Joe Frazier's Death: Remembering Muhammad Ali's Greatest Rival

The world of boxing lost a legend on Monday with the passing of "Smokin'" Joe Frazier, diverting the sport's spotlight away from the upcoming Welterweight bout between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez and back to the glory days of glove-to-glove combat.

Frazier, 67, the former Heavyweight champion and chief in-ring rival of Muhammad Ali, had battled liver cancer since September and was only recently submitted to hospice care for his final days.

Frazier first came on the scene in the mid-1960s after winning gold at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, but will always be remembered, first and foremost, for his bouts with Ali. The two Heavyweight greats met three times, with Ali claiming victory twice.

Their boxing connection actually predates any touching of gloves in the ring. Frazier was among Ali's most fervent supporters after "The Greatest" was stripped of his championship for dodging the draft during the Vietnam War. Frazier even went so far as to petition President Richard Nixon to restore Ali's right to box, which ultimately paved the way for a competitive detente that would carry the sport through the first half of the 1970s.

Their first match, back in March of 1971 at Madison Square Garden, was dubbed "The Fight of the Century", as it featured the two legends when both were still undefeated between the ropes. The fight, among the first ever to be broadcast to a global television audience, lived up to the hype, with Frazier securing a win by unanimous decision in what proved to be a brutal, 15-round bout. Ali came on strong in the early rounds but slowed down considerably midway through the fight, a product of his three-year layoff. Frazier, meanwhile, withstood Ali's early assault and came back with a series of devastating body blows and hooks to the head, including knockdowns of Ali in the 11th and 15th rounds.

The triumph allowed Frazier to retain his WBA and WBC World Heavyweight titles and snag The Ring World Heavyweight belt from Ali, though the punishment he took from the fight, combined with his existing ailments, landed Frazier in the hospital several times over the following month.

The two didn't face each other again for nearly three years, until January of 1974. They returned to the Garden in what turned out to be a decidedly less entertaining fight.

In fact, the best part of the rematch may well have come before the fight itself. Ali and Frazier appeared together on ABC's Wide World of Sports to promote the bout and break down film of their first meeting. Ali began talking trash to Frazier during the segment, suggesting that Frazier was "ignorant" for claiming he won the first fight.

This, of course, enraged Frazier and ultimately led to a full-on brawl between the two in the studio, for which both fighters were fined.

The actual fight was hardly as action-packed, with Ali winning by unanimous decision in a 12-round fight filled with holding, and often dismissed since as two fighters competing past their primes, with an actual championship belt on the line.

A year later, the two greats concluded their rivalry with the famed "Thrilla in Manila." As before, Ali went out of his way to mock Frazier, calling him a "gorilla" while gallivanting around with his then-mistress, Veronica Porsche, and entertaining "The Ali Circus." Ali saw Frazier as a washed-up fighter, a man for whom he was doing a huge favor by granting him one last big payday before retirement.

As such, Ali didn't take training for the fight particularly seriously, which nearly came back to bite him. Ali and Frazier bludgeoned each other during the early rounds, with Frazier subjecting himself to a brutal beating to get in close and do damage to Ali's body. The combination of sweltering heat and poor conditioning on Ali's part swung the fight in Frazier's favor during the middle rounds.

But it was Ali, in the end, who emerged victorious, as Frazier was forced to retire after the 14th round, his eyes so swollen from the punishment he'd taken that he had essentially been reduced to fighting blind.

Frazier remained bitter toward Ali long after that fight, resenting Ali for his cockiness and what he perceived as his rival's lack of appreciation for getting him back into boxing in the 1970s.

Beyond their rivalry, the two will always be remembered in tandem for their contrasting personalities—Ali, the cool, media-savvy showman who was equal parts eloquence and rebellion; Frazier, the stoic Southerner whose brutal fighting style seemed to emanate from a preference for hard work and determination over flash and flare.

Yet, in the annals of boxing history, one could not and would not exist without the other. Now that Frazier is gone, it is imperative upon the boxing community to cherish what little is left of Ali, who's been besieged by Parkinson's in his later life, before the sport's greatest duo fades forever into the recesses of sports history.