PHILADELPHIA (AP) â€" With his championship belt and a span of gloves draped over his casket, Joe Frazier was going one some-more round.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson asked mourners to rise, put their hands together and for one final time "show your love" for a former heavyweight champion.
Muhammad Ali obliged.
Wearing a dim fit and sunglasses, a thin and tremor Ali rose from his chair and energetically clapped for "Smokin' Joe," a warrior who handed Ali his initial loss.
Ali was among a scarcely 4,000 people who packaged a Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church in Philadelphia, where Frazier spent most of his life, for a two-hour "joyful celebration" in respect of a boxer. He died final week of liver cancer during a age of 67. Also attending were former heavyweight champion Larry Holmes, associate Philadelphia warrior and longtime middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins and upholder Don King.
His physique scorched by Parkinson's disease, Ali was accompanied by members of his family and wife, Lonnie, who burnished his behind while he was seated and hold his hands as he entered and left a church.
Jackson delivered a stirring eulogy, describing Frazier as someone who "came from segregation, plunge and flaw to extraordinary grace."
"Tell them Rocky was not a champion. Joe Frazier was," he said, referring to a hometown impression from a fighting movie, "Rocky," whose statue stands during a bottom of a Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Tell them Rocky is fictitious, Joe was reality. Rocky's fists are solidified in stone. Joe's fists are smokin'. Rocky never faced Ali or Holmes or (George) Foreman. Rocky never tasted his possess blood. Champions are done in a ring not in a movies. There deserves to be a statue of Joe Frazier in downtown Philadelphia."
Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson, a locate in his voice, sent a videotaped summary of condolence, as did genuine estate lord Donald Trump and actor Mickey Rourke.
"We done story together," pronounced King, who promoted Ali's Rumble in a Jungle quarrel opposite George Foreman, who was knocked out in a eighth round. "We attempted to make America better."
King, wearing an U.S. dwindle headband and clutching a mini-flag, walked over to shake Ali's palm before a funeral; Holmes greeted "The Greatest" when a use finished â€" with a 10-bell salute, boxing's normal 10-count farewell to a own.
Thousands of mourners incited out Friday and Saturday for a open commemorative observation during a Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.
Frazier kick Ali, knocking him down and holding a preference in a Fight of a Century during Madison Square Garden in 1971. He would go on to remove dual some-more fights to Ali, including a Thrilla in Manila bout.
Frazier was ill-natured for years by Ali's taunts and name-calling, nonetheless he recently pronounced he had forgiven him.
Their epic trilogy was removed not usually by speakers during a use though those who sent letters to be review during a ceremony. Rourke got a biggest giggle when he joked about Ali removing knocked down by Frazier â€" with Ali's friends and family shouting a loudest.
Smokin' Joe was a tiny nonetheless inhuman warrior who smothered his opponents with punches, including a harmful left offshoot he used to finish many of his fights early. That's what he used to dump Ali in a 15th turn of their epic hitch during Madison Square Garden.
While that quarrel is distinguished in fighting lore, Ali and Frazier put on an even improved uncover in their third fight, hold in a breathless locus in Manila as partial of Ali's universe debate of fights in 1975. Nearly blinded by Ali's punches, Frazier still wanted to go out for a 15th round, though was hold behind by tutor Eddie Futch. The bout, Ali would after say, was a closest thing to genocide he could imagine.
Frazier won a heavyweight pretension in 1970 by interlude Jimmy Ellis in a fifth turn of their quarrel during Madison Square Garden. Frazier shielded it successfully 4 times before Foreman knocked him down 6 times in a initial dual rounds to take a pretension from him in 1973.
Frazier would never be heavyweight champion again.
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