I just finished watching Thrilla in Manila, an HBO documentary about the third and final fight between Muhammed Ali and Joe Frazier. It left me with an interesting question - at what point does something become more important than life or death? Because, for Frazier and Ali, that question was answered in the 14th round when they tangled for the last time on a 100-degree morning in the Philippines in October of 1975. The temperature was only matched by the white-hot fury Frazier felt toward Ali and Ali’s racist hectoring of Frazier.
In a very real way, this was a match to the death. Simmering anger between the two superstars had turned into a full blown rage. Ali couldn't get over the fact that, up to that point, Frazier was the only man to beat him. (Ali said it was "the white man's decision" that he lost, even though Frazier knocked him down twice). Frazier was tormented by Ali's taunts, which included calling him "ignorant," "Uncle Tom" and a "Gorilla."
During the fight’s middle rounds, the hooks from Frazier were so severe that Ali told his trainers something to the effect of “This must be what it feels like to die.” By the late rounds, Ali had regrouped and started throwing the kind of punches that could have killed Frazier. He could have literally beaten the man to death while the entire world watched.
The 14th Round is considered one of the most vicious in boxing history. Boxing fans will tell you that the sport’s overt violence is balanced by a sort of brutal harmony. Its two people doing all they can to pummel each other, but there is a science behind it. Not in the 14th round of that fight.
It was carnage.
Ali had taken so many body blows that his hips were locking up and his internal organs were beginning to slow. Ali unloaded right hand after right hand in Frazier’s face. It was so swollen he was nearly blind. It was two men working on instinct and that instinct told them to destroy the other one.
One of the talking heads noted that that round typified the allure of boxing. At some point, life and death takes a back seat to the match. Rather than stay in their respective corners, they opted to go back in, knowing that Death was sharpening his scythe at ringside.
Although Ali technically won, it's said that the toll was so great that both men were never the same.
