September 27, 2025 • 14 mins
The infamous bout between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier III, billed as the Thrilla in Manila, is set to celebrate its 50-year anniversary.
The 14-round fight is universally regarded as one of the most brutal clashes in the history of boxing.
Boxing journalist Thomas Hauser joined Piney to discuss.
LISTEN ABOVE
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Weekend Sport Podcast with Jason Vine
from Newstalks EDB October one.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
This coming Wednesday will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the
Thriller in Manila, regarded by many as the greatest prize
fight of all time, the third and final professional bout
between Muhammad Ali and Joe Fraser for the heavyweight championship
of the World.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
I hurt.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Rader, badly hurt. That was the biggest round of the
fight for anybody. Fraser what within a bunch or two
of going down, the doctor comes up and looks at Fraser.
I think it's gonna be over. It's all over. Muhammad
(01:00):
Ali is pretty well spenced.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Who has retained a title.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
And I think he needs a little air because this
has to.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Have been one of the most brewer things heavyweight championships
of all time. It certainly was. Fraser had beat An
Li at Madison Square Garden in nineteen seventy one. Ari
beat Fraser three years later at the same venue. This
was the final and by far most brutal of their
three bouts. Some sources estimate it was watched by one
billion viewers. Ari won by corner retirement when Joe Fraser's
(01:31):
team asked the referee to stop the fight after the
fourteenth of fifteen scheduled rounds. Thomas Hauser is one of
the most prolific and respected boxing writers and journalists of
all time. Among as many many books on boxing, he
wrote Muhammad Ali, His Life and Times, The Definitive Biography
of Muhammad Ali. Thomas Hauser was inducted into the International
(01:52):
Boxing Hall of Fame in twenty nineteen and joins us
from New York. Thomas is great to have you on
news Talks, edb. Can you put the thriller in Manila
into context for us in terms of where it sits
among the most significant bouts and boxing history.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Okay, well, for first, it is very nice to be
with you. Thank you for having me. You said before
that it was for the heavyweight championship for the world,
but it was really for something much more important than that,
which is that Muhammad Ali and Joe Frasier were fighting
for the championship of each other. They were bitter rivals,
(02:31):
they were universally regarded as two of the best heavyweights
other and while to the outside world, yes, this was
for the heavyweight championship for those two men. It was
intensely personal. This was between the two of them. This
was going to determine who was champion between them and
(02:53):
forget the rest of the world. And as you said,
it was a horribly brutal fight, with back and forth,
very destructive action the whole way. The heat and humidity
were sweltering, and neither man ever fully recovered from the
(03:14):
physical damage that they inflicted on each other that day.
I had many remarkable experiences with Mohammed and a lot
of gratifying ones. And one of the most gratifying things
is while I was working on Mohammed Ali's life and times,
Ali sat and watched videos of all of his fights together,
(03:38):
and we'd sit on the sofa in either my living
room or the sofa on his living room in his home,
and we watched the tapes of his fights one by
one in chronological order, and he enjoyed most of those,
even when times were hard. I mean, when Henry Cooper
knocked him down with that callacious left took Ali's open wide,
(04:01):
and then even the first fight against Fraser, which Mohammad lost,
and the first fight against Ken Norton when Mohammad's draw
was broken. We're safely ensconced in the annals of history,
but sitting on the sofa next to Mohammad while we
were watching the Thriller and Manila, Mohammed physically winced years
(04:28):
three years later as he watched Joe land some of
those punches. And when we finished watching the tape, Mohammad
turned to me and said, Fraser quit just before I did.
I didn't think I could fight anymore now. Actually it
wasn't Joe Fraser who quit. It was Eddie Futch, who
was Joe's chief second, who stopped the fight. Joe could
(04:51):
not see out of one eye. He was having trouble
seeing much of anything out of the other. He was
bleeding badly from the mouth. And that's when fighters get
even more seriously damaged than those two men were, and
so Eddie Fudge stopped it. If the bell for a
(05:11):
round fifteen had come, I think Mohammed would have gone
out for the round. He was as courageous as any
fighter whoever lived. But if you look at a video
of that fight, after the fight is stopped, Mohammed stands
up and raises his arm in triumph, and then he
(05:32):
sort of oozes to the ring canvas, so would it
have been like Sugar Ray Robinson against Joey Maxim at
Madison Square Garden when Robinson was well ahead of the scorecards.
This was back in nineteen fifty two, and the heat
was one hundred and for degrees at Madison Square matt
(05:54):
Yankee Stadium, let me correct myself Yankee Stadium that night,
and Robinson just collapsed in his corner after the thirteenth
round and couldn't go on. You know, on some cosmic
measuring scale, you can say that Ali Fraser III was
a draw, but Muhammad won it in the record books,
(06:17):
and that's the way it stands forever.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
At what stages of their respective careers were Ali and
Fraser in nineteen seventy five, Both of.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Them were well passed their prime. Ali was at you know,
Joe never fought Ali at his best. Ali was at
his best before the exile from boxing, when he was young,
when he had his legs, when he was fighting Cleveland
Williams and Ernie Terrell and Zora Foley. By the time
(06:48):
he came back to fight Joe Frasier the first time,
Muhammad's legs were gone, and that first fight against Ali
took so much out of Joe that he was never
the same fighter again Ali after the layoff. Ali was
probably at his best in zi year against orde Foreman
then he began to decline. So by the time they
(07:11):
met for the third time in Manila, neither of them
was the fighter he had once been physically, but their
downward arcs coincided just the right time, so they were
evenly matched, and they still had that incredible warrior spirit
both of them.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Was there any respect between the two or did they
just outright dislike one another?
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Well, Muhammad had respect for Joe as a fighter. Joe
despised Muhammad, and I understand that, you know, Joe Frazier.
Let's go back a step. When they fought the first time,
Muhammad was the most famous person in the world, and
(08:04):
Joe won that first fight. But that fight was really
looked on as a metaphor the struggle between racist warlike
elements on one side and those seeking peace and social
justice on the other. You know, the right wing in
American politics, you know, wanting Joe to beat Ali, and
(08:27):
the anti war protesters and people who who were seeking
justice through the civil rights movement supporting Ali. Joe didn't
want to be a symbol, you know, and Joe just
wanted to be a fighter. But their first fight, Ali
(08:49):
branded Joe and uncle Tom. The second fight, he branded
him as ignorant. The third fight he made fun of
him as a gorilla with all of the ugly racial
stereotypes that come with that. And even though Manila wasn't
about Ali's social and political beliefs, the narrative had quieted.
(09:10):
By then. Joe bore a huge amount of resentment towards Muhammad.
He did until the very end. You know. From time
to time, as the years went by, they'd get together,
usually for an economic incentive to appear at some event.
But Joe's hatred remained. And one of the things that
(09:31):
Ali said to me, and he said it often, was
that he was sorry that Joe was angry at him.
And what Mohammad said, very very, you know, directly, was
if God ever calls me to a holy war, I
want Joe Fraser fighting beside me.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Amazing how different or not Thomas were Ali and Fraser
as fighters, well.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
They both had an extraordinary warrior spirit. Beyond that, they
were completely different as fighters. Mohammad relied on footwork and speed.
When he was at his best, and he didn't want
to get hit. You know, it was jabbed straight right hand.
Those were his two best punches. Joe was happy to
(10:18):
take two punches to land one. He came straight forward,
you know, bobbing and weaving to try to evade the punches.
But Joe took more punches than he gave out. But
he could take a great punch and he could dish
out a ferocious punch. But they were completely different styles.
(10:40):
And you know, there's that old saying in boxing styles
make fights, and hear their styles meshed perfectly in their
first and third encounters for incredible action. The second fight
wasn't that entertaining. In the second fight, Ali was able
to use his speed, his footwork and jab to negate
(11:02):
pretty much anything that Joe wanted to do. But by
the third Ali had slowed too much that he couldn't
move the way he once did, and he got tired.
And as you said earlier, there were just horribly brutal exchangers.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Why did the fight take place in the Philippines.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
The fight took place in the Philippines for the same
reason that Ali versus George Foreman took place in Zayir
That there was a dictator in a foreign country who
was willing to put up a huge amount of money
to bring the fighters over there, to boost his profile
(11:45):
at home and around the world. And there's an irony
in that, because Ali, perhaps more than any athlete ever
stood for personal freedom. But there were times when he
made accommodations, you know, with dictators, and certainly the accommodation
with Butu Zaiir and Ferdinand Marcos and the Philippines was
(12:10):
one of them. Now, Muhammad was not a sophistic political thinker,
and I don't think that he understood the full ramifications
of those decisions. But yeah, the reason it took place
in the Philippines was money, plain and simple. All right.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Well, it's been such a delight to JETTYA. Thomas about
your memories, your recollections, and your analysis. Ali and Fraser
never reconsoled, did they. You mentioned before that they had
public appearances to get a Ali perhaps softened on Fraser.
Did Fraser ever soften on Ali or not?
Speaker 3 (12:43):
There were times when Joe was I said, they did
public appearances together from time to time. There were times
when Joe seemed to be softening a bit. But let's
put it in context. Joe once. Joe and I were
once talking about Muhammad's physical condition, which as you know,
(13:04):
was very bad in a lot of years of his life,
and Joe, with great satisfaction on his face, said to me,
I did that to him? Now? Was that ugly? Yeah?
Do you need to know anything more? No?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Tell us about your latest book. You still go and
goodness me, I don't know how many there must be
in that bookcase of yours. Now, The Most Honest Sport
two more years inside Boxing is your latest.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
It is every year or two I bring out a
book with all of the boxing articles that I wrote
in the preceding twelve or twenty four months. The Most
Honest Sport is the most recent of those books and
apropos of what we've been talking about. There was a
long essay about the fiftieth anniversary of the Rumble in
(13:53):
the Jungle Muhammad Ali versus George Foreman. It's in the
Most Honest Sport. There's a lot about the contemporary boxing scene,
about what appear to be the Saudi takeover of boxing,
the big fights of the two years in question. And
my email address is out there for those who don't
(14:16):
have it. It's Thomas Houser. Writer at gmail dot com.
And if anybody wants to read the book and shoot
me an email about it, I promise I'll respond to them.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Wonderful Thomas, It's been wonderful chatting to you. Thank you
for joining us across New Zealand today. I really appreciate
your time.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Thank you for joining us. Thomas Thomas, how's a there?
Prolific boxing author, writer, journalist and analyst on the eve
of the fiftieth anniversary of The Thriller in Manila.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
For more from Weekend Sport with Jason Fine, listen live
to news Talks b weekends from midday, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Weekend Sport Podcast with Jason Vine
from Newstalks EDB October one.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
This coming Wednesday will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the
Thriller in Manila, regarded by many as the greatest prize
fight of all time, the third and final professional bout
between Muhammad Ali and Joe Fraser for the heavyweight championship
of the World.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
I hurt.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Rader, badly hurt. That was the biggest round of the
fight for anybody. Fraser what within a bunch or two
of going down, the doctor comes up and looks at Fraser.
I think it's gonna be over. It's all over. Muhammad
(01:00):
Ali is pretty well spenced.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Who has retained a title.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
And I think he needs a little air because this
has to.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Have been one of the most brewer things heavyweight championships
of all time. It certainly was. Fraser had beat An
Li at Madison Square Garden in nineteen seventy one. Ari
beat Fraser three years later at the same venue. This
was the final and by far most brutal of their
three bouts. Some sources estimate it was watched by one
billion viewers. Ari won by corner retirement when Joe Fraser's
(01:31):
team asked the referee to stop the fight after the
fourteenth of fifteen scheduled rounds. Thomas Hauser is one of
the most prolific and respected boxing writers and journalists of
all time. Among as many many books on boxing, he
wrote Muhammad Ali, His Life and Times, The Definitive Biography
of Muhammad Ali. Thomas Hauser was inducted into the International
(01:52):
Boxing Hall of Fame in twenty nineteen and joins us
from New York. Thomas is great to have you on
news Talks, edb. Can you put the thriller in Manila
into context for us in terms of where it sits
among the most significant bouts and boxing history.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Okay, well, for first, it is very nice to be
with you. Thank you for having me. You said before
that it was for the heavyweight championship for the world,
but it was really for something much more important than that,
which is that Muhammad Ali and Joe Frasier were fighting
for the championship of each other. They were bitter rivals,
(02:31):
they were universally regarded as two of the best heavyweights
other and while to the outside world, yes, this was
for the heavyweight championship for those two men. It was
intensely personal. This was between the two of them. This
was going to determine who was champion between them and
(02:53):
forget the rest of the world. And as you said,
it was a horribly brutal fight, with back and forth,
very destructive action the whole way. The heat and humidity
were sweltering, and neither man ever fully recovered from the
(03:14):
physical damage that they inflicted on each other that day.
I had many remarkable experiences with Mohammed and a lot
of gratifying ones. And one of the most gratifying things
is while I was working on Mohammed Ali's life and times,
Ali sat and watched videos of all of his fights together,
(03:38):
and we'd sit on the sofa in either my living
room or the sofa on his living room in his home,
and we watched the tapes of his fights one by
one in chronological order, and he enjoyed most of those,
even when times were hard. I mean, when Henry Cooper
knocked him down with that callacious left took Ali's open wide,
(04:01):
and then even the first fight against Fraser, which Mohammad lost,
and the first fight against Ken Norton when Mohammad's draw
was broken. We're safely ensconced in the annals of history,
but sitting on the sofa next to Mohammad while we
were watching the Thriller and Manila, Mohammed physically winced years
(04:28):
three years later as he watched Joe land some of
those punches. And when we finished watching the tape, Mohammad
turned to me and said, Fraser quit just before I did.
I didn't think I could fight anymore now. Actually it
wasn't Joe Fraser who quit. It was Eddie Futch, who
was Joe's chief second, who stopped the fight. Joe could
(04:51):
not see out of one eye. He was having trouble
seeing much of anything out of the other. He was
bleeding badly from the mouth. And that's when fighters get
even more seriously damaged than those two men were, and
so Eddie Fudge stopped it. If the bell for a
(05:11):
round fifteen had come, I think Mohammed would have gone
out for the round. He was as courageous as any
fighter whoever lived. But if you look at a video
of that fight, after the fight is stopped, Mohammed stands
up and raises his arm in triumph, and then he
(05:32):
sort of oozes to the ring canvas, so would it
have been like Sugar Ray Robinson against Joey Maxim at
Madison Square Garden when Robinson was well ahead of the scorecards.
This was back in nineteen fifty two, and the heat
was one hundred and for degrees at Madison Square matt
(05:54):
Yankee Stadium, let me correct myself Yankee Stadium that night,
and Robinson just collapsed in his corner after the thirteenth
round and couldn't go on. You know, on some cosmic
measuring scale, you can say that Ali Fraser III was
a draw, but Muhammad won it in the record books,
(06:17):
and that's the way it stands forever.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
At what stages of their respective careers were Ali and
Fraser in nineteen seventy five, Both of.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Them were well passed their prime. Ali was at you know,
Joe never fought Ali at his best. Ali was at
his best before the exile from boxing, when he was young,
when he had his legs, when he was fighting Cleveland
Williams and Ernie Terrell and Zora Foley. By the time
(06:48):
he came back to fight Joe Frasier the first time,
Muhammad's legs were gone, and that first fight against Ali
took so much out of Joe that he was never
the same fighter again Ali after the layoff. Ali was
probably at his best in zi year against orde Foreman
then he began to decline. So by the time they
(07:11):
met for the third time in Manila, neither of them
was the fighter he had once been physically, but their
downward arcs coincided just the right time, so they were
evenly matched, and they still had that incredible warrior spirit
both of them.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Was there any respect between the two or did they
just outright dislike one another?
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Well, Muhammad had respect for Joe as a fighter. Joe
despised Muhammad, and I understand that, you know, Joe Frazier.
Let's go back a step. When they fought the first time,
Muhammad was the most famous person in the world, and
(08:04):
Joe won that first fight. But that fight was really
looked on as a metaphor the struggle between racist warlike
elements on one side and those seeking peace and social
justice on the other. You know, the right wing in
American politics, you know, wanting Joe to beat Ali, and
(08:27):
the anti war protesters and people who who were seeking
justice through the civil rights movement supporting Ali. Joe didn't
want to be a symbol, you know, and Joe just
wanted to be a fighter. But their first fight, Ali
(08:49):
branded Joe and uncle Tom. The second fight, he branded
him as ignorant. The third fight he made fun of
him as a gorilla with all of the ugly racial
stereotypes that come with that. And even though Manila wasn't
about Ali's social and political beliefs, the narrative had quieted.
(09:10):
By then. Joe bore a huge amount of resentment towards Muhammad.
He did until the very end. You know. From time
to time, as the years went by, they'd get together,
usually for an economic incentive to appear at some event.
But Joe's hatred remained. And one of the things that
(09:31):
Ali said to me, and he said it often, was
that he was sorry that Joe was angry at him.
And what Mohammad said, very very, you know, directly, was
if God ever calls me to a holy war, I
want Joe Fraser fighting beside me.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Amazing how different or not Thomas were Ali and Fraser
as fighters, well.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
They both had an extraordinary warrior spirit. Beyond that, they
were completely different as fighters. Mohammad relied on footwork and speed.
When he was at his best, and he didn't want
to get hit. You know, it was jabbed straight right hand.
Those were his two best punches. Joe was happy to
(10:18):
take two punches to land one. He came straight forward,
you know, bobbing and weaving to try to evade the punches.
But Joe took more punches than he gave out. But
he could take a great punch and he could dish
out a ferocious punch. But they were completely different styles.
(10:40):
And you know, there's that old saying in boxing styles
make fights, and hear their styles meshed perfectly in their
first and third encounters for incredible action. The second fight
wasn't that entertaining. In the second fight, Ali was able
to use his speed, his footwork and jab to negate
(11:02):
pretty much anything that Joe wanted to do. But by
the third Ali had slowed too much that he couldn't
move the way he once did, and he got tired.
And as you said earlier, there were just horribly brutal exchangers.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Why did the fight take place in the Philippines.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
The fight took place in the Philippines for the same
reason that Ali versus George Foreman took place in Zayir
That there was a dictator in a foreign country who
was willing to put up a huge amount of money
to bring the fighters over there, to boost his profile
(11:45):
at home and around the world. And there's an irony
in that, because Ali, perhaps more than any athlete ever
stood for personal freedom. But there were times when he
made accommodations, you know, with dictators, and certainly the accommodation
with Butu Zaiir and Ferdinand Marcos and the Philippines was
(12:10):
one of them. Now, Muhammad was not a sophistic political thinker,
and I don't think that he understood the full ramifications
of those decisions. But yeah, the reason it took place
in the Philippines was money, plain and simple. All right.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Well, it's been such a delight to JETTYA. Thomas about
your memories, your recollections, and your analysis. Ali and Fraser
never reconsoled, did they. You mentioned before that they had
public appearances to get a Ali perhaps softened on Fraser.
Did Fraser ever soften on Ali or not?
Speaker 3 (12:43):
There were times when Joe was I said, they did
public appearances together from time to time. There were times
when Joe seemed to be softening a bit. But let's
put it in context. Joe once. Joe and I were
once talking about Muhammad's physical condition, which as you know,
(13:04):
was very bad in a lot of years of his life,
and Joe, with great satisfaction on his face, said to me,
I did that to him? Now? Was that ugly? Yeah?
Do you need to know anything more? No?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Tell us about your latest book. You still go and
goodness me, I don't know how many there must be
in that bookcase of yours. Now, The Most Honest Sport
two more years inside Boxing is your latest.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
It is every year or two I bring out a
book with all of the boxing articles that I wrote
in the preceding twelve or twenty four months. The Most
Honest Sport is the most recent of those books and
apropos of what we've been talking about. There was a
long essay about the fiftieth anniversary of the Rumble in
(13:53):
the Jungle Muhammad Ali versus George Foreman. It's in the
Most Honest Sport. There's a lot about the contemporary boxing scene,
about what appear to be the Saudi takeover of boxing,
the big fights of the two years in question. And
my email address is out there for those who don't
(14:16):
have it. It's Thomas Houser. Writer at gmail dot com.
And if anybody wants to read the book and shoot
me an email about it, I promise I'll respond to them.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Wonderful Thomas, It's been wonderful chatting to you. Thank you
for joining us across New Zealand today. I really appreciate
your time.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Thank you for joining us. Thomas Thomas, how's a there?
Prolific boxing author, writer, journalist and analyst on the eve
of the fiftieth anniversary of The Thriller in Manila.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
For more from Weekend Sport with Jason Fine, listen live
to news Talks b weekends from midday, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.