Knockout: The Type of the Century by Tiffany Middleton

The Type of the Century: A special edition "Knock Out" font book featuring Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.

Hoefler & Frere-Jones Knock Out, The Functional Family.

Joseph William "Joe" Frazier

Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.,

was born on January 17, 1942. Originally known as Cassius Clay, at the age of 22 he won the world heavyweight championship from Sonny Liston. Ali changed his name after joining the Nation of Islam in 1964, subsequently converting to Sunni Islam in 1975. In 1967, three years after Ali had won the heavyweight championship, he was publicly vilified for his refusal to be conscripted into the U.S. military, based on his religious beliefs and opposition to the Vietnam War.

Ali was eventually arrested and found guilty on draft evasion charges; he was stripped of his boxing title, and his boxing license was suspended. He was not imprisoned, but did not fight again for nearly four years while his appeal worked its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it was eventually successful.Ali would go on to become the first and only three-time lineal World Heavyweight Champion.

(January 12, 1944 - November 7, 2011), also known as Smokin' Joe, was an American professional boxer, Olympic gold medalist and Undisputed World Heavyweight Champion, whose professional career lasted from 1965 to 1976, with a one-fight comeback in 1981.Frazier emerged as the top contender in the late 1960s, defeating opponents that included Jerry Quarry, Oscar Bonavena, Buster Mathis, Eddie Machen, Doug Jones, George Chuvalo and Jimmy Ellis en route to becoming Undisputed Heavyweight Champion in 1970, and followed up by defeating Muhammad Ali by unanimous decision in the highlyanticipated "Fight of the Century" in 1971.

Two years later Frazier lost his title when he was knocked out by George Foreman. He fought on, beating Joe Bugner, losing a rematch to Ali and beating Quarry and Ellis again.Frazier's last world title challenge came in 1975, but he was beaten by Ali in their brutal rubbermatch. He retired in 1976 following a second loss to Foreman.

THE FIGHT OF THE In 1971, both Muhammad Ali and

Joe Frazier had legitimate claims to the title of World Heavyweight Champion. An undefeated Ali had won the title from Sonny Liston in Miami Beach in 1964, and successfully defended his belt up until he had it stripped by boxing authorities for refusing induction into the armed forces in 1967. In Ali's absence, the undefeated Frazier collected two championship belts through devastating knockouts of Buster Mathis and Jimmy Ellis.

CENTURY

He was recognized by boxing authorities as the World's Champion. Unlike Mathis and Ellis, Frazier was plausibly Ali's superior, which created a tremendous amount of hype and anticipation for a match pitting the two undefeated fighters against one another to decide who was the true heavyweight champ. They were guaranteed purses of US $2.5 million each, then a record for a single prizefight. Joe Frazier had an outstanding left hook, and was a tenacious competitor who attacked the body of his opponent with ferocity. Despite suffering from a serious bout of hypertension in the lead-up to the fight, he appeared to be in top form as the face-off between the two undefeated champions approached.

They were guaranteed purses of

US$2.5 million each, then a record for a single prizefight.

Joe Frazier had an outstanding

left hook, and was a tenacious competitor who attacked the body of his opponent with ferocity. Despite suffering from a serious bout of hypertension in the lead-up to the fight, he appeared to be in top form as the face-off between the two undefeated champions approached.

The fight became an extension of the strife that existed within the country, as Ali had become a symbol of the anti-establishment movement during his governmentimposed exile from the ring, while Frazier, as a matter of convenience, was adopted by the conservative, pro-war movement.

According to the 2009

documentary Thrilla in Manila, the match, which had been dubbed "The Fight", "gripped the nation, but also split it down the middle. If you were rooting for Ali you were black liberal or young, against Vietnam and for the Civil Rights movement. If you backed Joe Frazier you were a representative of white, conservative America." The fight was one of the most anticipated events of the 20th century, and transcended boxing.

" White Man's Decision" Frazier would surrender his

title to George Foreman in a second-round knockout in January 1973.Ali, for his part, refused to publicly admit defeat (while privately doing so to friends, such as George Plimpton and sought to define the outcome in the public's mind as a "White Man's Decision".

...contest between two

"former champions, both beaten, both past their best ". Their first and third fights

became part of boxing's lore, but some viewers considered the second fight to be entertaining as well.Before their rematch, Ali and Frazier visited the ABC studios in New York City to review their first fight for ABC's Wide World of Sports.

While both fighters were reviewing round 11, Ali began trash talking and calling Frazier "ignorant" for saying he won the first bout. This enraged Frazier who stood up from his seat and squared up to a seated Ali, repeating "why you call me ignorant... how am I ignorant".

While Frazier was not looking at Ali as the studio crew and his entourage tried to calm him down, Ali held Frazier by the neck forcing him to sit down which broke out into a fight on the studio floor. Both fighters were subsequently fined for this and the stage was set for their rematch in the ring.

"...Frazier, a notoriously slow starter in fights..."

The official verdict was disputed in some quarters; Red Smith of the New York Times scored the bout 6-5-1 for Frazier.At the end of round two, Frazier, a notoriously slow starter in fights, was hurt by an Ali right hand and was in significant trouble. Referee Tony Perez stepped in between the two fighters having mistakenly thought he heard the bell. The interruption allowed Frazier precious seconds to recover and he was able to finish the round on his feet when the action resumed.

"He didn't allow Frazier to work inside..."

Ali employed markedly different

tactics from the first fight. He didn't allow Frazier to work inside tying up the shorter fighter by holding him behind the neck with his left hand while keeping Frazier's vaunted left tied up with the other.

This pattern of Ali punching in flurries followed by clinching dominated most of the fight. Before the epic battle between the two men in Manila a year later, Frazier's camp strongly protested use of this tactic and, for the most part, Ali was prevented from using it. The result was a classic battle of wills in what is considered an all time great heavyweight championship fight.

"...Ali was prevented from using it.

THE THRILLA IN MANILA The Thrilla in Manila was the third

"Killa and a Thrilla and a Chilla, when I get that gorilla in Manila."

and final famous boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier for the Heavyweight Boxing Championship of the World, fought at the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines on October 1, 1975. The contest's name is derived from the frequent Ali rhymed boast that it would be a "Killa and a Thrilla and a Chilla, when I get that gorilla in Manila".

The bout is often ranked as one of the greatest fights of 20th century boxing, and is the climax to the bitter rivalry between Ali and Frazier. When Ali was stripped of the title in 1967 over his refusal to join the armed forces when drafted during the Vietnam War, Frazier had petitioned President Nixon to restore Ali's right to box and even lent Ali money.

When Ali finally got his license back, they first met in the bout promoters called The Fight of the Century, marking the first time that two undefeated heavyweight champions had met in the ring. The mutual enmity emerged in the build up to the fight, when Ali turned on Frazier, describing him as an "Uncle Tom", and a "white man's champion".

Pre-fight promotions and training. Frazier in turn riled Ali by referring

to him by his birth name, Clay. The fight itself was a classic. Frazier won by unanimous decision in a fast-paced, brutal 15 round bout, with Smokin' Joe scoring the fight's (and the trilogy's) only knockdown at the beginning of the final round.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos offered to hold the bout in Metro Manila and sponsor it to divert attention from the social turmoil that the country was experiencing, having declared martial law three years earlier.In the lead-up to the Manila fight as well as each of their other two encounters, Joe Frazier was made to withstand a withering barrage of verbal abuse from Muhammad Ali. Ali's theme this fight was to hang a nickname on Frazier as he had done to many of his opponents throughout the years. The name he chose was "The Gorilla", and he rhymed out the singsong chant "It will be a Killa and a Thrilla and a Chilla when I get The Gorilla in Manila." while punching an action-figure sized gorilla doll.

Ali explained to reporter Dick Schaap that it was part of a longstanding prefight strategy of his: "I like to get a man mad, because when a man's mad, he wants ya so bad, he can't think, so I like to get a man mad." This strategy worked in Ali's favor in his defeat of George Foreman, who seemed to explode with rage every round until he had exhausted himself. But Frazier was different, for he had not only skill, but confidence, stamina and the character to persevere in the most difficult of circumstances.

As Dave Wolf (who was a member of the Frazier team in Manila) explained "With all of the residue of anger that Joe had from what had happened before the first fight, what had happened before and during the second fight and after these fights, Joe was ready to lay his life on the line, and... he did."

In the Frazier camp, trainer Eddie Futch Outside of the camp, however, Ali's fight preparations were badly distracted in the days leading up to the fight. It began when Ali introduced his mistress, Veronica Porsche, to Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos as his wife at a public event, angering his real wife, Belinda, when she saw this on television back in the States, whereupon, she flew to Manila, and engaged the champion in a prolonged shouting match in his hotel suite.

made the decision that the hordes of people and the tension in the steaming hot city were a poor environment to prepare in. Thus, Frazier completed his training for what was to be his final shot at the championship in a lush, quiet setting in the mountainous outskirts of the city of Manila. There he led a spartan existence often sitting for hours in a contemplative state in preparation for the bout.

The first five rounds of the fight

were mostly dominated by Ali, as he for the most part picked Frazier off coming in on him with big right hands and combination punching.

One of the more noteworthy moments during this time was Ali during a version of his Rope-ADope against Frazier, where he went to a corner, waived at Frazier to come and attack, and for about a minute of the round Frazier went to work on Ali's body in the corner while Ali defended.However, Ali turned the tables on Frazier after the minute, just unloading with a large variety of punches in combination, and putting Frazier in the corner under pressure by the end of that round. Rounds 6-10 were mostly controlled by Frazier, though Ali was still landing sharp punches to Frazier's head fairly regularly, he seemed to be visibly tiring due to Frazier's vicious body attack and Frazier was mixing in more head shots that were getting to Ali as well. Both fighters inflicted a ton of punishment on each other and were throwing a lot of punches, with seemingly not much left to give after Round 10.

The difference in the fight was that Frazier's eyes were badly swelling due to Ali's sharp punches, and so his ability to dodge Ali's shots was severely impaired late in the fight. Ali seemed to recognize this, and got an explosive second wind from Rounds 11-14, as he landed a lot of very hard head shots on Frazier, who kept pressing Ali but the punishment and fatigue had taken a lot of the snap away from Joe's shots.

"I am the greatest..." Seeing the results of round 14,

Eddie Futch decided to stop the fight between rounds rather than risk a similar or worse fate for Frazier in the 15th. Frazier protested stopping the fight, shouting "I want him boss," and trying to get Futch to change his mind. Futch replied, "It's all over. No one will forget what you did here today", and signaled to referee Carlos Padilla, Jr. to end the bout. Unknown to Frazier's corner, Ali had walked back to his own corner after the 14th and instructed Dundee to cut his gloves off.

Ali later said that "Frazier quit just before I did. I didn't think I could fight any more." Ali's biographer, Thomas Hauser, later revealed that a member of Ali's corner had told him that Ali was telling them to "cut (my gloves) off, cut 'em off", indicating Ali's desire to not continue the fight. Ali's surprise is quite visible on the video of the fight once Futch threw in the towel for Frazier. Ali would later claim that this was the closest to dying he had ever been.

...typeface in the ring." In the world of typefaces, Knock

Out would be comparable to Muhammad Ali. Although many typefaces look similar to it, Knock Out posses the capabilities to be used as both display and small type. It has became a popluar alternative for graphic designers since its creation by Hofler-FrereJones. Knock Out has 32 different typefaces which is more than Helvetica and Universe.