Ali to Frazier: ‘I Thought You Were Washed Up’

Remembering Joe Frazier and the Thrilla in Manila, through the eyes of sportswriter Mark Kram. Picking it up in Round 6:

Came the sixth, and here it was, that one special moment that you always look for when Joe Frazier is in a fight. Most of his fights have shown this: You can go so far into that desolate and dark place where the heart of Frazier pounds, you can waste his perimeters, you can see his head hanging in the public square, may even believe that you have him, but then suddenly you learn that you have not. Once more the pattern emerged as Frazier loosed all of the fury, all that has made him a brilliant heavyweight. He was in close now, fighting off Ali’s chest, the place where he has to be. His old calling card-that sudden evil, his left hook-was working the head of Ali. Two hooks ripped with slaughterhouse finality at Ali’s jaw, causing Imelda Marcos to look down at her feet, and [President Marcos] to wince as if a knife had been stuck in his back. Ali’s legs seemed to search for the floor. He was in serious trouble, and he knew that he was in no-man’s land.

Whatever else might one day be said about Muhammad Ali, it should never be said that he is without courage, that he cannot take a punch. He took those shots by Frazier, and then came out for the seventh, saying to him, “Old Joe Frazier, why I thought you were washed up.” Joe replied, “Somebody told you all wrong, pretty boy.”

Let’s go to the tape. Round six begins at the 2:30 mark.

Boy, what a round of heavyweight slugging. They make today’s heavyweights look like a dance team from Glee. And when Round 6 was done, they fought eight more rounds until Frazier’s corner, with their boxer battered and nearly blind, threw in the towel before the 15th round. 

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