By Sam Gregory: October 1st 1975 Muhammad Ali fought Joe Frazier for the third time to defend his heavyweight title. Ali was making his fourth title defense since capturing the crowd a year earlier from George Foreman via an eighth round knockout in a highly publicized fight in Zaire.

The fight these two heavyweight gladiators were to embark on would be forever remembered as the most brutal heavyweight fight in boxing history and ranked as one of the greatest fights of the 20th century.

Years after this epic battle Ali was quoted as saying, “Of all the men I fought, Sonny Liston was the scariest, George Foreman was the most powerful, Floyd Patterson was a most skilled as a boxer,” Ali continued, but the roughest and toughest was Joe Frazier. He brought out the best in me, and the best fight we ever fought was in Manila.”

The build up to this fight was equally as colossal as anything Ali had been involved with. Ali traveled to Manila with a huge entourage of no less than 50 people that included trainers, corner men and hangers on. At a pre fight press conference Ali took delight in tormenting his challenger when he said of Frazier, “It will be a Killer, and a chiller, and a Thrilla, when I get the gorilla in Manila.” Ali than produced a toy gorilla and began punching it in front of the press.

The fight was promoted by Don King who had extracted a vast fee from Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Emelda, who both treated the countries money as their own. Ali received $4 million guaranteed against 43 percent of the gross taking, and Frazier was getting $3 million. (When it was all said and done Ali ended up with closer to $6 million)

The fight started at 10:45 am in front of 28,000 Filipino’s crammed into the Philippine Coliseum, Manila with 700,000,000 in 68 countries hooked in by satellite television.

From the opening bell it became obvious we were witnessing greatness. Ali was convinced Frazier was finished as a fighter and promised to stand his ground and hit Frazier at will. Ali started throwing the same right leads that worked so well for him in his fight against Foreman.

Before Frazier got warmed up Ali caught him with several shots that buckled his knees. For the first two rounds Ali had his way with Frazier landing hard solid shots with lightening speed that Frazier wasn’t able to counter. By the third round Ali’s corner were confident they had the fight in the bag.

In the fourth round Ali hit Frazier with a shot that busted his mouth open, but Frazier just tossed his head back and kept on coming. By now the fight became intense and ferocious. Ali continually jerked Frazier’s head back with Punches that knocked the sweat from his face in showers. Frazier kept boring in and won the fifth round, catching Ali with lefts as Ali fought on the ropes.

The sixth round was all Frazier and it was Ali’s turn to face the black void as Frazier landed two tremendous left hooks that ripped into Ali’s face. One of the left hooks Frazier landed on Ali’s face Angelo Dundee rated as the hardest shot he had ever seen thrown. The punch landed on Ali’s jaw and spun his head around. Somehow Ali swallowed the shot and said to Frazier, “They told me Joe Frazier was washed up.” Frazier snarled back at Ali, “They lied, Champ, they lied!”

From that point the fight began to turn Frazier’s way. His body shots drove into Ali’s kidneys, ribs and liver. The punches seemed to suck the life out of Ali. Ali managed to survive the middle rounds but from there to the tenth he fought in short bursts as Frazier continued his relentless assault, burrowing in the score with savage punches. After one of the most brutal rounds Frazier returned to his corner and said, “Damn, what’s keeping this motherfuckin fool up?”

By the tenth round the fight was scored even although Ali looked to be finished. Frazier was relentless. Frazier would later say that he hit Ali with shots that would bring cities down.

The eleventh round was the beginning of the third phase of the fight, Ali fought back to catch Frazier with long shots with both hands. Frazier’s face slowly began to change shape as bumps puffed up around his eyes and blood dripped from his mouth.

As Ali drew on his last reserves of strength, and Frazier’s power drained from him, Ali hit Frazier with everything he had left for the next three rounds.

In the twelfth round Ali took the fight back his way with more right hand leads. He suddenly got a second wind that he used to effect changing the shape of Frazier’s face. Ali’s punches were now beginning to close Frazier’s eyes. Frazier’s sight in his left eye that was never that good was now completely gone.

Ali continued to hit Frazier at will with right hands. The thirteenth round was a disaster for Frazier and trainer Eddie Futch only let him out for the fourteenth because he thought Ali might have used the last of his resources trying to finish Frazier during the endless minutes of the last round.

In the fourteenth round Ali threw around thirty punches into Frazier’s left eye. Frazier was surviving on pure heart and guts. When the round ended, referee Carlos Padilla helped Frazier back to his corner because he was unable to see where he was.

Ali went back to his stool not sure if he could go another round. “It was the closest thing to death that I could feel.” Ali later said.

It was a great fight and afterwards Ali, generous in victory to Frazier, talked of the mental and physical strain, hinted at retirement, and admitted that during the fight he felt like fainting and that at the end of the tenth he was almost at the point of quitting.

Ali summed it up by saying that a fight like that was next to death…the closest thing to dying he knew of.

But then in one of the greatest acts of sporting compassion, Eddie Futch stopped Frazier with the words: “Sit down son, its over. But no one will ever forget what you did here today.”

In the dressing rooms after the fight both men bore the heavy damage of the fight. Ali was grey with exhaustion. Ali had hematomas over both his hips and saver bruising over his back and chest. Frazier was completely blind in his left eye and could barely see though the slit in his right eye. The Thrilla in Manila would continue to extract a heavy toll on both men for months and years to come.

The Thrilla in Manila will always be remembered as the greatest fight in the 20th century.