The third and final installment of the Ali-Fraizer saga has gone down in history as perhaps one of the greatest fights in boxing history.
On October 1st 1975, the pair took to the ring for the final time and went toe-to-toe for 14 rounds and 42 minutes of one of the sport's most grueling bouts.
It was the posturing outside the ring, rather than inside, that consigns it to history as one of sport's most bitter rivalries.
"Smokin'" Joe Fraizer had memorably defeated Muhammad Ali in their first meeting in 1971, when reigning world champion Fraizer won via unanimous decision and even sent Ali to the canvas in the final round.
Fraizer sends Ali tumbling in round 15 back in Madison Square Garden in March, 1971. Image Credit: John Lindsay / AP/Press Association Images
Most boxing fans still consider this the greatest meeting of the pair, and three years went by before the duo would face off again, a fight that Ali would go onto win but in much less dramatic fashion.
By this time, Fraizer had lost his title to George Foreman thanks to a second round knockout in '73, so Ali's victory was more about retribution than prestige.
With the series, as it were, tied one apiece, Ali and Fraizer met once again in the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City in the Philippines.
The country's president, Ferdinand Marcos, had campaigned vehemently to stage the deciding contest there to distract away from his homeland's political turmoil at the time.
Ali, having come off the back of a victory over Foreman, was as vocal as ever in the build up to the fight and hurled some of the ugliest insults ever heard in sporting history.
Fraizer did not rise to the unsavoury, racially motivated abuse by saying: "I can’t see anyway I look like any old gorilla. We’re supposed to be from the same ancestors. When a guy speak to another man like that, he’s not quite sure of himself.”
Ali's war of words weren't simply confined to his competitor however; he and estranged wife Belinda infamously argued in their hotel room in a well-documented incident that shed light on Ali's instability in the buildup to the bout.
When all the talking was over, the world watched as two former titans clashed for the last time in the sweltering conditions in Philippines.
Ali dominated the opening rounds, before the momentum switched to Fraizer, both men pounding away relentlessly with little consideration for either's personal safety.
In the closing stages, it looked as though Ali was going to knock out the man he had held a grudge against for so long, and while he came close in the 13th and 14th round, Fraizer soldiered on.
Ali continues to pummel the former World Champion. Image Cerdit: AP/Press Association Images
In the final round, sense finally prevailed and Fraizer's trainer, Eddie Futch, called a halt to proceedings. Fraizer contested the decision, his eye swollen shut and legs on the verge of giving way under his tremendous stature.
Years later, Smokin' Joe revealed the final sting in the tail: "What we didn’t know was that Muhammad wasn’t gonna come out [either]".
The bout will go down as one that tested the human condition, the well being of both fighters and the dependency on one another to carry them to be the greatest.
Jerry Izenberg told the Telegraph: "They could have been fighting on a melting ice flow in Greenland. That's all the room they needed for that fight. They weren't fighting for the WBO, IBF or any other title. They weren't fighting for the title of best in the world. They were fighting for the championship of each other."
Two fighters, whose downward arcs intersected at the perfect point, produced a bout the world will never forget.
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