The Ali–Frazier rivalry did not end in March 1971. Three years later, in January 1974, they met again at Madison Square Garden – this time without a world title on the line, but with everything else still at stake: pride, legacy, and the right to face George Foreman for the championship. Chris Smith was there once more, and his photographs from the rematch, the dressing room afterwards, and Ali’s later years through to the Holmes fight tell the story of a champion ageing in public, still magnificent, still compelling, but increasingly mortal.
The Weigh-In – Ali on the Scales Again
In Smith’s photograph from the Frazier II weigh-in, Ali stands on the Everlast scales, bare-chested, surrounded by officials in suits and cornermen holding robes and towels. His expression is solemn, focused, stripped of the theatrics that often accompanied these public rituals. The officials lean in, reading the number, their faces creased with concentration. Behind Ali, a figure in a denim jacket watches with the quiet intensity of someone who understands what is about to happen.
In a companion frame, a doctor examines Ali before the fight – checking his ears, his eyes, his reflexes. Ali sits still, compliant, his famous face turned slightly toward the physician’s instruments with an expression that hovers between patience and mild amusement. For collectors, these pre-fight images carry a particular intimacy: they show the bureaucratic machinery that surrounds a championship bout, and the human being at its centre submitting to it with quiet grace.
Images: Pages 60 and 61 – Ali on the scales at weigh-in; Ali being examined by the fight doctor.
In the Ring – Ali and Frazier Trade Again
Smith’s fight photographs from the rematch are shot from a wider angle than the first encounter, taking in the full spectacle of Madison Square Garden: the packed tiers of spectators, the overhead lights, the press photographers crouched at canvas level. In one sweeping frame, Ali catches Frazier with a right hand, the referee poised between them, the crowd a blur of hats and faces stretching to the upper balcony. It is a photograph that captures scale as much as action – the sheer enormity of the event surrounding two men in a twenty-foot square.
In a second frame, the referee steps between the fighters to separate them during a clinch, Ali’s “Muhammad Ali” name clearly visible on his waistband, Frazier’s compact frame pressing forward. The photograph freezes a moment of enforced pause in the middle of combat – the fighters’ bodies still tense, still ready, held apart by the authority of a single man in a white shirt.
Images: Pages 62 and 63 – Wide ring action shot; referee separating Ali and Frazier.
The Verdict – Frazier’s Arm Raised
Ali won the rematch on a unanimous decision, but Smith’s photograph of the aftermath tells a more ambiguous story. In the frame, Frazier stands at the centre of the ring with his arm being held aloft by the referee – a confusing image at first glance, until you realise it captures the moment before the official announcement, or perhaps a disputed gesture from the corner. Police officers surround the ring, cornermen surge forward, and Ali is visible in the background, walking toward his corner with the calm of a man who already knows the result.
This is the kind of photograph that rewards repeated viewing. Each time you look, you notice a different face, a different gesture, a different layer of the drama. For collectors, it is a document of controlled chaos – the moment when a fight ends and the real world floods back in.
Image: Page 64 – Post-fight scene with referee, police, and both fighters visible.
The Dressing Room – Ali with RFK Jr and Sargent Shriver
After the fight, Smith and his companion Hugh McIlvanney managed to squeeze into Ali’s dressing room – a rare privilege after a bout of this magnitude. The photograph that resulted is extraordinary: Ali, still in his trunks and gloves, stands surrounded by a crush of bodies that includes Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the American diplomat Sargent Shriver, Ali’s brother Rahman, and the Reverend Al Sharpton. The image is dense with political and cultural significance – a reminder that Ali’s dressing room was never just a dressing room. It was a crossroads where sport, politics, celebrity and the civil rights movement converged.
Smith recalled that Ali was talkative and remarkably unmarked after the fight. He also recalled a car journey with Ali in Chicago, during which Ali mused about running for President. The driver’s response – that Ali already had Washington and Chicago – brought gales of laughter and set the tone for the rest of the day. That energy, that sense of Ali as a man who existed at the intersection of sport and everything else, is precisely what this dressing-room photograph captures.
Image: Page 65 – Ali in the dressing room with RFK Jr, Sargent Shriver, and entourage.
The Later Years – Ali Under the Lights
As Ali’s career moved into its final phase – the Spinks rematch, the ill-fated Holmes fight – Smith continued to photograph him with the same closeness and care. The images from this period are darker in tone, both literally and figuratively. In one striking frame, Ali works the heavy bag in what appears to be a near-empty gym, his body lit by a single harsh flash that turns his sweat-slicked torso into silver and leaves the background in deep shadow. A cornerman watches from behind, half-hidden in darkness. It is a photograph that speaks of isolation as much as preparation.
In another, Ali hammers the speed bag, shot from below, the bag a blur above his head while a starburst of light explodes behind his shoulder. The image is dramatic, almost cinematic, and it carries the weight of everything that had come before: the thousands of hours of bag work, the decades of discipline, the body that had absorbed punishment from the hardest hitters in the sport and was now being asked to do it all over again.
Images: Pages 67 and 68 – Ali on the heavy bag with dramatic flash lighting; Ali on the speed bag with starburst backlighting.
After the Bell – Ali Towelled Down
One of the most poignant photographs in this late sequence shows Ali immediately after a training session or fight, standing while a cornerman towels his shoulders and back. His expression is distant, unreadable – not the playful Ali of the 5th Street Gym years or the defiant Ali of the Frazier press conferences, but a man deep inside himself, processing effort and fatigue. The ring is visible behind him, the ropes and turnbuckles softened by shallow focus, and a small crowd of trainers and handlers fills the background.
For collectors, this image represents something essential about the later Ali: the willingness to keep going, the refusal to stop, and the physical cost of that refusal written quietly across his face and body.
Image: Page 66 – Ali being towelled down by cornerman, post-fight or post-training.
Leaning on the Ropes – A Champion in Repose
The final image in this sequence shows Ali leaning against the ropes in the ring, one arm draped casually over the top strand, his body relaxed but his gaze still alert. A crowd of spectators watches from ringside, seated in rows, their faces a mixture of admiration and quiet concern. It is an image of a man who has given everything to this sport and is not quite ready to leave it, standing in the ring that has been his stage, his battlefield, and his home for two decades.
For serious collectors, this photograph works as both a standalone portrait and a closing statement. It carries the full weight of Ali’s career in a single frame: the beauty, the power, the showmanship, and the slow, dignified reckoning with time. Hung on a wall, it is a daily reminder that even the greatest must eventually lean on the ropes and look out at the crowd with something approaching gratitude.
Image: Page 69 – Ali leaning on the ropes, crowd watching from ringside.
Why These Later Photographs Complete the Collection
The earlier blog posts in this series have shown Ali at dawn on Bayshore, in the heat of 5th Street Gym, on the streets of Overtown and Times Square, and in the mountain solitude of Deer Lake. These later photographs complete the arc. They show the same man – older, heavier, but still magnetic – fighting his way through the second half of a career that most athletes would have ended years earlier.
Chris Smith’s camera does not flinch from the passage of time, but it does not exploit it either. These are photographs made with respect, proximity and a deep understanding of what they are documenting: not decline, but endurance. For collectors of limited-edition prints, they are the final chapter of a story that began in a gym above a shoe repair shop in Miami Beach – and they deserve a place on the wall alongside everything that came before.