Sport: And Then There Was One

After months of drumbeating, chest thumping and lip flapping, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier finally came to blows last week. And after 15 punishing rounds, the much ballyhooed "Fight of the Century" established two unmistakable truths. The first was that Frazier, in pounding out a decision over Ali, had proved himself to be the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. The second was that Joe had been absolutely right when he predicted it would be "one hell of a fight."

Given the extraordinary interest in what Ali grandiloquently called "the biggest sporting...