His great rivalry with Ali left him embittered – almost until his death

Joe Frazier was ‘The Greatest’s’ toughest opponent – and harboured a personal hatred for the boxing icon for a long time, even when he was already seriously ill.

Muhammad Ali is remembered as the greatest of all time, as a role model, as a hero, far beyond his sporting significance.

Joe Frazier, Ali’s opponent in three of his greatest fights, remembered the idol differently. He harboured bitterness towards ‘The Greatest’ – a bitterness that had all but resolved itself by the time of Frazier’s death 15 years ago today. Ali vs Frazier, the great boxing rivalry: It was also a human drama.

‘Smokin’ Joe’ felt personally devastated by the way Ali treated him outside the ring.

Frazier resented Ali so deeply for their personal falling-out that he saw Ali’s Parkinson’s disease as a kind of divine justice. “If I could have, I’d have thrown him in,” Frazier sniped when Ali, already severely frail, lit the Olympic flame in Atlanta in 1996.

Muhammad Ali heavily insulted Joe Frazier

Before Frazier and Ali met for the first time on 8 March 1971, the two were considered friends: Frazier stood by Ali when he lost his boxing licence due to his refusal to enlist in the US military.

He lent him money, publicly defended Ali on several occasions against his critics, and pleaded before the US Congress and in a petition to President Richard Nixon for Ali’s suspension to be lifted.

When Ali returned, the way was clear for the dream match-up between Frazier – the reigning world heavyweight champion since 1970 following a victory over Jimmy Ellis – and the man who had never lost his titles in the ring.

Interest was immense and, due to Ali’s history, now also politically charged. Ali himself fuelled it even further – though not without crossing certain lines in the process.

Frazier, then 27 years old, was mocked by Ali as an ‘Uncle Tom’, a useful idiot of the white establishment. ‘One day he might be like me, but right now he’s working for the enemy,’ declared Ali, who fought radically for the civil rights of African Americans. He helped to inflame the atmosphere to such an extent that Frazier received death threats and had to seek police protection.

From the poorest of backgrounds

Frazier – who had been deeply hurt by Ali’s remarks – was, in truth, far from leading a privileged life.

Born on 12 January 1944 in Beaufort, South Carolina, Frazier grew up in poverty as the twelfth child of a sharecropper, a landless farmer. Frazier moved to Philadelphia to find work, where, amongst other things, he worked in a slaughterhouse and used half-carcasses of cattle for his boxing training – an idea that inspired a legendary scene in the film *Rocky*.

Frazier described Ali’s behaviour as a ‘cynical’ attempt to throw him off balance. “He thought he’d weaken me,” he noted in his autobiography. The opposite happened: “He woke me up and I realised what an unfair b****’s son he was.”

From the “Fight of the Century” to the “Thrilla in Manila”

Frazier won the brutally contested “Fight of the Century” at New York’s Madison Square Garden by unanimous decision. It marked the start of a great trilogy of fights, which Ali turned in his favour with two victories – though he took a heavy beating each time.

Particularly unforgettable was the third fight, the “Thrilla in Manila” in 1975 in the Philippine capital. This time, Ali went into the fight as the champion: Frazier had lost the belt in humiliating fashion to George Foreman, who in turn was defeated by Ali in the “Rumble in the Jungle” in Zaire.

Against Frazier, Ali was on the verge of defeat; after 14 gruelling rounds – which, combined with the external conditions, were even life-threatening – Ali wanted to give up, but was held back by his trainer, Angelo Dundee; instead, Frazier’s trainer, Eddie Futch, asked the referee to stop the fight.

Belated forgiveness

Even before this fight, Ali had been insulting, calling Frazier a stinking ‘gorilla’. He probably did not mean it personally; for him, these attacks were mind games and marketing, and he later publicly apologised to Frazier for them. His rival, however, remained angry, feeling that a personal apology was lacking.

It was only a few years before he succumbed to liver cancer that Frazier stated he had forgiven Ali. Ali, who died in 2016, was among the mourners at Frazier’s funeral, which was conducted by civil rights activist Jesse Jackson.

Joe Frazier did not forgive Muhammad Ali until a few years before his death

Despite all the attacks, Ali had never left any doubt as to his appreciation for Frazier the athlete.

“Of all the boxers I’ve fought, Sonny Liston was the most imposing, George Foreman the strongest and Floyd Patterson the most talented,” Ali once reflected: “But Joe Frazier was the toughest. He brought out the best in me.”