WBC Countdown to #FuryWhyte Greatest Heavyweight Fights by OPUS: #ThrillaInManila

The Thrilla in Manila was the third and final fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier and it defined them for eternity. The temperature due to the humidity and the television lights, was 120 degrees Fahrenheit! Ali opened up early, wobbling Joe several times, but as the fight wore on Joe landed to Ali`s body and with his crunching left hooks to the head. Ali gasped: “They told me you were finished.” To which Joe snapped: “They lied.”  From the eighth the nature of the fight changed. Joe who strangely abandoned his bobbing and weaving style, got hit a lot more. His eyes were swelling and in the thirteenth, Ali knocked out his mouthguard. After the fourteenth both were exhausted. Joe´s Chief Second Eddie Futch stopped the fight, refusing to allow the near blind Joe to go out for the final round. Ali, who described it all as the closest he´d been to dying, held his hands aloft in victory and then briefly fainted, sitting down on the canvass. They´d given their absolute all. As fighters they were never  ever the same again.

WBC Countdown to #FuryWhyte Greatest Heavyweight Fights by OPUS: #ThrillaInManila

The Thrilla in Manila was the third and final fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier and it defined them for eternity. They gave their absolute all in every single round of the fight. pic.twitter.com/6RI4gvRt2D

— Mauricio Sulaiman (@wbcmoro) April 19, 2022