Ali vs Frazier I, II, III

[blockhead]

i dont care what he said, he was still great. shot or not.

[DuncanJL]

This was a blood fued. There ain't no excuses.

there ain't no excuses in this rivalry. That was already established by Ali in their first fight. Do you think Ali was able to fight Frazier while he was still in his prime ? no. He went straight up to Frazier after 4 years of inactivity taken right out of his prime. When you are as great as Ali though, and as confident a champ as he was, there ain't no convincing him that he can't do it. It was pretty much a tragedy that he was forced to fight Frazier after so long out of the game. We probably got robbed of the fight were actually supposed to see between them. The fight that took place was, in my opinion, more fascinating and intense for certain reasons, but there ain't no question that Ali took a hell of a lot more punishment than he would have if they had matched up a few years earlier. Equal to Ali, Frazier seemed to also understand what their rivalry and its sacrifices entailed. He provided that evidence with his epic effort against Ali in Manila as his body had already started to fail him. Just like Ali in their first fight, he didn't make any excuses in Manila. These guys don't have that word in their vocabulary. A couple of champions, those two.

[KidBlackie]

Some points:

Ali had 2 refresher fights against top contenders Quarry and Bonavena who Frazier had already beat. Ali in 1971 may have been at his comeback peak. He was only 29 and undefeated with an ax to grind. Frazier was simply the superior fighter that day. He was a machine that could only be stopped by KO.

Ali had a more productive career because Frazier's style needed youth and Frazier had physical problems which boxing exacerbated such as eye problems and hypertension.

That being said, Frazier had as much if not more will than Ali. Though Frazier was well past his physical best in the 3rd fight as was Ali, not many know that it was Ali who wanted to quit, not Frazier. Frazier was stopped by Futch just seconds before they learned that Ali had already quit in his corner. The only difference was that Dundee refused to let Ali quit much like he refuse to let him quit against Liston. Frazier reportedly held a grudge against Futch until the day he died and of course Frazier has always had mixed feelings about Ali.

[Frazier's 15th round]

Ali was awesome in the first fight. But that was Frazier's night. I always like it when an Ali fan says something like, "Oh, Frazier was lucky Ali was exiled." I can always fire back with, "Oh, well, Frazier was blind in one eye, and had subpar vision in the other."

Ali was good for a very long time. That's why he is the best. But Frazier was an absolute monster from 68-71, and would have beaten any version of Ali in that time.