I convinced myself Smokin’ Joe was going to win. I picked him in the Boxing News preview. I just had the feeling that for Frazier, this was going to be more than just a fight; that for Joe, it was almost going to be a matter of life and death.
Ali denigrated Frazier before the fight, with the infamous line about “getting the gorilla in Manila”. Frazier seethed; genuine anger, nothing pretend about it.
I watched the fight at the Odeon cinema in London’s Leicester Square, in the early hours of the morning, UK time. After about five or six rounds, I thought Ali was just too good, too skilled, that he had Frazier’s number and would dominate the remainder of the contest. Not quite. Frazier kept boring in, banging the body. Ali wanted to tie up by grabbing Frazier around the neck. Filipino ref Carlos Padilla kept tapping Ali’s arm away.
Around about the 10th round, I felt Frazier was turning the tide. But Ali came on again and by the 14th round I remember thinking that Frazier would do well to get through to the final bell; trainer Eddie Futch didn’t let it get that far.
Ali had survived the onslaught and prevailed. I left the cinema feeling I had witnessed something very special.
Jack Hirsch
At the time, I was an aspiring amateur boxer who viewed the match on closed-circuit television at a movie theatre on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. Although the buildup was not as intense as it was for their first two contests, it was still magical.
By the time the Thrilla In Manila took place, Ali was a clear favourite. Not that Frazier wasn’t given a chance, but by that point of their careers it was felt Ali had surpassed him.
One moment of the fight is embedded in my memory. It was the sixth round, Frazier’s best of the match. As he attacked Ali against the ropes, a fan shouted “eat him up, Joe”. It was a reminder that when it came to Ali and Frazier, there were no in-betweens – you had to root for one or the other. I quietly rooted for Frazier, but did not leave the theatre disappointed, knowing I had seen something special. It was arguably the most gruelling fight in boxing history. Certainly Ali felt that way, dubbing it “the closest thing to death”.
Miles Templeton
The first time I ever saw a Muhammad Ali contest on television was his comeback fight in 1970, when he defeated Jerry Quarry. This was the fight that kindled my love for the game.
Three weeks later, I watched Joe Frazier bounce Bob Foster all around the ring to defend his heavyweight title. I was still at school for Ali-Frazier I, at college for Ali-Frazier II, and working when they met in Manila. It was a tremendous time to be a fan of the sport.
The Thrilla In Manila is still, for me, the greatest of all world heavyweight title contests. It was a 50/50 call going into the fight, and throughout most of its 14 rounds, it could have gone either way.
I watched it, enthralled, later that day when the BBC broadcast the bout with the great Harry Carpenter behind the mic. The two men were made for each other, and they left everything in the ring that night.
Simon Euan-Smith
I saw all three Ali-Frazier bouts “live”, at a cinema – the first in Bristol, in my last year at university (a man by the door offered me £20 for my £2.10 ticket. £20 was a huge amount for a student in those days – but I didn’t consider it for a moment!) The others I saw in London, as a staff member of BN.
One memory of the Thrilla is of a huge trophy being brought into the ring during the pre-fight introductions, to be presented to the winner – and Ali promptly picking it up and taking it back to his corner. He could joke, at a time like that! Once the fight started, there was no joking – it was one of the most brutal fights I’ve seen. It was all-out war.
Often when a bout ends via corner retirement, there’s a feeling of anti-climax. Not this time. Ali and Frazier had given everything – and it’s probably fair to say neither reached those heights again.
Gareth Jones
It was gone midnight when I finished my Tuesday shift at the Western Mail and strolled along the newly pedestrianised Queen Street to the Capitol, the only place in Wales to show the Thrilla as it happened.
The boys from Tiger Bay were there en masse; Ali supporters to a man. (If there were any females present other than the cinema staff, they were as invisible as Frazier fans.)
The non-stop action on the giant screen was matched in the stalls, amplified when the champion stood between rounds to orchestrate the chanting of his name, taken up as noisily in Cardiff as in the Philippines.
For a hard-fought contest to come to an unexpected end with one round remaining could, in other circumstances, have been an anti-climax. Not this time, as the audience stood as one to celebrate their idol’s triumph.
My abiding memory was of the change in the two protagonists over the course of an hour. Before the first bell the pair had ignored the referee’s homily to scream insults at each other; at the end neither could raise the energy to speak.
