Frazier is alive and well

Joe Frazier feels the full force of Muhammad Ali's punching power in the 'Thriller in Manila' in 1975.

Former heavyweight champion played his part in the 'Thrilla', says Martin Kelner I used to run a quiz on the radio in which I gave contestants the names of half-forgotten film stars, sportspeople, TV weathermen, and so on, and they had to guess if the formerly famous person was still alive. A simple idea, and not in the best possible taste - especially if the subject of the question was at home listening - but it kept listeners mildly amused in the wee small hours.

A name that used to crop up from time to time was Joe Frazier, and, shockingly, very few people were sure whether the great former heavyweight champion was still around or not. Smokin' Joe is forever destined to be the other fighter in 1975's "Thriller In Manila", the fighter who made up the numbers in arguably the greatest contest in sporting history. Everybody knows what happened to Muhammad Ali after the fight, but Joe had somehow played his part, and it was time to get off the stage.

Until now, that is, because Joe is still around, and telling his side of the remarkable story that unfolded in the Philippines' capital. He is 63 now, and has a gym in a run-down area of Philadelphia. Whereas Ali is lauded wherever he goes, and was able to realise a little ready cash recently by selling rights to his image for US$50 million (Dh183.6m), Joe lives in one room above his gym. Where Ali's entourage helps him in and out of limos as he goes to public engagements or to pick up honorary degrees, Joe makes his own way around the mean streets near his gym with the help of a stick.

He keeps cheerful though, and there is something heroic about Joe as he shuffles into his gym quietly humming Blue Suede Shoes or Who Let The Dogs Out? This picture of Frazier emerges from a terrific new documentary called Thriller in Manila, by the British director John Dower, challenging the view of the Ali- Frazier rivalry that some of us - me certainly - have held for more than 30 years. As the film points out, at the time of the fight in Manila, and earlier fights in America, Ali had the almost unanimous support of blacks, and also white liberals who admired his conscientious objection to the Vietnam war, whereas only white conservatives wanted Frazier to triumph. This was largely because of the insults - subtle and not so subtle - that Ali slung the way of his rival, suggesting he was a so-called Uncle Tom, subservient to the white man. He also said he was ugly and stupid, but that did not wound Frazier so deeply.

The irony is that Joe grew up in dirt-poor Beaufort County, South Carolina, "the blackest part of black America", as the documentary states, and has always lived among his own people in the badlands of North Philadelphia. A religious man, Frazier was supportive of Ali's conversion to Islam, spoke up for him when his boxing licence was revoked, and even gave Ali money to tide him over when he was unable to box.

His reward was to be branded a traitor to his people, which impacted not just on Frazier but on his family too. In the film, which premiers in Britain next month and hopefully will reach the rest of the world soon after, Frazier's son tells how schoolmates picked up on Ali's insults, saying, "Your dad's an Uncle Tom," to the mystified youngster. The black propaganda reached its height in advance of the contest in Manila, when, in a bizarrely borderline racist pantomime, Ali sparred with a gorilla supposed to represent his opponent. Frazier is clearly the main subject of the film, but it may also cause some of us to re-examine Ali's reputation. Former heavyweight champion Larry Holmes reckons he was overrated, which seems a little harsh, but the film leaves you in no doubt that Ali sometimes landed his most damaging blows outside the ring.

In fairness, Ali apologised, in a 2001 interview with the New York Times, for some of the stunts he pulled before the contest in the Philippines, but all these years later his behaviour still rankles with Joe. "I just hope he asks the Lord to forgive him," says Frazier. [e-mail]