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42 pages 1 hour read

Walter Dean Myers

The Greatest: Muhammad Ali

Nonfiction | Biography | YA | Published in 2001

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Part 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 3: “The People’s Champion”

Part 3, Chapter 9 Summary: “Ali vs. Frazier”

Joe Frazier, the son of poor farmers, was a fighter’s fighter with a relentless, come-forward approach and devastating left hook. In addition to fighting, he supported his family by working in a Philadelphia slaughterhouse (inspiring the scene in the film Rocky in which the title character practices by hitting slabs of meat). With Ali out of the picture, Frazier captured the vacant title in 1968, eager to gain “a kind of respect that a black man with little education couldn’t get anywhere else” (87). Frazier mounted a perfect record against the best competition available, but he would not be considered the true champion unless he beat Ali. Once Ali made his comeback, the two agreed to a fight in Madison Square Garden on March 8, 1971. They had known each other for years, and Frazier had supported Ali in his conversion and exile from boxing. Therefore, when Ali promoted the fight with cruel taunts against Frazier, calling him an “Uncle Tom” who served the white establishment, Frazier felt betrayed since Ali was denying him the respect that he felt he had earned.

Come fight night, Ali tagged Frazier with punch after punch, but Frazier did not slow down, and by the middle rounds, Frazier’s thunderous left hook began to connect. Ali mounted a brief comeback, but at the very beginning of the 15th and final round, another left hook sent Ali to the canvas. He stood up quickly and finished the fight, but Frazier won a unanimous decision. Even though Ali had lost, he fought bravely and remained defiant of his critics. In many people’s minds, he would remain “the people’s champion” (96).

Part 3, Chapter 10 Summary: “Comeback”

Even after the loss to Frazier, Ali remained as charismatic as ever, as well as a representative of Black beauty even as he approached his thirties. He “was turning young black American away from begging for their rights and during the insults of those hostile to equal rights, to a bold new position that depended more on the strengths of the black community” (98). But Ali had lost, and the civil rights movement lost momentum following the assassination of its two major figures and the election of Richard Nixon. However, only three months after the Frazier fight, Ali won a victory of a different kind, as the Supreme Court affirmed his status as a conscientious objector, nullifying his conviction. He rebounded with a series of wins, though none of them particularly significant or impressive, leading many to wonder if he was nearing the end of his career. In March 1973, Ali lost again to Ken Norton, who broke Ali’s jaw in the second round, although he hung on for the rest of the fight.

The year 1973 was important in other respects. American troops finally came home from Vietnam after nearly two decades and over 58,000 deaths. The public learned of a break-in at the Watergate hotel in Washington, DC, the Democratic campaign headquarters for the 1972 presidential election, and learned of evidence implicating President Nixon in the plot. Furthermore, Frazier lost the title in two brutal rounds against a fearsome young fighter named George Foreman. Ali’s celebrity burned as brightly as ever, but before challenging the title again, he would have a rematch with Frazier, again in Madison Square Garden, almost exactly a year after Frazier’s defeat.

Part 3, Chapter 11 Summary: “Smokin’ Joe vs. the Legend”

Frazier’s victory against Ali had exerted a severe toll on him, and he settled for occasional fights against lesser opposition before Foreman obliterated him. Frazier’s dislike of Ali made him highly motivated for the rematch, but Frazier could no longer sustain the same kind of relentless pace that he had in the first fight, and he could not land the decisive blows that would have notched him another victory. The score between Ali and Frazier was now even.

Myers then pauses the narrative to ask, “Who was the real Ali?” (112). Growing up under segregation, he had learned to see authorities as authors of abuse and public services as places of humiliation. He had seen Joe Louis rise to the height of the boxing world, only to have the federal government hound him for tax money, so he fought well past his prime until suffering a terrible knockout against Rocky Marciano. He had seen multiple advocates for civil rights cut down by an assassin’s bullet and the National Guard kill college students protesting the Vietnam War. Myers argues that “[a]bove all, Ali was a fighter […] he took the punishment, bore the pain when it was the only way he could win, and endured when others would have failed” (115). Everything that made Ali who he was would be tested when he fought George Foremen in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in October 1974.

Part 3, Chapter 12 Summary: “Rumble in the Jungle”

Ali was clearly past his physical prime, while the 25-year-old George Foreman was a juggernaut, needing only two rounds each to dispatch both men who had beaten Ali (Frazier and Norton). The government of Zaire put up the largest purse in history, $5 million per fighter, and the fighters arrived to enormous fanfare and media coverage. The locals much preferred Ali, seeing him as “the real black champion” (118), as he mixed with the crowds and talked about political issues, while Foreman was more reclusive. Foreman suffered a cut while sparring, delaying the fight several weeks, but on the night of October 30, the moment had arrived. Ali’s entourage was in low spirits, fearing that their man would suffer a terrible beating, and Foreman looked ready for blood. Everyone expected Ali to move away from Foreman’s power, but instead, he went on the offensive, peppering him with jabs and denying Foreman time to set up his devastating right hand. In the second round, Ali rested on the ropes, intentionally absorbing body blows, taking most of them on his arms and shoulders, and sneaking punches each time Foreman tried to rest and set up a big punch. Foreman grew frustrated and tired, trying and failing to land a knockout blow. In the eighth round, Ali pounced on him and brought him to the canvas with a volley of punches. Foreman did not beat the count, and Ali was once again heavyweight champion of the world.

Part 3 Analysis

Myers highlights Frazier as a rival though not an antagonist in Part 3. This is established with his description of their boxing styles, as Ali’s penchant for gliding in circles around the ring clashed directly with Frazier’s hard-charging approach. Myers writes, “His style was simple: he inflicted brutal punishment on any fighter he faced” (86). The word “punishment” suggests that Ali viewed fights as personal and political. Myers also explores the similarities and differences between Ali and Frazier. Like Ali, boxing was a way for Frazier to make money and earn respect far beyond what most Black men from the segregated South could expect. Unlike Ali, Frazier was content to win plaudits based on his in-ring accomplishments, not seeing himself as a political figure. Ali “couldn’t stand the idea that prominent black men chose to be ‘nonpolitical’” (90), and so when Frazier won the title during Ali’s exile, Ali came to treat Frazier as the preferred fighter of the establishment, an “Uncle Tom […] who did not deserve the support of black people” (90). While narrating this rivalry, Myers constructs white supremacy as the antagonistic force for both men. This is reinforced when Ali’s taunts against Frazier present one of the few cases where Myers criticizes his subject for being cruel and unfair.

Ali and Frazier also resonate, and are jointly remembered in history, because they provide such a salient example of The Brutality of Boxing. Ali’s earlier fights were a display of athletic talent and unconventional tactics, often confounding his opponents and making them look helpless. However, Frazier was not helpless. As Ali’s detractors had hoped, Frazier’s mighty left hook connected. However, contrary to their expectations, Ali fought back with gusto. The millions of viewers had seen “Muhammad Ali take more punishment than ever before […] his jaw swollen from the impact of Frazier’s blow, [and Ali] seemed suddenly mortal” (93). Myers describes boxing in detail with dynamic imagery, borrowing elements of the action genre to provoke engagement with Ali’s narrative arc. Yet in his moment of defeat, Ali’s legend entered a new level. He stood out because he seemed to defy the laws of boxing gravity, but after realizing the limits of his athleticism as he aged, he adopted a different style that welcomed exchanges in the expectation that he would prove smarter and tougher than his opponents.

Nowhere was this proven more correct than in the fight against George Foreman. Myers makes this the climactic point of the biography, pausing in Chapter 11 to reflect on Ali’s character to build suspense before describing the fight in Chapter 12. Despite the brilliant win, Ali did in fact absorb enormous punishment, but the fact that he could take it and have enough to dish back out elevated him among a fighter whose physical prowess and punching power should have made him unbeatable. It wasn’t pretty, but Myers suggests that, ultimately, boxing is about watching someone endure beyond what seems possible for the ordinary human being.

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