has seen Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield locked in combat, and before them Marvin Hagler and Sugar Ray Leanord treated us to round after round of pure contest.
Ask anyone in Boston who carried out the greatest duel in sport, and they will spend the next several hours talking about Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa sparred in the friendliest home run derby ever witnessed.
The clash of wills that defined Ali and Frazier rises above all of these, and perhaps any other athletic rivalry, simply because of the time in which it happened. The Vietnam war was raging, the Democratic Convention in 1968 had become a frenzied police riot, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were cold in their graves, and Richard Nixon was the duly elected President of the United States.
Lines had been drawn, sides had been chosen. You were either with Nixon and for the war, or against Nixon and the war. By 1971, opinion had become so entrenched, and so many lives had been lost, that there was little room anymore in the middle. Everything had gone too far, resulting in what amounted to a battle to the death for the soul of the nation. Winning was all that mattered.
The contests between Ali and Frazier crystallized the divisions in the nation. Muhammad Ali represented the Leftists, the hippies, the Panthers, the Nation of Islam, the anti-war activists, anyone else who wanted America to change, who saw Nixon as a murderer and the Vietnam war as pure evil. Added to this was the fact that Ali was a beautiful man with amazing physical and mental gifts.
When Muhammad Ali refused to be drafted, when he said, "No Viet Cong ever called me nigger," when his choice cost him his title, he became a hero and martyr for progressives. Simultaneously he became the scourge and target of Nixonian law-and-order folks who were terrified by this brash and mouthy colored man who had repudiated Christianity and who wouldn't do as he was told.
Those who despised Ali became supporters of Joe Frazier, holder of the title of Heavyweight Champion of the World after Ali was stripped for refusing service. They supported Frazier, not because they loved him, but because they wanted him to beat Ali to death and take the guts out of those crazy Lefties who were ruining the country. Frazier was, simply, a terrifying boxer. Built low and stocky with short arms, Frazier came at opponents like a bull on the charge, horns lowered. His left hook could take the top off a mountain.
Muhammad Ali met Joe Frazier in the ring for the first time on March 8, 1971. The fight itself was hyped to a degree that is seldom seen even today. Ali was seeking to reclaim his title from a man who had gained it without facing him. Both fighters were at the peak of their athletic form. Ali had gone out of his way to antagonize Frazier with verbal barbs that cut deep, and the champ was ready to dish out some payback.
Surrounding the physical contest was the national one. The two fighters became vessels into which was poured all the passion and vitriol of the time. Confined within the ropes of the ring would be a contest to determine who was right, who was stronger. In a sense, this fight was the distilled essence of that roiled and disturbed era. If Ali won, the war was wrong and the activists were the better. If Frazier won, it was Nixon and the war that would carry the day.
The bell rang that night on a moment in sporting history that will never, ever be matched. The two fighters went round after round, attacking with their different styles. Ali used his longer arms to hammer Frazier with jab after jab, while Frazier bored in low, taking three punches in order to deliver one, looking for a chance to launch that sledgehammer left.
Finally, in the fifteenth round, with both fighters battered and reeling, Frazier got his chance. Ali let his guard down for half a second, and Frazier brought that left hook whistling up from the cotton fields of South Carolina where he'd toiled as a boy. Muhammad Ali went down like a tree, popping up a moment later with his jaw grotesquely swollen. The bell rang, Frazier kept his title, and for a moment the nation had a clear victor. The war went on, Nixon got re-elected, and the hearts of those who loved Muhammad Ali were broken.
In the context of that national contest, the loss Muhammad Ali suffered at the stone hands of Joe Frazier was devastating to progressives. So many of their heroes had been laid low, and here was another body added to the pile.
Four years later, on October 1, 1975, the two warriors again faced each other in what became known as the Thrilla in Manila. The fight has since been characterized as the greatest heavyweight bout in the history of the universe. Ali and Frazier again were at each other like giants from some long-forgotten myth, trading blows that rattled the floor.
When the bell rang announcing the opening of the fifteenth round, Joe Frazier could not summon enough of himself to rise from his corner. Muhammad Ali was, once again and for all time, the greatest boxer who had ever lived.
When the referee raised Ali's fist in victory that night, the war in Vietnam was all but over. Richard Nixon had been chased from Washington D.C. in a blizzard of disgrace, and most of the men who had worked for him were headed for prison.
The issues that added such symbolism to the first contest had been all but settled, yet in Ali's victory on that October day one could find a final note of righteous vindication. It had taken a long time, but in the end, supporters of Ali could face the mirror and know that at least one of their heroes had carried the day.
Today, Muhammad Ali is one of the most recognized and beloved people in all the world. The courage he displayed in the face of the Vietnam draft board no longer draws cries of 'traitor!.' Indeed, his bold stand is a point of pride for virtually every living American. Time has told the tale, as it always does. Ali was right.
When Muhammad Ali lit the Olympic torch with his shaking hand not long ago, I wept. For you see, once upon a time I had been privileged to shake that massive hand. I was seven years old and passing through the lobby of the Parker House hotel in Boston. My father suddenly grabbed me and thrust me onto his shoulders. He hustled into a small knot of people.
In the center stood Ali, the Champ. I shook his hand and he smiled at me. Bigger men than he have never walked the earth, before or since. Size figures only partially into that assessment.
Now that this tale is told, it is clear why the Ali-Frazier feud cannot be fitted into any sort of modern context. There are, however, some lessons to be gleaned. The first, and most important, is that it does not matter if you find yourself flat on you back because your foe has dropped you. It matters only that you get up again, face him, and keep swinging.
More important than this is the lesson of history. No one but the odd sportswriter knows what Joe Frazier is doing today. His supporters left him behind the moment he felled Ali in 1971 because they never loved him and did not need him anymore. They dismissed him completely after his defeat in 1975. He could walk from one side of Manhattan to the other tomorrow afternoon and be recognized by no one.
Muhammad Ali cannot leave his house without making the newspapers. He is, as stated earlier, one of the most beloved individuals alive today. When he dies, billions will mourn him. This is the man who would not fight in Vietnam, who took a Muslim name as an indictment to this nation's history of slavery. This is the man who was a hero for the Left, for those who look ahead instead of behind.
When the last chapter of this story is written, those who were arrayed against each other for that first fight in 1971 will know without doubt who was victorious in the end. Muhammad Ali will enter heaven with fists raised, carrying with him all that we hold dear and just. He was beaten, he rose, he won, and the beliefs he holds true carried the day. This gives me hope.
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