The left hook that cracked Muhammad Ali’s jaw for 14 rounds of sheer hell left him slumped in a Philippine locker room afterwards stating that, “This is the closest thing to death.”
Across the ring from him, his nemesis Joe Frazier ended a 25-year relationship with his best friend and manager Eddie Futch after was told that Futch was stopping the fight and not allowing him have one last round with Ali.
While the “Thrilla in Manila,” what many consider to be the greatest boxing match of all-time, took place over three decades ago, the anger and resentment between the two fighters still remain. And as veteran sports writer of Sports Illustrated fame Mark Kram tells us in his new piece of work, not only do the wounds run deep, but the scars refuse to heal.
“Ghosts of Manila: The Fateful Blood Feud Between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier” (HarperCollins Publishers, March 2002) is not the first to tell the story of these two former friends, but it has a rare insight into who these boxers were and what they truly felt about it each other from the time Kram spent with them on the road.
There are no heroes. No villains. They both ceased to be just characters and became human, as Kram exposed a rare glimpse of what went on in the gym, in the bars, on the road and in their own homes.
By looking strictly at statistics, it is easy to find that the boxers faced each other three times, the first deciding the unification of the World Heavyweight title. It is easy to find that Ali won the second and third fights, avenging his loss in the first fight. By the third fight in 1974, one would think that the feud ended that hot night in Manila, as Ali, barely able to stand, was awarded the victory in front of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos.
Yet what Kram tells the reader is how this fight changed each boxer for the rest of their lives. It is apparent that three wars in the ring with an all-time great can lead to physical damage, as both fighters were never the same in the ring after they punished each other for 41 rounds combined.
Yet mentally, both refuse to let go of the grudge. The book tells of how Ali refuses to even say the name “Joe Frazier” thirty years later and his abnegation to discuss any of their historic fights. Kram tells of how Ali acts as if the fights never happened, and keeps all of the memories to himself.
Meanwhile, it seems that Ali is all that Frazier can ever talk about. He will never forgive Ali for the taunting that so many fans and media were enthralled with. He was called a gorilla. He was called an Uncle Tom. He was labeled as “the White Man’s champ,” although Frazier is descended from full African blood, while Kram claims that Ali actually has Caucasian ancestry.
On television and video, it is easy to see how both men appear godly, fighting in front of the world for the sport’s richest prize and doing it as if they were in a back alley with no witnesses. Yet through Kram’s eyes, the reader learns of the weaknesses of both immortals – Ali and his obedience to the Nation of Islam and its leader, Elijah Muhammad, who intimidated him often and spent his money as if it were his own. Ali, who barked at everyone, never let out a whimper to the entourage who spent his money and ate his food as if it were their last day on Earth.
And the bitterness of Joe Frazier, who refuses to reconcile with Ali, and sneered at the mention of Ali’s current battle with Parkinson’s Disease, saying, “Look at his condition. I think we know who won those fights now.”
His hatred boiled over to the point that he told the media when Ali came out to light the Olympic flame in Atlanta in 1996, "I wish I could have pushed him into the fire."
Both men are no longer on top of the world and their fighting days are long over. As Kram puts it, their will never be a reconciliation. Yet the ghosts of their previous battles still continue to loom, each begging for just one more round.
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