Remembering The Thrilla In Manila (First of a Series)
By Eddie Alinea
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 04 Oct 2015
For a few morning hours, stretching past noontime 40 years ago on Oct. 1 1975, the attention of the world was focused on the Philippines, which was hosting the third and final chapter of the Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier historic trilogy.
The scheduled 12-round showdown, undoubtedly the biggest sporting event that occurred on these shores, could also be one of the largest in the region counting the 1964 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, the 1988 and the 2008 editions of the quadrennial conclave among the finest athletes in the world held in Seoul and Beijing, respectively.
Such was the impact of the fight between the best and the most popular fighters in the universe christened "Thrilla In Manila" which was later adjudged "The Fight of the Year" and "Super Fight III." Many considered that, too, the "Greatest Fight of the Century" and the "Greatest Fight" of all time.
For five years since the duo squared off in New York for the first time on March 8, 1971 until their third encounter in Manila, Ali, by way of promoting the fight, kept on humiliating, enraging and even isolating Frazier, calling him a shuffling and mumbling Uncle Tom and an ugly an ignorant errand boy for white America.
The most lasting characterization of all was one the three-time world heavyweight champion coined during the press conference announcing the Philippines had won the right to stage the fight on July 17, 1975 in New York were Ali compared his former benefactor to a gorilla.
With a toy gorilla in one hand and a butterfly net in the other, Ali told media men the now famous line: "YOU GOTTA HAVE A BUTTERFY NET TO CATCH ME ... IT' S GONNA BE A CHILLA, AND A KILLA, AND A THRILLA, WHEN I GET THE GORILLA IN MANILA."
From then on, it was the Louisville boy's show in the manner of hyping what proved the classic encounter. For a few times during training, Ali, who enjoyed the honor of using the training venue Folk Arts Theater first , would hide himself in the catwalk to watch his rival do his regimen to the delight of some 80 local and foreign journalists.
One day nearing the much awaited confrontation, the former Cassius Clay went to Hyatt Regency Hotel (now Midas Hotel) , Frazier's official residence while in the country and pulling the security's gun, yelled at the challenger who was then enjoying the sight of the beautiful Manila Bay sunset urging him to come down.
For 20 months from the Ali-Frazier II in January 1974, the Philippines continued hugging the headlines of all sports pages of newspapers in the world as the government, with the blessing of then President Marcos, bid and succeeded in bringing to this country of 7,100 islands the Super Fight III.
It was, once again, time to showcase the Filipinos' capability to successfully host an international event in such magnitude, besides affirming, too, their world-renowned hospitality.
It was time to re-write the country's name in the global sporting map which Filipino Pancho Villa first did when he won the world flyweight championship via seventh round knockout of Welshman Jimmy Wilde in 1923, thus becoming the first Filipino, and Asian, for that matter, to be crowned world boxing champ.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Eddie Alinea.
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