If the sole criterion for “biggest boxing match of all-time” is the amount of money generated, then the undisputed champion is and perhaps forever shall be the May 5, 2015 pairing of Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, which Mayweather won on a wide unanimous decision. That much-anticipated but ultimately disappointing bout registered a record 4.4 pay-per-view subscriptions, pulling in a record $418 million. The previous highs were 2.48 million PPV subscriptions for Mayweather-Oscar de la Hoya and $152 million in PPV revenue for Mayweather-Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
By those megabucks standards, the first of three clashes between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier on March 8, 1971 was almost for chump change. Each undefeated heavyweight received $2.5 million, which does not sound like much in these inflated times, when the U.S. national debt is fast approaching $19 trillion and certain athletes earn more than $100 million annually in salary and endorsements. However, it was then a record payout. More importantly, the fight, still widely considered the most important in boxing history, delivered the kind of excitement that cannot be quantified by the financial bottom line. It was a showdown of two great champions at or near the peak of their powers, with the Vietnam War and societal unrest as a backdrop. What transpired in the ring that night in Madison Square Garden made for epic drama.
America and the world chose sides for reasons that transcended boxing, whether those reasons were justified or not. Millions of hearts were gladdened or saddened when Frazier punctuated his unanimous decision victory with a leaping left hook that floored Ali in the 15th and final round. “The Fight of the Century” had delivered on its unprecedented hype and then some.
“It was the biggest sporting event in history, and still is,” said Joe Hand Sr. It might be only a slight overstatement in regards to the clash of titans, who were so alike in some ways and so different in others.
Hand was one of the 14 original investors in Cloverlay, the consortium of Philadelphia businessmen who bankrolled “Smokin’ Joe” when he returned to his adopted hometown with little or no fanfare after winning the heavyweight gold medal at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Hand’s perspective of the biggest night boxing had ever seen is that of an unabashed Frazier supporter, but that does not make his memories any less meaningful. Although Ali -- winner in two of three in the most classic of boxing trilogies -- likely commands a higher perch on the fight game’s Mount Olympus, it can be argued his archrival Frazier deserves co-billing. Neither one could have become all that he was without the other, just as the Beatles could never become the greatest rock band of all-time had not John Lennon met up with Paul McCartney.
With that said, March 8, 1971 was to be Frazier’s night. What he lacked in finesse he more than made up for with raw power, particularly his signature punch, the left hook, and the sort of indomitable spirit that allowed him to rise to the occasion whenever anyone doubted him. Another renowned Philadelphia fighter, Bernard Hopkins, spoke with reverence at a memorial service for Frazier on Nov. 14, 2011, a week after he died from liver cancer at the age of 67.
“What Joe Frazier meant to me, personally, was will, conditioning and discipline,” Hopkins said. “He didn’t have the all-around skills of a Sugar Ray Robinson or a Muhammad Ali, but he had as much heart as anyone; and he was always proud to represent Philadelphia.”
In some ways, Frazier’s success story is that of the ultimate underdog who is forever confronted with obstacles to overcome and keeps finding a way to scramble over them. The 13th and final child born to Rubin and Dolly Frazier in Beaufort, South Carolina, he dropped out of school in the sixth grade to help his father, a disabled sharecropper and handyman, put food on the family table. Life in the rural and segregated South was difficult, with little chance for a brighter future, so Frazier packed up and moved to Philadelphia when he was 15. He found work in a slaughterhouse and eventually gravitated toward boxing, where a strong back and hard fists at least offered the opportunity for something better.
Frazier did not initially make the 1964 U.S. Olympic boxing team, as Buster Mathis was to be America’s heavyweight representative. However, when Mathis was injured, Frazier moved into his spot and took the gold medal, beating Germany’s Hans Huber in the final. Frazier did not return to a hero’s welcome. He arrived back in Philly with a broken hand, no job, children to support and no means to do it. Let Hand pick up the story from there.
“Joe had kids -- I don’t recall how many it was, maybe just Jacqui and Marvis -- and he couldn’t afford to buy them presents [for Christmas],” Hand said in 2011, a few days before the 40th anniversary of Ali-Frazier I. “There was a politician in Philadelphia named Thatcher Longstreth who came up with the idea of getting people together an forming a company to support Joe. Thatcher went to some of his rich friends and asked them to donate something to Joe for his kids for Christmas.”
Thus, Cloverlay formed, its members predominately from the aristocratic Union League of Philadelphia. Not every investor was a blueblood, however. Hand was a Philadelphia police officer who didn’t even like boxing but hoped to make the right kind of connections. Another investor was Larry Merchant, the future HBO boxing analyst who was then the sports editor of the Philadelphia Daily News. Merchant was required to sell his $250 share in the project when his employers determined his participation constituted a conflict of interest.
Frazier, who was to receive 70 percent of all boxing-related revenues -- officially, he was on a personal-services deal with Cloverlay -- soon revealed himself to be a heavyweight to be reckoned with. He was on a collision course with Ali, who had won two fights since his return from a three-year suspension for refusing to be inducted into the Army as a conscientious objector. “The Greatest” wanted to reclaim the heavyweight title he once held. It now belonged to Frazier, and Ali was quite vocal in proclaiming what he would do to his stylistic opposite if and when they ever shared the same ring.
How big was the fight? Frank Sinatra was shooting photographs on the ring apron for Time Life, and actor Burt Lancaster served as one of the announcers for the closed-circuit telecast. Anyone holding a ringside seat was required to attend in formal wear, tuxedos for men and evening gowns for women.
Frazier had built a lead going into the 15th round, the archaic scoring then done on a round-by-round basis. Sensing he needed a knockout to win, Ali came out looking to land a put-away punch, but Frazier hadn’t taken a step back to that point, and he wasn’t about to do it now. He uncorked the most celebrated wallop of his career, a huge left hook that dropped Ali on the seat of his pants. To his credit, the resilient and courageous Ali arose quickly and made it to the final bell, but Frazier got the nod on scores of 11-4, 9-6 and 8-6-1.
“Yank Durham’s wife (Durham was Frazier’s trainer) was with us, and she passed out,” Hand said of the moment that hook found its target. “She actually fainted when Ali went down. Me, I was shocked that he could even get up. Joe’s feet were probably three inches off the ground when he connected with that hook. I have a picture of it in my office. It wasn’t as if his feet were planted or anything like that; it was a leaping punch. Joe hurled himself at Ali, and down he went.”
Hand said he and the rest of the Cloverlay investors -- the group dissolved after Frazier was dethroned by George Foreman on Jan. 22, 1973 -- were convinced their guy would win the fight that has become the cornerstone of his legend.
“There was never a doubt in any of our minds that Joe would win,” said Hand, who now owns and operates his own boxing gym in Philly. “For him to lose, you’d have to stab him or shoot him. He had all that anger that he’d built up from Ali’s insults. Ali might have been the best fighter, but Joe had the biggest heart.”
While Hand has that large photo of “The Punch” in his office, it is his only memento of the night when his friend, Joe Frazier, shook up the world.
“When it was all over, back in Joe’s dressing room, two guys came in and took everything Joe had worn, the green-and-gold robe, the boxing trunks, the gloves [and] left him with a jockstrap and socks,” he said. “I don’t know what happened to all that gear.”
Forever cast as the B-side to Ali in the saga of Muhammad and Joe, the sort of lasting tributes that Ali routinely has received did not come to Frazier until fairly recently. On Sept. 25, 2010, the then-66-year-old Frazier returned to his birth city of Beaufort to accept the Palmetto Award, the highest distinction a South Carolinian can receive, from Gov. Mark Sanford.
Sadly, the most enduring reminder that Frazier was something special came nearly four years after his death, when a 12-foot statue of him delivering that knockdown shot against Ali was unveiled on Sept. 12, 2015 at Xfinity Live! -- a massive sports bar located at the South Philadelphia sports complex where the stadiums and arenas for the Eagles, Phillies, Sixers and Flyers are located.
“There is an instant of achievement in that pose, in what he just accomplished,” sculptor Stephen Layne said of the punch that forever defines Frazier. “He’s into the work of what he’s doing. I was always astonished, watching that fight over again, to see him land that punch and just walk away. He doesn’t make a big deal of it. The best way I can put it is he had this sort of blue-collar mentality: ‘I did my job today.’ I found that very interesting.”
Bernard Fernandez, a five-term president of the Boxing Writers Association of America, received the Nat Fleischer Award from the BWAA in April 1999 for lifetime achievement and was inducted into the Pennsylvania Boxing Hall of Fame in 2005, as well as the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame in 2013. The New Orleans-born sports writer has worked in the industry since 1969 and pens a weekly column on the Sweet Science for Sherdog.com.