TUCSON – On the 40th anniversary of their epic boxing showdown, Muhammad Ali visited a baseball training camp on Tuesday with a charity message for superstars while Joe Frazier recalled his iconic victory. Frazier won a unanimous 15-round decision over Ali at Madison Square Garden to keep his world heavyweight crown in what was the first of three battles of the titans, the other fights won by Ali in 1974 at New York and 1975 at Manila.
Ali visited the Chicago White Sox clubhouse at their pre-season training base in Tucson on Tuesday and received a jersey from the Major League Baseball club with the number 40 and “Champ” where names normally are stitched. Anticipation was huge for Ali-Frazier in a pre-pay-per-view era where closed-circuit broadcasts and round-by-round radio updates were the fastest ways to find out who won, the internet and portable phones mere fantasies.
Frazier, 67, called his victory over Ali the greatest of his career in an interview with ESPN, noting the taunts Ali had made about Frazier not being a true champion until he proved it in the ring against him. “He was going around saying how great he was, how pretty he was,” Frazier said. “I got him to quiet down some. A little. Not much.
“He said he was God. I said, ‘Lord, you’re in the wrong place tonight.'” Ali, now 69 and suffering from Parkinson’s disease, was stripped of his heavyweight crown in 1967 after refusing to enlist in the US Army, an anti-war stance that would help make him a sport legend worldwide. “I went out there and showed him what the country was all about and what Joe Frazier was all about,” said Frazier, who taunted Ali by using his former name, Cassius Clay.
“You couldn’t listen to anything he was saying. I wasn’t going to let it hurt me in any way. I knew what kind of man I was. Let him make all the noise he wants.”
