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Sat 11 Nov 2008A thrilla that stands up to repeated viewing
SIDELINE CUT:JUST AS the dust has settled on Obamarama and the great leap forward for race relations in America, there comes a sad and spellbinding boxing documentary that bears testimony to the complexities of being black and American. Thrilla In Manila was shown with little fanfare on television during this week.
It caught up with Joe Frazier, the former heavyweight champion whose boxing career and whose life, in many ways, has been distilled and frozen in the images from that soupy morning in Kinshasa when he engaged Ali, his nemesis, in what some have described as the most brutal bout in boxing history (Although this can hardly be true when other men have lost their lives in the ring).
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