Fail Up Read Free

odds and floored the one-punch wonder George Foreman in 1974. And, of course, we had to watch when two of the best fighters of all time—Ali and Frazier—fought for the third time. To this day, the “Thrilla in Manila” fight stands as one of the greatest heavyweight bouts in boxing history.
    It’s been reported that 21 years after that infamous match, Joe Frazier still bore the scars of Ali’s verbal abuse.
    â€œBefore we fought, the words hurt more than the punches,” Frazier told author Thomas Hauser for Ali’s biography, Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times .
    Frazier—a hard-hitting, take-no-prisoners Philadelphia brawler born in segregated Beaufort, South Carolina—didn’t deserve the dishonor heaped on him by Ali:
    â€œFrazier is so ugly that he should donate his face to the U.S. Bureau of Wildlife.”
    â€œIt’s gonna be a thrilla, and a chilla, and a killa, when I get the Gorilla in Manila.”
    That last riff was emphasized with a tiny gorilla doll Ali sometimes carried with him that was supposed to represent Frazier. Although many whites hoped Frazier would give Ali his comeuppance, “Smokin’ Joe” did not fit the criteria of the white man’s champion. Thus Ali’s taunts were like unnecessary, below-the-belt blows. Frazier by no means deserved to be called a “gorilla” or an “Uncle Tom.”
    Time seems to have given Frazier the perspective to move past the pain Ali’s words caused. “You have to throw that stick out of the window,” he told Sports Illustrated writer Matthew Syed in 2005. “Do not forget,” Frazier added, “we needed each other to produce some of the greatest fights of all time.”
    The national desire to have someone finally shut him up and the millions that could be made in the process helped Ali regain his license, get back in the ring, and dominate the game. Throughout his career, Muhammad Ali used his mouth and in-your-face tactics to force his way back into boxing. I think he was also forcing himself to prove that he could overcome obstacles that no other boxer had ever had to contend with.
    In a 2001 one-on-one interview for O magazine, Oprah Winfrey touched on the topic. During the interview, she reminded Ali that Black and white people considered him the underdog and had bet against him before his fight with Liston.
    â€œWere you scared?” Winfrey asked.
    â€œI was scared to death. Before that fight, I did so much predicting and talked so much that I had to win,” Ali answered.
    It’s important to note that Ali was a strapping 22-year-old when he fought Liston. He was scared, but his boasting and swagger before and after that fight speak to the arrogance of youth or, to be more accurate, the perception of “arrogance” attached to the audacious actions of young folk.
    There’s a reason young people traditionally fuel the tsunami of change in this world. Joan of Arc led French armies to several major victories before she was executed at the age of 19; journalist, publisher, and civil rights activist, Ida B. Wells-Barnett was only 25 when she began writing articles that challenged and chronicled racial injustice in the United States; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was 26 when he was selected to lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott; Bill Gates was 19 when he founded Microsoft Corp. in 1974; Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were 21 and 25, respectively, when they began selling the Apple-1 in 1976; Mark Zuckerberg was 19 when he launched the social networking site Facebook® in 2004.
    Young people have the courage to challenge the status quo. They have the energy and natural inclination to prove something to themselves and to the world. Rebellion has always fermented on college campuses around the world because young people are willing to disrupt, offend, and bear the consequences of their convictions just to ensure that their voices are heard and their ideas