{"id":4363,"date":"2011-03-10T16:37:14","date_gmt":"2011-03-10T21:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=4363"},"modified":"2011-03-10T16:37:14","modified_gmt":"2011-03-10T21:37:14","slug":"40-years-later-ali-and-frazier-still-a-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=4363","title":{"rendered":"40 Years Later, Ali And Frazier Still A Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In his hotel room the morning after, <strong>Muhammad Ali <\/strong>nursed a swollen jaw as the room service waiter arrived with breakfast and good wishes for the man he called champ.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not the champ,\u201d <strong>Ali<\/strong> corrected him. \u201c<strong>Joe Frazier<\/strong> is the champ.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Indeed he was, and if anyone needed a reminder the morning papers provided it with a picture as shocking to <strong>Ali\u2019s<\/strong> adoring fans as his defeat the night before. There was <strong>Ali<\/strong> glassy-eyed and struggling to get up from the canvas in the 15th round as <strong>Frazier<\/strong> walked to a neutral corner more certain than ever of victory.<\/p>\n<p>It was 40 years ago Tuesday that <strong>Ali<\/strong> and <strong>Frazier<\/strong> met at Madison Square Garden in a fight so big it was simply referred to as The Fight. It was <strong>Frazier\u2019s<\/strong> heavyweight title that was on the line, but a lot of boxing fans still considered <strong>Ali<\/strong> the champion because he was stripped of the title and sent into boxing exile for refusing to be drafted.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Frazier<\/strong> was undefeated and in his prime, a relentless aggressor with a vicious left hook. <strong>Ali<\/strong>, in just his third fight since the 3-1\/2-year layoff, was a polarizing figure who was hated by some just as much as he was loved by others.<\/p>\n<p>They would go on to meet two more times, including the memorable Thrilla in Manilla. But nothing could match the stakes that March night at the Garden, where <strong>Frank Sinatra<\/strong> shot pictures at ringside, celebrities jockeyed for prime seats, and almost as many men as women wore full-length fur coats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In his hotel room the morning after, Muhammad Ali nursed a swollen jaw as the room service waiter arrived with breakfast and good wishes for the man he called champ. \u201cI\u2019m not the champ,\u201d Ali corrected him. \u201cJoe Frazier is the champ.\u201d Indeed he was, and if anyone needed a reminder the morning papers provided [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4363\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}