The Closer

Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier

A hot, rough wind blew in from the sea, bending the Miami Beach palm trees and rattling the half-open windows of the Fifth Street Gym. I was in a place suspended in time, a monument built on sweat and rum bottles filled with water for the swigging. Muhammad Ali was standing in the ring, leaning on the ropes, catching his breath and looking out at 80 or 90 people who had paid $1 each to see him train.

 

It was my second day on a journey that ultimately would lead to the center of Madison Square Garden. Ali would face Joe Frazier in a slugfest that had been billed as the ‘Fight of the Century.’

 

Ali, the ultimate showman, seemed removed from the frenzy of the gym that day. He had boxed eight rounds, but they were not impressive. His trainer, Angelo Dundee, always said Ali was the worst gym fighter he ever saw, and that day was no exception. Then, as if struck by lightning, the athlete danced to the center of the ring and his hands moved so fast they became almost invisible; his stunned sparing partner stood helpless against the ropes. The bell sounded and the round was over.

 

Sonny Liston once said fighting Ali was like running through a fire wearing a gasoline raincoat. Like all great artists, Ali’s many moods directed his fight plan; it seemed to come from somewhere deep inside – a place that only he could see. He would lose his first fight against Frazier, but he would win the next two. After the series, neither man would ever be the same.

When I work on a picture story or when I write a story, the first thing I try to confront is how the story will start and how the story will end. In a picture story we call it the opener and the closer. The opening picture has to be one that will stop the reader and make them want to read the story. The closing picture is one that ties the story together. It’s the last thing that people see and the picture often that’s most remembered. In my story for Life magazine I cover the training camps of both fighters as they prepared for the big fight. The pictures I made at the training camps were strong but I need an image that would tie it all together. The story would run before the fight so photographing the winner was not an option. My time was running out I had two days left to finish my story.

As luck would have it on my last day at Frazier’s Philadelphia camp Ali who lived in Cherry Hill, New Jersey at that time, came to visit the Frazier camp. In typical Ali fashion he taunted Joe from outside a window. Frazier spotted him and walked to the window making a fist. I had my closer.

 

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