October 2, 2025: The Thrilla in Manila: Joe Frazier and Boxing Villains

[50 years ago this week, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier met in Manila for their third and final professional boxing bout. So this week on the blog I’ll step into the ring with posts on a handful of contexts for that significant sports story, leading up to a tribute to one of our best sports scholars!]

In honor of Joe Frazier, who from what I can tell was just a really good boxer but because of the fascination with Ali became a legendary boxing villain, a few other instances of such adversaries in boxing and American history:

1)      Jim Jeffries: As I traced in that post, it was to white former champion Jeffries that the lonely eyes of Jack London and other white supremacists turned in their (unsuccessful) attempts to dethrone world heavyweight champ Jack Johnson. It doesn’t seem to me that Jeffries was himself particularly racist toward Johnson, at least not per extensive coverage of their July 4^th, 1910 fight like that in this post; but he unquestionably symbolized that white supremacist, villainous vision of the fight, the sport, and the whole nation (as reflected by his American flag boxing trunks).

2)      The Two Maxes (Baer and Schmeling): You apparently can’t have an iconic American boxing legend without a notable adversary, and these two Depression-era boxers with the same first name fit that bill for two inspiring mid-20^th century fighters: Baer was the most famous opponent for James “Cinderella Man” Braddock; and Schmeling played that role in two famous fights with Joe Louis. I’m not going to maximize (sorry) my analysis of either in these few sentences, so I’ll just add that, as with Joe Frazier, I’m quite sure their stories are much more interesting than can be reflected in these adversarial roles.

3)      Floyd Mayweather: I don’t think I can say the same for Floyd Mayweather Jr., one of the 21^st century’s most talented fighters but also a thoroughgoing villain who seems to relish that role (as his full-throated and very much ongoing support for Donald Trump would illustrate). I could have put Mike Tyson in this spot, and Tyson’s conviction for sexual assault is unquestionably worse than any detail about Mayweather that I’m aware of. But there’s societal villains and then there’s sports villains—the first are clearly more troubling overall, but the second have a special role in the history of boxing, as these fighters exemplify.

Final Thrilla talk tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Contexts for this fight or other boxing histories you’d highlight?