Sports

BIRTHDAY AND DEATH

Boxing Great Ali Outlives Chess Great Bobby Fischer

By ALEX P. VIDAL

This is the case of the boxing legend outliving the chess legend.
While heavyweight hero and Parkinson’s disease-stricken Muhammad Ali was celebrating his 66th birthday at his winter home in Arizona, reclusive chess genius Robert James “Bobby” Fischer succumbed to a mysterious ailment in a Reykjavik (Iceland) hospital on the same day (his death was reported only last January 18). He was 64.
The eccentric Fischer once nearly eclipsed in fame the 66-year-old three-time world heavyweight champion, who was stripped of his crown for refusing to be drafted in the Vietnam War, when the chess master from Chicago secured the United States’ sweetest victory over the Soviet Union by toppling the great Borris Spassky from the chess world in Reykjavik in 1972.
So smashing was the impact of Fischer’s come-from-behind win over Spassky that it grabbed tremendous media attention, bigger than the one given to Ali’s 15-round unanimous decision win over George Chuvalo in Vancouver, Canada for the North American Boxing Federation (NABF) heavyweight title (Ali’s fifth consecutive victories after losing an embarrassing 15-round decision to Joe Frazier for the WBA and WBC heavyweight baubles) on May 1, 1972.

FISCHER FALLS, ALI SHINES
It was in 1975 when the two mammoth sports icons grabbed headlines once more but with contrasting fates. Fischer lost his world chess crown by forfeiture when he refused to face Anatoli Karpov.
Many Americans did not like Fischer’s decision to intentionally forfeit his match with the Russian super grandmaster as they were anticipating another fantastic showdown pitting the American genius versus the Soviet Union’s most brilliant chess tactician in the era.
For his failure to defend his crown, Fischer’s popularity among his countrymen started to wane. In the same year, heavyweight’s greatest ever championship bout was recorded: the “Thrilla in Manila” where Ali avenged his defeat to Frazier with a masterful 14th round TKO win refereed by Filipino actor Carlos “Sonny” Padilla, Jr. in Manila on Oct. 1, 1973. /MP