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Frazier and Ali were initially friends. During Ali’s enforced three-year lay-off from boxing for refusing to be drafted into the US Army, Frazier lent him money and testified before Congress and petitioned U.S. President Richard Nixon to have Ali’s right to box reinstated.[28] Frazier supported Ali’s right not to serve in the army, saying “If Baptists weren’t allowed to fight, I wouldn’t fight either.”[29]

However, in the build-up to their first fight, The Fight of the Century, Ali turned it into a “cultural and political referendum”, painting himself as a revolutionary and civil rights champion and Frazier as the white man’s hope, an “Uncle Tom” and a pawn of the white establishment.[30][31] Ali successfully turned many black Americans against Frazier. Bryant Gumbel joined the pro-Ali, anti-Frazier bandwagon by writing a major magazine article that asked “Is Joe Frazier a white champion with black skin?” Frazier thought this was “a cynical attempt by Clay to make me feel isolated from my own people. He thought that would weaken me when it came time to face him in that ring. Well, he was wrong. It didn’t weaken me, it awakened me to what a cheap-shot son of a bitch he was.” He noted the hypocrisy of Ali calling him an Uncle Tom when his [Ali’s] trainer (Angelo Dundee) was white.[30]

As a result of Ali’s campaign, Frazier’s children were bullied at school and his family were given police protection after receiving death threats.[32] Ali declared that if Frazier won he would crawl across the ring and admit that Frazier was the greatest. After Frazier won by a unanimous decision, he called upon Ali to fulfil his promise and crawl across the ring, but he didn’t.[33] Ali called it a “white man’s decision” and insisted that he won.[34]

During a televised joint interview prior to their second bout in 1974, Ali continued to insult Frazier, who took exception to Ali calling him “ignorant” and challenged him to a fight, which resulted in the two of them brawling on the studio floor.[35] Ali went on to win the 12 round non-title affair by a decision. Ali took things further in the build-up to their last fight, The Thrilla in Manila, and called Frazier “the other type of negro” and “ugly”, “dumb” and a “gorilla”[36] At one point he sparred with a man in a gorilla suit and pounded on a rubber gorilla doll, saying “This is Joe Frazier’s conscience... I keep it everywhere I go. This is the way he looks when you hit him.”[37] According to the fight’s promoter Don King, this enraged Frazier, who took it as a “character assassination” and “personal invective”.[37] One night before the fight, Ali waved around a toy pistol outside Frazier’s hotel room. When Frazier came to the balcony, he pointed the gun at Frazier and yelled “I am going to shoot you.”[38] After the fight, Ali summoned Frazier’s son Marvis into his dressing room, and told him that he had not meant what he had said about his father. When informed of this by Marvis, Frazier responded: “you ain’t me, son. Why isn’t he apologizing to me?”

For years afterwards, Frazier retained his bitterness towards Ali and suggested that Ali’s battle with Parkinson’s syndrome was a form of divine retribution for his earlier behavior. In 2001, Ali apologized to Frazier via a New York Times article, saying “In a way, Joe’s right. I said a lot of things in the heat of the moment that I shouldn’t have said. Called him names I shouldn’t have called him. I apologize for that. I’m sorry. It was all meant to promote the fight”.[39] Frazier reportedly “embraced it”, though he later retorted that Ali only apologized to a newspaper, not to him. He said: “I’m still waiting [for him] to say it to me.” To this Ali responded: “If you see Frazier, you tell him he’s still a gorilla.”[40]

Frazier told Sports Illustrated in May 2009 that he no longer held hard feelings for Ali.[41] After Frazier’s death in November 2011, Ali was among those who attended the private funeral services for Frazier in Philadelphia. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who spoke during the service, asked those in attendance to stand and “show your love” and reportedly Ali stood with the audience and clapped “vigorously”.[42]