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The fights resonate still The Fight of the Century Down Goes Frazier The Rumble in the Jungle The Thrilla in Manila And the fighters toomdashMUHAMMAD ALI JOE FRAZIER GEORGE FOREMANmdashthree complicated and competitive men who happened to be vying for sports biggest prize when boxing was still a national reassurance and its champion a cultural resource They fought five times for that title from to ranging across the globe and their struggles triumphs and defeats echo through the years as wellAt the time however accidental their convergence it was an irreproducible pandemonium Three of them At once Those fights made for a roiling and convulsive tournament all the more striking against a backdrop of national dysfunction Their competitionmdashfighting each other in every possible combination on nearly every possible continent to nearly every possible outcomemdashmattered as much for the countrys confidence as it did for deciding the titles at stake In fact their heroic effortsmdashglobal spectacles that offered brief glimpses of clarity and confidencemdashmay have been the only thing that made sense back home during the social and political morass of the s This golden age of boxing reassured a shattered country that such fundamental if sometimes elusive qualities as courage and determination still mattered And when it was all over neither the contenders nor the rest of the word would ever be the sameIn Bouts of Mania longtime Sports Illustrated writer Richard Hoffer evokes all the hopes and hoopla the hype and hysteria of boxings last and best golden age.