I remember watching the Ali fights as a kid as vividly as any sporting event I ever watched.......they were epic sport during the early 70's. The Wide World of Sports was a right of passage back in the day and it featured the fights usually on a Saturday afternoon if I am not mistaken. "The Thrilla in Manilla" might have been the greatest of these and it featured Ali vs Joe Frazier. The great Howard Cosell calling the rounds......it was "EPIC" in every sense of the word. Boxing at its finest. Joe Frazier had beaten Ali before.....once.....but it would not happen again. Joe Frazier was all Ali could handle. Rest in peace Joe......you were something to watch in the ring.

Joe was a greater boxer but of the bull class not the classy type, reminded me of Rocky! Watched many of his fights including the 3 against CC (Ali).

RIP Smoking Joe

I heard him on Howard Stern years back describing how he put BEN GAY on his toe stub after he had cut off his big toe with the lawn mower. Man's man in every sense of the word.

The last hayday of the heavyweights was that Frazier , Ali , Forman stretch. Joe was a tank!

shame . RIP

The last hayday of the heavyweights was that Frazier , Ali , Forman stretch. Joe was a tank!

No doubt about it... when Joe passed away.. a piece of boxing history passed with him...rest in peace big fella!

Sylvester Stallone used his style for Rocky. Toe to toe, straight ahead.
He had class and pride and was more than willing to exchange a punch to his head for punch to his opponent's head.
The media exploited him and Ali used that to his advantage, calling him an Uncle Tom, Great White Hope, etc. It was ugly. Ali saw it as a way to gain an edge, but character assassination is a low blow and he knew it. Ali went that low because he needed that edge, he was scared. Ali said he had come close to death in the first fight.
Though deeply hurt, eventually, Frazier tacitly forgave Ali. When you consider how easily people turn on each other, over a little money or the smallest slight, and compare it to what Joe went through, that's what made Frazier an exceptional man.

I believe Ali's taunting of Joe was all to promote the fight and maximize the take at the gate. Yes it was very personal but I think in time Joe understood it was about making both of them some extra money. Just my opinion.

I saw some interviews with his son and him where his son and his family were after him to "let it go" with the Ali grudge.
But....that was also about the time the Ali movie and the When We Were Kings documentary came out - so it all could have been orchestrated. But Joe either got screwed out of money or mishandled it.
At any rate, he was representative of the hard-hat guys and Ali was representative of the peace movement and the liberals. When was the last time two fighters were representative of anything other than themselves? They didn't bite anyone's ear off back then - they fought.

Ali won most of his fights before they even started, by getting into his opponent's head. He had Sonny Liston beat in their first fight before it started. Sonny was a classic bully, but there were two things that Liston was deathly afraid of---needles, and crazy people. Ali played the crazy role to the hilt. Liston was so reluctant to mix it up with Ali, and so frustrated by not being able to land a big punch, that his corner put liniment on his gloves, hoping that it would get into Ali's eyes, and Liston could blindside him. It almost worked---Ali managed to dance around blinded, and almost quit on his stool between rounds. Angelo Dundee rinsed his eyes and shoved him back out, and in another 15 seconds or so, his vision cleared. By the time of the rematch, Liston knew there was no way he could beat Ali, so he took a dive. Liston's fear of needles was legendary, so when they reported his death as a heroin overdose, many were suspicious.

The head games didn't work with Frazier. But that didn't stop Ali from trying.

If you're trying to mess with someone's mind, you're walking a razor's edge between psyching them out, and enraging them to a point where they perform better.
Kind of like those meth heads who taunted the tiger after hours at the San Diego Zoo. The tiger got so annoyed he jumped up and took two of them down off the wall of his enclosure - which was believed to be higher than a tiger could jump. The keeper stated that a tiger can jump higher when he's really pissed off.