.... the eureka moment came in the form of query ... my daughter, knowing me to have abiding reverence for Muhammed Ali the man, the athlete and the icon, asked me for thoughts on the third epic Ali-Frazier fight having just watched a documentary on it ... in which the overshadowed Frazier perspective of this massive event is finally presented ...
... remembered as it was billed in 1975, "The Thrilla In Manila" retains sociologically significant sporting import thirty-five years on ... pitting as it did the poster-boy of black pride against another proud-to-be-black champ of the boxing ring ... mano a mano ... on an all-too-eager internationally syndicated stage ...
... over fourteen rounds they put on a full throttle thrilla and, to put it simply, beat the brains out of each other for considerable compensation ... but it was more than a prize-fighter match-up ... for each man there was nobility in their cause and backstory to their behaviours ... huge hype at the time but more clarified today with the added perspective of time ...
... the fight itself is what it was ... a grueling encore of encores adjudged to have tipped in Ali's favour before being stopped by Smokin' Joe's corner ... but it should come as no surprise that both men emerged with their share of the critical spoils ... and rightly so ... some of the weapons-of-mass-rhetoric prior to battle had racial overtones which served to amplify the tensions leading up to the event and surely added intensity to the performances on the day ... that Ali was naturally the more loquacious casts him as the main offender ... he gave everything in the ring and said everything outside of it, even if it was offensive ...
... this was war, all guns a-blazin'! ...
... Central Casting couldn't have done a better job ... the controversially brash brown-skinned Adonis who was effortlessly charismatic in the spotlight versus the rock solid black-powerhouse who did his talking with his fists ...
... seasoned performers both, neither were young phenoms nor past-it has-beens ... Ali in particular carried political weight in his insistence on being his own man in an age where that was an incongruity for one of his background ... by refusing to go to war he fought the law and the law didn't win ... he transcended his sport and while doing so developed his shtick ... a contradictory amalgam of supreme confidence and behaviour black men often manifest in order to project themselves to the widest audience ... ... y'ever notice how that inevitably seems to involve or feature comic mugging on some level? ...
... it is sometimes said that nothing in life is truly black or white, there are only shades of grey ... I'll add to that ... history isn't merely a timeline but also a prism ... while there is something troubling in the image of two proud, talented black men beating each other down, punching their way to a better life, you can't blame either fighter for their approach ...
... the depiction of Muhammed Ali, flaws and all, in the 2009 HBO documentary is not incorrect ... nor is it disrespectful ... it only serves to texturize the picture of this larger than life figure who captured human imaginations worldwide ... for some balance the film ought to be watched alongside the 1996 documentary ... "When We Were Kings" ... about the 1974 Ali-Foreman "Rumble In The Jungle" ... in Zaire, central Africa ... killer soundtrack on this one too ....
... Joe Frazier was as tenacious a pugilist as there's ever been ... and Muhammed Ali wasn't the only boxer with poise and style ... but, in its historical context, with all that resulted from his empowered achievements, from the Olympics and Sonny Liston through Joe Frazier and living with Parkinson's, the magnitude of this man's legacy is documented ... and safe for all time ....
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