General Admission
Revisiting the ‘Thrilla in Manila’ in 1975
By Al S. Mendoza
THE nation did not observe yesterday’s 36th anniversary of the “Thrilla in Manila”
Well, so what, you might say.
The event doesn’t have any meaning anyway to the common tao.
Commemorating it can’t even feed hungry mouths.
The “Thrilla in Manila” was “nothing” but a boxing bout between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, two of the most famous African-American boxers who used to love to hate each other.
Love-hate affairs in boxing are all hype, of course, but for Frazier, his hatred of Ali has always been genuine.
“I hate him till my dying day,” said Frazier.
That was his reaction in 1996, when asked to comment on Ali being picked to light the Olympic urn in Atlanta.
Even as Ali’s body was shaking, hand was trembling, while he struggled up the Olympic stage, Frazier was without mercy. Scathing.
“He kept calling me ‘gorilla’ and I can never forgive him for that,” Frazier said. “He kept insulting me before and during the fight. To hell with him.”
Frazier even derisively dismissed Ali as the biggest “hoax” in boxing after their classic brawl on Oct. 1, 1975 at the Cubao Big Dome.
A most unkind remark, of course, because Ali is generally regarded as the best fighter of all time.
Bad-mouthing Frazier was characteristic of Ali, who loved to give derogatory monikers to every opponent he faced in his heyday.
“I picked the ‘gorilla’ thing against Frazier because ‘gorilla’ rhymed with ‘thrilla’,” said Ali, who coined the “Thrilla in Manila” to add hype to the fight.
To those too young to know, Ali was also the poet of the ring, who popularized his insignia line of fighting with his classic, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”
The “Thrilla in Manila” was the best ever fight in the history of boxing that experts in the sport had practically voted it unanimously as “The Fight of The Century.”
So brutal was the fight that almost every round was soaked in blood and gore, with each one literally going after each other’s neck at the slightest opportunity.
After Frazier, his face beaten to a bloody pulp, failed to answer the bell for the 14th round, Ali next described the fight, thus: “It was next to death.”
Fights in those days were scheduled for 15 rounds.
It was that fight, which absolutely tested the toughness, limits to pain and battering, of a human being, which finally cut the length of every championship fight thereon from 15 to 12 rounds.
It was also that fight which put Marcos on the lips of every person worldwide.
It cost P20 million in taxpayers’ money to stage that fight of 36 years ago.
Come to think of it: Manny Pacquiao earns no less than 20 million when he fights today – and in dollars, mind you.
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