The wages of sinew

Once upon a time there were two warriors. Let's begin there this morning.

Once upon a time there were two warriors, mountainous men with mountainous hearts, and one night they ruined each other in a boxing ring. Thunderbolts exploded from their fists. Blows were landed that would bring down the walls of a city, one of them said later. And neither would ever be the same again.

The warriors' names were Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. They met in Manila in the skinny hours of an October morning 1975.

Ali won but absorbed punishment that would soon bring down the walls of his youth and vitality.

Frazier lost bravely, but his bravery would rob him forever of the threshing-machine fury that had made him an immortal.

People said it was at once the greatest and most brutal heavyweight fight they'd ever seen, an unparalleled display of will from two men with the hearts of lions.

Pretty much the same thing they were saying after Tyson Fury -- an entire mountain range of a man at 6-9 and 285 pounds -- knocked out Deontay Wilder in the late hours of an October evening two days ago.

As with Ali and Frazier, it was the third time they'd met in the ring. As with Ali and Frazier, they are both in their 30s. As with Ali and Frazier, they traded blows that would bring down the walls of a city, and that would separate one another from their senses while they were at it. 

Wilder knocked Fury down twice in the fourth round with a jackhammer of a right hand. Fury floored Wilder three times with blows that landed like the sledgehammer of the gods. Each time both men got up, until as last Wilder couldn't.

Like Frazier, he kept coming no matter how many times Fury hit him. Like Ali, Fury got up twice when he could have stayed down in the fourth, and slowly began to pound Wilder into submission.

People called it "epic," an "instant classic," a "heavyweight bout for the ages."

Me?

I'm remembering those skinny hours in Manila, and another epic, and the wages of sinew they exacted on two other men in their 30s. And I'm hoping, unlike Ali and Frazier, that Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder will be the same again.