The money was huge — a cool $2.5 million apiece — and so was the stage for Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. Their first fight at Madison Square Garden was so epic it was billed as the Fight of the Century, and 50 years later it reigns undefeated.
Frazier was the unbeaten heavyweight champion, a short cannonball of a fighter with a left hook that could knock out an elephant. Ali was, well, Ali even if Frazier insisted on calling him (Cassius) Clay as he fought his way back into condition after being banned from boxing for more than three years for refusing the Vietnam draft.