October 3, 2025: The Thrilla in Manila: Part 3s

[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!]

Ali and Frazier’s third fight was without question their best, and by some accounts the greatest boxing match of all time. So for a fun way to end the week’s series, here are quick thoughts on a handful of other superlative part 3s (not including The Godfather Part III, obvi):

1)      Return of the Jedi (1983): I said most of what I’d want to say about my favorite Star Wars moment in that hyperlinked post. But even if we set that moment aside, any film that starts with Jabba and ends with the Ewoks is just a banger from start to finish.

2)      The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003): Return might be my third favorite of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, honestly; but that still makes it one of my favorite films, and there’s not a moment—of storytelling, performance, score, theme, you name it—anywhere in the trilogy that’s better than that hyperlinked one.

3)      The Bourne Ultimatum (2007): I’ve long loved the Jason Bourne character and film trilogy, as that hyperlinked post reflects; when I had the chance to share them with my wife earlier this year, they hit even harder than ever (with her I did finally also watch the fourth Matt Damon Bourne film, and it was okay, but I still wish they hadn’t made it). And when that iconic Moby track kicks in over Bourne swimming away in Ultimatum’s final image? C’mon now.

4)      Toy Story 3 (2010): Yes, that whole wonderful final scene. And yes, the whole terrifying and moving sequence with the fire. But most of all, most of all, as the Dad of two sons who have gone off to college in the last couple years, this freaking scene. My sons watched this film every day for a whole week when they were young, and I cried every single time. Now I can’t even watch that clip!

5)      Before Midnight (2013): I don’t think it’s overstating to say that there’s never been a film trilogy like Richard Linklater’s Before films, and there never will be another. Among the many reasons for that uniqueness is that each is genuinely and entirely distinct in tone, mirroring and engaging with where the characters, the actors and filmmakers, and the world are in their respective moments. Midnight is by far the hardest to watch, on purpose; but it’s also a cinematic version of Bruce Springsteen’s amazing “adult love songs,” and anyone who knows me knows that’s very high praise indeed.  

Tribute post this weekend,

Ben

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