Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao is going to be a
tremendous sporting event, accompanied with as much
hype as anything we’ll see this year outside of the Super
Bowl. It’ll be a reason to get together with your buddies,
drink some beers, smoke some cigars and maybe place a
wager or two. But don’t buy into the hype that’s
surrounding this bout: Mayweather-Pacquiao isn’t the
biggest fight of all time.
Frankly, it’s not even close.
In 1971, Muhammad Ali fought Joe Frazier in what was
justifiably called “The Fight of the Century.” Ali had been
stripped of his title during his three-year suspension for his
refusal to serve in the military. In that time, a Philadelphia
bruiser named Joe Frazier took over the belt, waiting for
Ali’s suspension to be lifted so he could prove that he
wasn’t some unjust usurper of the title, but a worthy holder
of the belt.

Once Ali was allowed to fight again, the bout was set.
Ali fought two warm-up fights against tomato cans in
late-1970 before meeting Frazier at Madison Square
Garden. It was just your average fight between two
undefeated heavyweight champions, one with the belt, the
other with the rightful claim to the belt.
There was the air of racial politics hanging over the
proceedings and pre-bout trash talk that hit at the core of
the black and white divide in America. Ali had called
Frazier an “Uncle Tom,” a phony distinction and
declaration of mental warfare that Frazier would resent
until his dying day. Both men were under 30 years old and
in their prime. They’d be fighting at the most hallowed
arena of all, Madison Square Garden.
Sports had never seen anything like it and never will again.
For all the love shown toward Ali today, he was as
polarizing a figure back then as there’s ever been. How you
felt about his decision to forego the draft and join the
Nation of Islam was a political statement of your own.
Did you call him Cassius or Muhammad? Was he a
criminal or a hero? The country was divided. In March of
1971, there was no middle ground. You had to take a side.
This was a fight that transcended sport.

It took place in front of a circus-like crowd that included
dozens of Hollywood stars and Frank Sinatra taking
pictures for Life magazine.
To this day, sportswriters in attendance say it was the most
electric atmosphere in sports. The hype didn’t match the
action however as Frazier, a 2/1 favorite, won an
anticlimactic decision.
Three years later they would fight again, with no title on
the line but with just as much hype. Ali won that fight and
the right to face the new heavyweight champion, George
Foreman.

The argument could be made that the buildup for the
Rumble In The Jungle was even bigger than for Ali-Frazier.
I, given the African location, the massive outdoor stadium,
the 4 a.m. ET start time, the month-long delay in the fight
after a Foreman injury and the fact that almost no one was
giving the 32-year-old Ali a chance to beat the younger,
harder-hitting Foreman. But it’s hard to judge the hype,
because this fight exceeded it, with Ali employing the
rope-a-dope as thousands of Zairians yelled “Ali
bomaye” (“Ali, kill him”).
Ali, of course, pulled the upset to regain the title.

The rubber match with Frazier (the Thrilla in Manila) also
exceeded any sort of hype you’ll see today and ended with
the referee stopping the fight before the final round due to
Frazier’s condition, with rumors abounding that Ali had
told his trainers to cut off his gloves because of his own
struggles.

He would later say he was close to dying.
So remember that when you’re shelling out $99.95 on
Saturday night to watch two men who delayed fighting for
years due to bickering over money and drug testing and
only came together in the name of that universal language:
cash.
Remember those final minutes of the Thrilla in Manila
when Mayweather and Pacquiao clutch each other for 12
rounds. Keep it in the back of your mind that Ali was
banned for three years because of his stance as a
conscientious objector, making the nonsense that held up
Mayweather-Pacquiao completely trivial.

Oh sure, you’ll hear the numbers to back up the specious
claim that Saturday’s fight is the biggest, with the purse,
pay-per view buys and ticket price used as supporting
evidence. And while it’s true this fight will be the biggest
grossing fight in boxing history, that information is next to
worthless.

This is about way more than numbers.
It’s about the sport itself, which is a shell of its former self
and carries none of the relevance it had 25 years ago, not to
mention 50 years ago when it only trailed baseball and
maybe horse racing as America’s sport.
Most of the people buying the fight on Saturday will have
a single interaction with boxing all year, the same way
they’ll have one interaction with horse racing, which just
so happens to be earlier in the day with the Kentucky
Derby.

These are both dead sports. Events that occasionally cause
them to come up grasping for air can’t change that.
The tremendous, Oscar-winning documentary about Ali
and Foreman’s Rumble in the Jungle is titled When We
Were Kings. There are no kings anymore in boxing, simply
jesters and old men desperate enough to put aside their
petty differences in search of a payday.

[url]ftw.usatoday.com/2015/05/floyd-mayweather-manny-pacquiao-biggest-fight-ever-all-time-muhammad-ali-joe-frazier-jungle-manilla-not-close[/url]

Nobody is saying it's the greatest fight of all time,at least it hasn't been fought yet,but it is acknowledged as the Biggest(RICHEST) of all time,that in concrete monetary terms is a fact nobody can wish away..

donbenie:
Nobody is saying it's the greatest fight of all time,at least it hasn't been fought yet,but it is acknowledged as the Biggest(RICHEST) of all time,that in concrete monetary terms is a fact nobody can wish away..

hmmm

You mean am?

After all the unkept copy and paste?