Ali: The ‘Greatest’
It was called, simply, the Fight, because that first match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, 25 years ago this week, contained too many metaphors to cram into one jingly ad line.
It was about racial politics, Vietnam, a religious upheaval, and it was about plain old Slug Opera.
It was a worthy sequel to Jack Johnson against Jim “the Great White Hope” Jeffries in 1910 and to Joe Louis’ second fight with Max Schmeling on the eve of World War II.
It was a celebrity carnival. Burt Lancaster was broadcasting from ringside at Madison Square Garden for closed-circuit television. Frank Sinatra was shooting pictures for Life Magazine. Norman Mailer would find another metaphor for manhood in Ali’s decision to prove that he could take whatever punishment Smokin’ Joe could deliver.
But Ali was, historically, the only character of importance. Even Frazier, still heavyweight champion after the fight, could only win a footnote for best supporting role. The Fight was Ali’s blood-rite re-entry into mainstream America. Through the hard, murderous years of the late 1960s, Ali had maintained, to enormous criticism, that blacks had not reached equality with whites, that the Vietnam War was a terrible mistake and that Christianity had not fulfilled its promise. To shout, “I am the greatest!” was heretical enough from a boxer.
A case might be made that the ‘60s, at least in sports, really began on Feb. 25, 1964, when, incredibly, Cassius Clay won the title from Sonny Liston and declared: “I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be who I want,” and ended when Ali lost to Frazier on March 8, 1971, and said: “I had my day. You lose, you lose.”
In the seven years between, Ali became the most famous face on the planet and easily one of the most fascinating and paradoxical characters in the history of sports, in many ways the antithesis of Frazier, his most important opponent. In a time of “Black is beautiful,” Ali was the living embodiment of the phrase. Yet he relentlessly disparaged other black men like Frazier for having typically black facial features.
In a time of integration Ali aligned himself with a splinter religious group, the Nation of Islam, that preached racial separation. Ali lectured on sexual responsibility without practicing it; he tended to settle his paternity suits out of sight.
Ali also brought to mainstream sports the in-your-face style of boast and putdown, once a currency of segregated black sports. In and out of the ring, he could thrill (“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”) and he could perplex (“I’m just another nigger trying to get bigger”).
On April 28, 1967, on religious grounds, Ali refused to step forward to be drafted, and the political hacks of the boxing commissions stripped his title and livelihood before legal judgment, which would eventually reverse the decision.
While Frazier was proving himself a hard nut of an honest workman, a traditional American role-model athlete, Ali gave campus speeches.
He was a hero to antiwar protesters, but his diatribes against interracial dating and marijuana turned off many students. He would win most of them back with a rhyme and a shuffle. And then he would struggle to answer their social and political questions. It was in preparing for those sparring sessions that Ali grew and matured.
As did America. Politics had banned him from the ring, and politics brought him back. As more Americans caught up with Ali’s antiwar sentiments, his refusal to be drafted seemed less like dodging than standing up for principle. America noted that Ali had lost millions of dollars for his beliefs, the kind of sacrifice that always impresses Americans.
Meanwhile, the civil rights movement had enfranchised black voters and swept black politicians into power, especially in Atlanta, capital of the so-called New South, which became the capital of boxing on Oct. 26, 1970, when Ali came back and stopped Jerry Quarry. Moments after the fight, Ali was presented with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. medal. Two months later, Ali stopped Oscar Bonavena in New York. He was now warmed up for The Fight.
It was a brawl. Ali willfully, arrogantly tried to choreograph a fight in which he would sucker Frazier into exhausting himself. This first draft of the rope-a-dope, which beat George Foreman four years later, was pure hubris. Frazier was stronger and better conditioned than Ali ever imagined, and he knocked Ali down and won a 15-round decision.
Sad or elated, everyone went home satisfied. They had seen a brutal classic. Frazier had proved himself worthy, and Ali had proved in the ring what he had proven outside it. He was willing to sacrifice, to pay the price. He had heart and principles. He was tough.