The fight was scheduled for fifteen rounds. It ended after fourteen, stopped in the corner rather than on the canvas.
The third fight
Frazier won the Fight of the Century at Madison Square Garden in March 1971, handing Ali his first professional defeat. Ali won the rematch there in January 1974.
The decider was held on 1 October 1975 at the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City, Metro Manila, under the patronage of Ferdinand Marcos.
The build-up
Ali's promotion of the fight was personal and racial in a way that has aged badly and was criticised at the time. He called Frazier a gorilla and an Uncle Tom, repeatedly and on camera.
Frazier had lent Ali money during his exile from boxing after refusing the draft, and had publicly supported the restoration of his licence. The insults ended the relationship permanently.
The conditions
The bout started mid-morning for American television. Reports from ringside put the temperature inside the arena above one hundred degrees Fahrenheit.
The fight
Ali dominated the opening rounds. Frazier took over from roughly the fifth to the eleventh, landing left hooks that had ringside reporters expecting a stoppage. Ali later said he considered quitting.
In the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth Ali reasserted himself. Frazier's right eye swelled shut. He had been effectively blind in his left eye for years, a condition he had hidden from commissions.
The stoppage
Between rounds fourteen and fifteen, Eddie Futch stopped the fight. His words to Frazier, widely reported since, were that it was over and that no one would forget what he had done.
Frazier protested. Futch did not reverse it.
Ali, told the fight was won, collapsed in his corner.
Afterwards
Ali's description of the experience as the closest thing to dying he knew of is his own, given in the immediate aftermath.
Neither fighter recovered his previous level. Ali continued until 1981, including defeats to Leon Spinks, Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's syndrome in 1984.
Frazier fought twice more and retired in 1981.
The reconciliation
Partial and slow. Frazier accepted an apology from Ali published in 2001 but continued to express bitterness in interviews. Ali's family and Frazier's appeared together at memorials.
Frazier died in November 2011. Ali died in June 2016.
Why it goes on a wall
Because it is the argument against the romance of the sport and the best example of it at the same time, and both things are true simultaneously.
The closest thing to dying.