Six classic boxing stories from the Sports Illustrated Vault

With the announcement that Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao will finally fight each other, we pulled together six of Sports Illustrated's best boxing stories

With the announcement that Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao will finally fight each other, we pulled together six of Sports Illustrated's best boxing stories from the SI Vault. They cover some of boxing's bold-faced names (Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Sonny Liston) and the king of promotion (Don King). They also include an all-time great Christmas story.

You can find the six stories below. You can read more of Sports Illustrated's most iconic stories here. 

Ali And His Entourage: Life after the end of the greatest show on earth

Getty Images

Muhammad Ali and his followers were the greatest show on earth, and then the show ended. But life went on. By Gary Smith.

All The Rage: Figuring out Mike Tyson

V.J. Lovero/Sports Illustrated

As he stormed toward his showdown with Lennox Lewis, was Mike Tyson the ultimate psycho celebrity in the midst of a public breakdown -- or the shrewdest self-promoter in boxing history? By Richard Hoffer.

Let Us Now Raze Famous Men: The Friars Club roast of Don King

David Bergman/Sports Illustrated

The Friars Club roast of Don King revealed -- and reveled in -- the vagaries of the honoree's dark and twisted soul. As King has said so many times, "Only in America." By Jeff MacGregor.

'Twas The Fight Before Christmas: The saga of Billy Miske

Billy Miske was told in 1918 that he had only five months to live. There was nothing he could do to prevent his death, but he couldn't go out before one last fight. By Rick Reilly. 

O Unlucky Man: Fortune never smiled on Sonny Liston

By the end of 1970, Sonny Liston had not been right for a long time, and not only for the strangely dual life he had been leading -- spells of choirboy abstinence squeezed between binges of drinking and drugs -- but also for the rudderless, unfocused existence he had been reduced to. By William Nack. 

The amazing story of Ali-Frazier III, the Thrilla in Manila

"Lawdy, lawdy he's great," Joe Frazier said that of Muhammad Ali, but so fierce and unsparing was their confrontation that the phrase could have applied to them both. By Mark Kram.