Ghosts of Manila: The Fateful Blood Feud Between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier
Mark Kram covered the Ali Frazier trilogy for Sports Illustrated, and decades later he returned to the story with fewer illusions. He argues that the received history of Ali as saint and Frazier as villain gets almost everything wrong, and he lets Frazier speak at length about the racial taunts that scarred him for life. Kram rebuilds the third fight in Manila round by round, then follows both men into old age, physical ruin, and unresolved grievance. He is unsparing about the boxing establishment, the sixties, and the writers who mythologized Ali. The book stirred controversy and remains one of the most argued about volumes in boxing literature.
What you might want to know about Ghosts of Manila: The Fateful Blood Feud Between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A revisionist account of the Ali Frazier rivalry that refuses to canonize either fighter.
Simmons has repeatedly praised it on his podcast as one of the best boxing books ever, singling out Kram's refusal to accept the Ali hagiography and his empathy for Frazier.
Kram is unsparing about Ali's cruelty toward Frazier, but he is also honest about Ali's charisma and courage. Readers who want a pure celebration should look elsewhere.
Ghosts of Manila: The Fateful Blood Feud Between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier was written by Mark Kram, published in 2001 by Harper Perennial.
Ghosts of Manila: The Fateful Blood Feud Between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier is 256 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Ghosts of Manila: The Fateful Blood Feud Between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier takes most readers 4 to 6 hours to finish.
Ghosts of Manila: The Fateful Blood Feud Between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.