Muhammed Ali retained his World's Heavywight Boxing Championship by scoring a technical knockout over Joe Frazier in the fourteenth round of their scheduled fifteen-round grudge match in Manila, the Phillipines.
A vicious right hook in the thirteenth round knocked Smokin' Joe's mouthguard out of his face, and a follow-up left-right-left series left Frazier's face badly bleeding. Ali continued to pound away at Frazier's face in the next round, and the referee was finally forced to award Ali the victory. A dazed Frazier did not object to the ruling.
The decision broke up what had been an incredibly close fight. Ali seemed to have won the first four rounds, but then Frazier suddenly became relentlessly agressive, and came back in the next seven rounds. Smokin' Joe seemed to tire in the twelfth round, and the momentum again shifted back to Ali.
The victory was Ali's second in three attempts. He was decimated by Joe in 1971, but knotted the series at one apeice by defeating him two years ago.
Read more in Sports
Sports at Harvard: Hard to Figure
