This story is one part of a large effort by MixedMartialArts.com to understand what works in martial arts. The process is to study what happens on the street, or in this case the production studio, rather than what happens in the arena. If you enjoyed it, check out the library on:
•Martial Arts on The Street
•Boxing
•Stop Bullying
Muhammad Ali is widely considered to be “The Greatest.” Of what, exactly, is a matter of some confusion. He’s not the best boxer of all time, that would be Sugar Ray Robinson. He’s probably not even the best heavyweight of all time; that’s probably Joe Louis.
Maybe greatest means more than best – maybe there’s levels to this. Or maybe Ali said he was the greatest even before he believed it, and it became true. It’s a fact that Ali was in his heyday the best-known person on the planet.
All that said, “The Greatest” was without a doubt one of the top 10 heavyweight boxers of all time. Further, and again without a doubt, Ali would not have become the greatest without his greatest rival, another man on everyone’s top 10 heavyweights of all time list, “Smokin’” Joe Frazier.
On March 8, 1971, they fought for the first time, with Frazier winning a unanimous decision, and retaining the belts he won that had been vacated when Ali refused to be drafted and fight in the Vietnam War. Then Frazier lost the belts to George Foreman, and the Ali rematch was scheduled for January 28, 1974, with Ali’s NABF title on the line.
On January 17, 1974, by happenstance Ali’s 32nd birthday, the pair appeared with Howard Cosell on Wide World of Sports to hype the rematch. In a continuation of trash talk from a previous appearance on the Dick Cavett Show, Ali gleefully and artfully taunted Frazier, but when he called “Smokin’ Joe” ignorant, Frazier had had enough.
Frazier stood up, towering over the seated Ali, and threatened his nemesis. Cosell sat by calmly, with his legs calmly, perhaps because he erroneously thought the altercation was faked.
Ali stayed cool, and when Frazier was distracted by Ali’s younger brother Rahman and another onlooker trying to stop the situation from escalating, Ali popped up, secured a collar tie and inside bicep control, and did his version of a snapdown. At this point Frazier was utterly unable to strike.
And then the pair stumbled off the foot-high stage and onto the floor, where it was eventually broken up.
Ali won the rematch. In his next fight, Ali destroyed George Foreman at the Rumble in The Jungle, winning all his belts back. Ali retained his belts in winning the Frazier trilogy fight, The Thrilla in Manilla, on October 1, 1975, in the Philippines.
“It was like death,” said Ali of the 15 round fight. “Closest thing to dyin’ that I know of.” Ali was instrumental in getting title fights from 15 rounds, to a less lethal 12 rounds. All that is boxing history though, and this page is about what really works in martial arts.
The Lesson
It’s a telling thing, that two of the greatest heavyweight boxers in history get into a fight, and they wrestled down to the ground. Grappling is a highly instinctual and effective means of self-protection. But there’s more to it.
What happens when two wrestlers get so irked they escalate to a fight – they punch.
Wrestling turns into boxing when it turns dirty. Boxing turns into wrestling when it turns dirty. Leon Trotsky famously explained that, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” Likewise with wrestling and striking:
•You may not be interested in wrestling, but wrestling is interested in you; and likewise,
•You may not be interested in striking, but striking is interested in you.
If you practice martial arts/combat sports, and your reason for doing so includes being able to physically defend yourself, then you want to know at the very least a little about wrestling, and a little about striking. Or, better, a lot. If you practice a martial art like Wing Chun or Aikido with no effective grappling and/or no effective striking, then you are lost, from the perspective of being able to defend yourself.
