Showing posts with label Joe Frazier. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joe Frazier. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?" by Badger Johnson

1/17/2017 11:00:00 AM  , , , , , ,  No comments



"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?"

That sounds almost Shakespearean, but it's Robert Browning, English Poet (1812-89)

One of the greatest things for trainers and coaches in this era is the ability to video record yourself in training. Back in the day we didn't have this, although I had two friends who thought I was something special, haha, and did take a video 8 camera and record me sparring. The odd thing, of course I didn't really recognize myself, seeing from that angle, is that my arms looked -really- long. I mean freakishly long. At 5'9 I had a reach over 73", which is what you can touch on the wall arms out to each side.

Some of the heavyweight champs had an enormous reach, Ali is listed as 74" in some places and 80" in others. Foreman had a long reach. One of the shortest was Rocky Marciano at 68" and Tyson was only 71", proving that it's not always reach, huh?

So, the take-away I guess is to always try to find ways to 'reach for the stars' and keep your gaze up, head up, (though, you gotta look where you're going) and despite the aphorism, try to grasp as much as possible - seeing deeply is revealing and challenging. Not everyone is introspective. But everyone can see patterns and frameworks and connections if they work on it.



One of the longest reaches was the Soviet boxer Valuev listed in some places at 86" (Primo Carnera is also up there at 85"). Search Youtube for a cool fight between Holyfield and Valuev. (that's Valuev in the pic vs maybe David Haye, 2009)


 Please check out Badger Johnson's other essays:


NOTE:  My sincerest appreciation for Badger's gracious consent for permission to archive his essay to my site.
Please leave Comment/Feedback for Badger below.


Read More

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Happy 73rd Birthday to the Greatest!

1/17/2015 10:54:00 AM  , , ,  No comments


Today marks the 73rd birthday of the Greatest! 


Posting a pic I found while surfing around... interesting pic with the added lines and comments. Muhammad Ali was released from the hospital Jan 16, 2015 from a severe case of urinary tract infection. Here's hoping for a speedy and healthy recovery!!


 Happy Birthday Champ!




Copied from http://www.pdviz.com/the-physics-behind-muhammad-ali-fighting

It's just a picture of a Muhammad Ali fighting. Someone very cleverly added some lines that represent concepts of physics; as past (wrong hit by the opponent), present (the look of Ali) and future (which will hit Ali), as well as the concept of balance and weight distribution.






For more info on The Greatest, please check out: 


For other Muhammad Ali-related posts:



Read More

Monday, January 12, 2015

Oldschool Training: Joe Frazier

1/12/2015 10:54:00 AM  , , , ,  No comments

Smokin' Joe Frazier would’ve been 71 today. He passed away 3 yrs ago. 


Joe Frazier was known for his devastating left hook.  Here’s a video showcasing his famous left hook.
I posted this in honor of his birthday:
In that piece, is some oldschool training by the Champ, which I've extracted to highlight it here.


What was his “secret” to his left hook and his boxing? Perhaps it was this …




When I was born, people came to the house and gathered round to see if I was missin' an arm. See, my dad was missin' his left hand and part of his left forearm. And those people didn't realize that my dad's missin' arm didn't have nothing to do with genes. I never asked him what happened. Don't know what exactly. But the story I heard was that another man tried to kill him in an argument over a woman.

You could say that was the root of my left hook. When I was a boy, I used to pull a big cross saw with my dad. He'd use his right hand, so I'd have to use my left.

I got a burlap sack, put a brick in the middle, and filled it with rags, corncobs, some Spanish moss, and sand. I hung that sack off the branch of an oak tree. I'd wrap my hands with a necktie of my daddy's and punch at it. My mom gave me an hour a day. My brothers and sisters said, "Nah." I said, "You'll see."



Source:

Esquire Magazine
January 2004
What I’ve Learned:  Joe Frazier


For more information:

Read More

THE WISDOM OF … Joe Frazier (Jan 12, 1944 – Nov 7, 2011)

1/12/2015 10:54:00 AM  , , ,  No comments

Joe Frazier would’ve been 71 today. He passed away 3 yrs ago. Posting something he did with Esquire Magazine in his honor.


Happy 71st Birthday Champ!


Enjoy!


Click for larger pic

I grew up in Beaufort, South Carolina, in a six-room farmhouse with a couple of leaning posts to keep it from fallin'. I came up in a time when men were men. They didn't wear no earrings.

When I was born, people came to the house and gathered round to see if I was missin' an arm. See, my dad was missin' his left hand and part of his left forearm. And those people didn't realize that my dad's missin' arm didn't have nothing to do with genes. I never asked him what happened. Don't know what exactly. But the story I heard was that another man tried to kill him in an argument over a woman.

You could say that was the root of my left hook. When I was a boy, I used to pull a big cross saw with my dad. He'd use his right hand, so I'd have to use my left.

I got a burlap sack, put a brick in the middle, and filled it with rags, corncobs, some Spanish moss, and sand. I hung that sack off the branch of an oak tree. I'd wrap my hands with a necktie of my daddy's and punch at it. My mom gave me an hour a day. My brothers and sisters said, "Nah." I said, "You'll see."

When your mom dies, that's you.

Had my own car at twelve years old. Left school in the tenth grade. Married when I was sixteen. Ain't hard to figure out; I was a man at a very young age.

I came up in Martin Luther King's time, and it was really rough. Remember those boys wiped out in Mississippi? There was a problem with a black kid on the farm where my daddy and I worked, the Bellamy farm. The boy had screwed up one of the tractors without meaning to, and one of the Bellamy brothers took his belt off and beat the child in the field. I didn't think it was right. "Well, if you keep talkin', boy," the older Bellamy brother said, "I'm gonna take my belt to you." And I told him, "You better keep that belt on to hold your pants up." He didn't do nothin'. But I had to leave, get on the Dog and head up north. Greyhound. If I stayed, there was nothin' ahead but bad times.

Nothin' wrong with an ass whuppin' every now and then. You take away the ass whuppin's and what do you get? You get people wearin' pants below their belly buttons. I'm tellin' you, you go out these days and see the crack of a young lady's butt. It's crazy, man. They should be locked up for indecent exposure. Look here. See? Suspenders! And a belt! I ain't takin' no chances.

Nobody knows where the nose goes when the door's closed.

There are places on a man's head that are as hard as a rock. Your head's actually stronger than your body. And you don't have too many instruments up there workin'. But you got a lot of tools workin' in that body: the liver, the kidneys, the heart, the lungs. You soften that up and see what happens. I lived by the body shot.

Fridays and Saturdays are holidays for black people.

Ali's problem was that he knew I wasn't afraid. That's why he was always looking for those little things that would set me off. He did a damn good job of it, too. Called me ugly. Said I was ignorant. Said I was too small. Called me a gorilla. Ever see the poster promotin' the fight in Manila? Look at the drawings by LeRoy Neiman. Look at me on that poster and then look at Planet of the Apes. And you tell me what's goin' on.
I said some things in the past, but the truth is I love to see the Butterfly these days. He says, "We're two baaaaaad brothers." But after all this time, there are some things I'll never understand. Why'd he say, "I am thee greatest"? You would never say, "That is thee picture." You'd say, "That is the picture." I am thee greatest. Every word he said about himself: "I am thee."

I wasn't a big guy. People thought the big guys would eat me up. But it was the other way around. I loved to fight bigger guys. Only one big guy I didn't like to fight. That was George. Fightin' George Foreman is like being in the street with an eighteen-wheeler comin' at you.
I don't see any difference in sex drive from the time I was twenty until now. A man ordinarily can have sex anytime. Ain't that right?
I had my Olympic gold medal cut up into eleven pieces. Gave all eleven of my kids a piece. It'll come together again when they put me down.

Source:



Esquire Magazine

January 2004

What I’ve Learned:  Joe Frazier



Copied from http://www.esquire.com/features/what-ive-learned/wil0104frazier



For more information:



Read More

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Beyond The Glory - Joe Frazier (Full video)

1/12/2014 09:58:00 PM  , ,  No comments

Today's Joe Frazier 70th Birthdate. Please check out this documentary.

 Enjoy!


Beyond the Glory - Joe Frazier




For other entries on Smokin' Joe I've posted, please check out:


For more information, please check out:



NOTE:  I hate myself for missing this date in real-time, but I was busy with my family. Posted 1/13/14 as-of 1/12/14.

Read More

Smokin' Joe Frazier Story (Full video)

1/12/2014 09:56:00 PM  , ,  No comments

The Story of a Champion. Never released until now. Rare footage of Joe fighting, training and SINGING!

Enjoy!




Smokin' Joe Frazier Story




For other entries on Smokin' Joe I've posted, please check out:


For more information, please check out:



NOTE:  I hate myself for missing this date in real-time, but I was busy with my family. Posted 1/13/14 as-of 1/12/14.

Read More

Today would've been Joe Frazier's 70th Birthday!!

1/12/2014 09:54:00 PM  , , ,  No comments

Source pic:  thecruelestsport.com


Today would've been Smokin' Joe Frazier's 70th Birthday. He passed away 3 years ago. In his honor, I am posting some videos.


Happy Birthday Champ!



Last Interview




"Smoking" JOE FRAZIER- Monumental Left Hook




Joe Frazier vs George Chuvalo  (Jul 19, 1967)

In a brutal display of power, Joe Frazier fractures George Chuvalo's orbit (the bone under George's eye is damaged) so badly that Chuvalo needs reconstructive surgery to correct the injury as his eye partially drops into the fault line fracture. A career ending injury for mere mortals, Chuvalo continues his amazing career post surgery to cement his legend.







Joe Frazier vs Oscar Bonavena (Dec. 10, 1968)
Joe Frazier has his hands full again against the ultra rugged slugger from Argentina.

 



Joe Frazier vs Jimmy Ellis I - (Feb. 16, 1970)







Joe Frazier vs Bob Foster (Nov 18, 1970)





Joe Frazier vs Ron Stander (May 25, 1972) 

Joe Frazier is at the peak of his powers. Superior power, speed, timing and toughness allow Joe to steamroll Ron Stander. This is Joe at his very best.






Joe Frazier vs Jerry Quarry II (Jun. 17, 1974)







Joe Frazier vs Jimmy Ellis II - (Mar. 2, 1975)






For other entries on Smokin' Joe I've posted, please check out:





For more information, please check out:




NOTE:  I hate myself for missing this date in real-time, but I was busy with my family. Posted 1/13/14 as-of 1/12/14.

Read More

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Joe Frazier gave his most prized-posession to Nelson Mandela!!

12/10/2013 10:54:00 AM  , ,  No comments

PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA: South African President Nelson Mandela (C) poses with former heavyweight boxing champions Michael Spinks (L) and Joe Frazier (R) at his official residence in Pretoria 06 December 1997. The boxers are visiting South Africa at the President's invitation.
Photo credit: AFP/Getty Images

Nelson Mandela passed away 5 days ago on Dec 5, 2013 at the age of 95. Joe Frazier left us 2 years ago on Nov. 7, 2011 at the age of 67. Once upon a time, back in 1990, after 27 years of imprisonment, Mandela was freed and during a tour of the USA, he wanted to meet Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali.

Frazier wanted to give Mandela the best gift that he could think of. Can you guess which of Smokin' Joe's posessions he gave to Nelson Mandela? Read on!



(APW) Frazier's Ex-manager Recalls Mandela's Great Gift

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Frazier's Ex-manager Recalls Mandela's Great Gift
2013-12-08 22:42:24.22 GMT

By DAN GELSTON
Philadelphia (AP) -- Joe Frazier was humbled, and had to find the right symbolic gift to present to Nelson Mandela.

Smokin' Joe wanted Mandela to know he was a true champion.

No autographed picture, no robe, no gloves. Those wouldn't be good enough for this. Frazier, instead, picked the World Boxing Council heavyweight championship belt he was awarded after defeating Muhammad Ali in 1971.

Mandela died Thursday at the age of 95.

"I said, 'Are you talking about THAT belt,'" Frazier's former manager, Burt Watson, said. "He wouldn't let anyone touch that belt. It was his pride and joy."

When Mandela emerged from 27 years in prison, he wanted to meet Frazier and Ali during a tour of the United States.

Mandela's representative reached out to Watson about Frazier coming to New York for a meeting before the South African leader's speech at the United Nations building.

"When I mentioned to Joe that they wanted him and Nelson Mandela personally requested to meet him, he was in awe," Watson said. "Joe wasn't in awe of a lot of things, but he was of that.

He said he wouldn't miss it. He was honored. He knew of Mandela, knew of the struggles, knew what was going on."

Frazier, who died in 2011 after a brief battle with liver cancer at the age of 67, was "awe-struck" by Mandela.

Frazier and Watson were ushered into a room to convene with Mandela. The only other people there was a Mandela associate and two members of the NYPD.

"Joe Frazier's face lit up," the 65-year-old Watson said.

"They hugged and spoke to each other. He told Joe how much he respected him, how much he appreciated what he did to the world.

Joe presented him with the belt and said, 'I want you to have this.'"

For his little slice of history, Watson took the belt and snapped it around Mandela's waist.

"It was a little awkward, because I didn't know to put it on him so it would stay," Watson said, laughing. "It was heavy."

Mandela and Frazier posed for a picture, then it was time for the speech. Frazier left after Mandela's talk and the two never met again.

Watson, a Philadelphia native, managed the former champ from the early 1980s until the late 1990s. He is the Ultimate Fighting Championship's site coordinator, and has worked for the mixed martial arts company since 2001.

Watson saw Mandela again about 10 years after their 1990 meeting and mentioned he was there with Frazier at the United Nations.

"When I mentioned the belt, he lit up like a Christmas tree," Watson said by phone from the UFC's weekend show in Brisbane, Australia.

Watson said it was no surprise that Frazier was at ease around Mandela.

"Joe was a person of the people," he said. "He was so comfortable being around people."

-0- Dec/08/2013 22:42 GMT


Rest in Peace Champs!



NOTES:

This story flashed across my Bloomberg news.

Other entries on Joe Frazier, please check out:



Read More

Monday, August 19, 2013

Vunak's Top 50 Combat Secrets Ch. 8

8/19/2013 11:00:00 AM  , , , , , , ,  No comments



Chapter 8 - The secret to intercepting !


For me the epiphany that enabled me to stop kickboxing and start intercepting, happened in the office of the old Kali Academy at about 2 in the morning with Larry Hartsell, drinking dark beer and watching Bruce Lee sparring footage (this was our routine, every Tuesday and Thursday night). When Bruce Lee sparred, the way he moved forward and backward, was not the way he described it in his books. In his books, we hear about a step and slide forward, backwards, and then slide step forward and backwards, etc. The very first thing that stands out, when watching Bruce spar, is this freaky shrimp like movement that he would do, that would project him, backward about 10 feet! When the normal person wants to go backward, they do a step and slide backwards, when Bruce wanted to retreat, he would do the shrimp like movement and is called piking. When one pushes off, their front leg and pikes backward, this move is reminiscent of a shrimp (piking is the opposite of arching).


I’m a firm believer, that this was just a natural idiosyncratic gesture of Bruce’s freakish athleticism (I seriously doubt that he knew consciously that he did this, and I can tell you for a fact that it was never memorialized in writing). Now imagine Bruce’s opponent throwing some strike at Bruce, he retreats with our shrimp move and all of a sudden he would be at the other end of the room. The opponent would obviously encroach, chasing Bruce, and Shazaaamm ! The interception would take place. This is when it hit me, I jumped up into Larry’s arms, screaming like a little kid. I got it, I got it, rewind. Bruce wasn’t intercepting punches or kicks, he was simply intercepting the opponent perpetually encroaching on him ! And the whole reason why the opponent, continually encroaches on Bruce over and over, boils back down to our shrimp movement. The opponent would encroach, Bruce would back up, the opponent would attack again, Bruce would back up again. Usually somewhere around the third time, this frustrated opponent, would launch in again, and bingo interception. From this point on, I understood the secret to the stop hit. And to put it in a nutshell, one’s footwork must be reminiscent of Mohammed Ali, perpetually going backward (however using the shrimp), and not like Joe Frazier continually moving in.


Drill:

After I understood Bruce’s shrimp movement, I tried to pass this concept on to my students. In those days my most athletic student with alot of hard work, would finally understand this movement after, about a year or two. The average student, would take 2 to 4 years. And some just simply, could never ever integrate it into their sparring. After about 5 years of sweat tears and blood, trying to teach this movement, one day Inosanto caught my consternation out of the corner of his eye. He approached me and said, “Vunak there is a much better way to teach this movement”. Then he went up to my student (who was no Michael Jordan), pulled out a knife, and took a slice at the student’s stomach, and I watched the most athletic, agile and precise shrimping movement that I have ever seen. Dan shived his knife, looked me in the eye, gave me a wink and walked away. In conclusion, the secret to intercepting is you do not intercept the strikes you intercept the opponent encroaching on you. Number 2, the best way to ensure that the opponent encroaches on you, is the shrimp. Number 3, the best way to teach a shrimp, is to slash angles 3 and 4 at your students. Until next week !




Please check the Table of Contents for links to other chapters of this Online Book.

Read More

Tuesday, November 08, 2011

IN MEMORY OF: Smokin' Joe Frazier (January 12, 1944 – November 7, 2011)

11/08/2011 11:15:00 PM  , ,  No comments

Copied and pasted from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/sports/joe-frazier-ex-heavyweight-champ-dies-at-67.html:


November 7, 2011

Joe Frazier, Ex-Heavyweight Champ, Dies at 67

By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN

Joe Frazier won the undisputed heavyweight title with a 15-round decision over Muhammad Ali at Madison Square Garden in March 1971, in an extravaganza known as the Fight of the Century.



Joe Frazier, the former heavyweight champion whose furious and intensely personal fights with a taunting Muhammad Ali endure as an epic rivalry in boxing history, died Monday night at his home in Philadelphia. He was 67.

His business representative, Leslie Wolff, said the cause was liver cancer. An announcement over the weekend that Frazier had received the diagnosis in late September and had been moved to hospice care early this month prompted an outpouring of tributes and messages of support.

Known as Smokin’ Joe, Frazier stalked his opponents around the ring with a crouching, relentless attack — his head low and bobbing, his broad, powerful shoulders hunched — as he bore down on them with an onslaught of withering jabs and crushing body blows, setting them up for his devastating left hook.

It was an overpowering modus operandi that led to versions of the heavyweight crown from 1968 to 1973. Frazier won 32 fights in all, 27 by knockouts, losing four times — twice to Ali in furious bouts and twice to George Foreman. He also recorded one draw.

A slugger who weathered repeated blows to the head while he delivered punishment, Frazier proved a formidable figure. But his career was defined by his rivalry with Ali, who ridiculed him as a black man in the guise of a Great White Hope. Frazier detested him.

Ali vs. Frazier was a study in contrasts. Ali: tall and handsome, a wit given to spouting poetry, a magnetic figure who drew adulation and denigration alike, the one for his prowess and outsize personality, the other for his antiwar views and Black Power embrace of Islam. Frazier: a bull-like man of few words with a blue-collar image and a glowering visage who in so many ways could be on an equal footing with his rival only in the ring.

Ali proclaimed, “I am the greatest” and he preened how he could “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” Frazier had no inclination for oratorical bravado. “Work is the only meanin’ I’ve ever known,” he told Playboy in 1973. “Like the man in the song says, I just gotta keep on keepin’ on.”

Frazier won the undisputed heavyweight title with a 15-round decision over Ali at Madison Square Garden in March 1971, in an extravaganza known as the Fight of the Century. Ali scored a 12-round decision over Frazier at the Garden in a nontitle bout in January 1974. Then came the Thrilla in Manila championship bout, in October 1975, regarded as one of the greatest fights in boxing history. It ended when a battered Frazier, one eye swollen shut, did not come out to face Ali for the 15th round.

The Ali-Frazier battles played out at a time when the heavyweight boxing champion was far more celebrated than he is today, a figure who could stand alone in the spotlight a decade before an alphabet soup of boxing sanctioning bodies arose, making it difficult for the average fan to figure out just who held what title.

The rivalry was also given a political and social cast. Many viewed the Ali-Frazier matches as a snapshot of the struggles of the 1960s. Ali, an adherent of the Nation of Islam who had changed his name from Cassius Clay, came to represent rising black anger in America and opposition to the Vietnam War. Frazier voiced no political views, but he was nonetheless depicted, to his consternation, as the favorite of the establishment. Ali called him ignorant, likened him to a gorilla and said his black supporters were Uncle Toms.

“Frazier had become the white man’s fighter, Mr. Charley was rooting for Frazier, and that meant blacks were boycotting him in their heart,” Norman Mailer wrote in Life magazine after the first Ali-Frazier bout.

Frazier, wrote Mailer, was “twice as black as Clay and half as handsome,” with “the rugged decent life-worked face of a man who had labored in the pits all his life.”

Frazier could never match Ali’s charisma or his gift for the provocative quote. He was essentially a man devoted to a brutal craft, willing to give countless hours to his spartan training-camp routine and unsparing of his body inside the ring.

“The way I fight, it’s not me beatin’ the man: I make the man whip himself,” Frazier told Playboy. “Because I stay close to him. He can’t get out the way.” He added: “Before he knows it — whew! — he’s tired. And he can’t pick up his second wind because I’m right back on him again.”

In his autobiography, “Smokin’ Joe,” written with Phil Berger, Frazier said his first trainer, Yank Durham, had given him his nickname. It was, he said, “a name that had come from what Yank used to say in the dressing room before sending me out to fight: ‘Go out there, goddammit, and make smoke come from those gloves.’ “

Foreman knocked out Frazier twice but said he had never lost his respect for him. “Joe Frazier would come out smoking,” Foreman told ESPN. “If you hit him, he liked it. If you knocked him down, you only made him mad.”

Durham said he saw a fire always smoldering in Frazier. “I’ve had plenty of other boxers with more raw talent,” he told The New York Times Magazine in 1970, “but none with more dedication and strength.”
Ali himself was conciliatory when Frazier’s battle with cancer became publicly known. “My family and I are keeping Joe and his family in our daily prayers,” Ali said in his statement over the weekend. “Joe has a lot of friends pulling for him, and I’m one of them.”

And when word reached him that Frazier had died, Ali, in another statement, said: “The world has lost a great champion. I will always remember Joe with respect and admiration.”

Billy Joe Frazier was born on Jan. 12, 1944, in Laurel Bay, S.C., the youngest of 12 children. His father, Rubin, and his mother, Dolly, worked in the fields, and the youngster known as Billy Boy dropped out of school at 13. He dreamed of becoming a boxing champion, throwing his first punches at burlap sacks he stuffed with moss and leaves, pretending to be Joe Louis or Ezzard Charles or Archie Moore.

At 15, Frazier went to New York to live with a brother. A year later he moved to Philadelphia, taking a job in a slaughterhouse. At times he battered sides of beef, using them as a punching bag to work out, the kind of scene used by Slyvester Stallone in the film “Rocky,” though Stallone said that he drew on the life of the heavyweight contender Chuck Wepner in developing the Rocky character.

Durham discovered Frazier boxing to lose weight at a Police Athletic League gym in Philadelphia. Under Durham’s guidance, Frazier captured a Golden Gloves championship and won the heavyweight gold medal at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

He turned pro in August 1965, with financial backing from businessmen calling themselves the Cloverlay Group (from cloverleaf, for good luck, and overlay, a betting term signifying good odds). He won his first 11 bouts by knockouts. By winter 1968, his record was 21-0.

A year before Frazier’s pro debut, Cassius Clay won the heavyweight championship in a huge upset of Sonny Liston. Soon afterward, affirming his rumored membership in the Nation of Islam, he became Muhammad Ali. In April 1967, having proclaimed, “I ain’t got nothing against them Vietcong,” Ali refused to be drafted, claiming conscientious objector status. Boxing commissions stripped him of his title, and he was convicted of evading the draft.

An eight-man elimination tournament was held to determine a World Boxing Association champion to replace Ali. Frazier refused to participate when his financial backers objected to the contract terms for the tournament, and Jimmy Ellis took the crown.

But in March 1968, Frazier won the version of the heavyweight title recognized by New York and a few other states, defeating Buster Mathis with an 11th-round technical knockout. He took the W.B.A. title in February 1970, stopping Ellis, who did not come out for the fifth round.

In the summer of 1970, Ali won a court battle to regain his boxing license, then knocked out the contenders Jerry Quarry and Oscar Bonavena. The stage was set for an Ali-Frazier showdown, a matchup of unbeaten fighters, on March 8, 1971, at Madison Square Garden.

Each man was guaranteed $2.5 million, the biggest boxing payday ever. Frank Sinatra was at ringside taking photos for Life magazine. The former heavyweight champion Joe Louis received a huge ovation. Hubert H. Humphrey, back in the Senate after serving as vice president, sat two rows in front of the Irish political activist Bernadette Devlin, who shouted, “Ali, Ali,” her left fist held high. An estimated 300 million watched on television worldwide, and the gate of $1.35 million set a record for an indoor bout.

Frazier, at 5 feet 11 1/2 inches and 205 pounds, gave up three inches in height and nearly seven inches in reach to Ali, but he was a 6-to-5 betting favorite. Just before the fighters received their instructions from the referee, Ali, displaying his arrogance of old, twice touched Frazier’s shoulders as he whirled around the ring. Frazier just glared at him.

Frazier wore Ali down with blows to the body while moving underneath Ali’s jabs. In the 15th round, Frazier unleashed his famed left hook, catching Ali on the jaw and flooring him for a count of 4, only the third time Ali had been knocked down. Ali held on, but Frazier won a unanimous decision.

Frazier declared, “I always knew who the champ was.”

Frazier continued to bristle over Ali’s taunting. “I’ve seen pictures of him in cars with white guys, huggin’ ‘em and havin’ fun,” Frazier told Sport magazine two months after the fight. “Then he go call me an Uncle Tom. Don’t say, ‘I hate the white man,’ then go to the white man for help.”

For Frazier, 1971 was truly triumphant. He bought a 368-acre estate called Brewton Plantation near his boyhood home and became the first black man since Reconstruction to address the South Carolina Legislature. Ali gained vindication in June 1971 when the United States Supreme Court overturned his conviction for draft evasion.

Frazier defended his title against two journeymen, Terry Daniels and Ron Stander, but Foreman took his championship away on Jan. 22, 1973, knocking him down six times in their bout in Kingston, Jamaica, before the referee stopped the fight in the second round.

Frazier met Ali again in a nontitle bout at the Garden on Jan. 28, 1974. Frazier kept boring in and complained that Ali was holding in the clinches, but Ali scored with flurries of punches and won a unanimous 12-round decision.

Ali won back the heavyweight title in October 1974, knocking out Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire — the celebrated Rumble in the Jungle. Frazier went on to knock out Quarry and Ellis, setting up his third match, and second title fight, with Ali: the Thrilla in Manila, on Oct. 1, 1975.

In what became the most brutal Ali-Frazier battle, the fight was held at the Philippine Coliseum at Quezon City, outside the country’s capital, Manila. The conditions were sweltering, with hot lights overpowering the air-conditioning.

Ali, almost a 2-to-1 betting favorite in the United States, won the early rounds, largely remaining flat-footed in place of his familiar dancing style. Before Round 3 he blew kisses to President Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, Imelda, in the crowd of about 25,000.

But in the fourth round, Ali’s pace slowed while Frazier began to gain momentum. Chants of “Frazier, Frazier” filled the arena by the fifth round, and the crowd seemed to favor him as the fight moved along, a contrast to Ali’s usually enjoying the fans’ plaudits.

Frazier took command in the middle rounds. Then Ali came back on weary legs, unleashing a flurry of punches to Frazier’s face in the 12th round. He knocked out Frazier’s mouthpiece in the 13th round, then sent him stumbling backward with a straight right hand.

Ali jolted Frazier with left-right combinations late in the 14th round. Frazier had already lost most of the vision in his left eye from a cataract, and his right eye was puffed and shut from Ali’s blows.
Eddie Futch, a renowned trainer working Frazier’s corner, asked the referee to end the bout. When it was stopped, Ali was ahead on the scorecards of the referee and two judges. “It’s the closest I’ve come to death,” Ali said.

Frazier returned to the ring nine months later, in June 1976, to face Foreman at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. Foreman stopped him on a technical knockout in the fifth round. Frazier then announced his retirement. He was 32.

He later managed his eldest son, Marvis, a heavyweight. In December 1981 he returned to the ring to fight a journeyman named Jumbo Cummings, fought to a draw, then retired for good, tending to investments from his home in Philadelphia.

Both Frazier and Ali had daughters who took up boxing, and in June 2001 it was Ali-Frazier IV when Frazier’s daughter Jacqui Frazier-Lyde fought Ali’s daughter Laila Ali at a casino in Vernon, N.Y. Like their fathers in their first fight, both were unbeaten. Laila Ali won on a decision. Joe Frazier was in the crowd of 6,500, but Muhammad Ali, impaired by Parkinson’s syndrome, was not.

In addition to his son Marvis and his daughter Jacqui, Frazier is survived by his sons Hector, Joseph Rubin, Joseph Jordan, Brandon Marcus and Derek Dennis; his daughters Weatta, Jo-Netta, Renae and Natasha, and a sister. His marriage to his wife, Florence, ended in divorce.

Long after his fighting days were over, Frazier retained his enmity for Ali. But in March 2001, the 30th anniversary of the first Ali-Frazier bout, Ali told The New York Times: “I said a lot of things in the heat of the moment that I shouldn’t have said. Called him names I shouldn’t have called him. I apologize for that. I’m sorry. It was all meant to promote the fight.”

Asked for a response, Frazier said: “We have to embrace each other. It’s time to talk and get together. Life’s too short.”

Fascination with the Ali-Frazier saga has endured.

After a 2008 presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, the Republican media consultant Stuart Stevens said that McCain should concentrate on selling himself to America rather than criticizing Obama. Stevens’s prescription: “More Ali and less Joe Frazier.”

Frazier’s true feelings toward Ali in his final years seemed murky.

The 2009 British documentary “Thrilla in Manila,” shown in the United States on HBO, depicted Frazier watching a film of the fight from his apartment above the gym he ran in Philadelphia.

“He’s a good-time guy,” John Dower, the director of “Thrilla in Manila,” told The Times. “But he’s angry about Ali.”

In March 2011, however, on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the first Ali-Frazier fight, Frazier said he was willing to put the enmity behind him.

“I forgave him for all the accusations he made over the years,” The Daily News quoted Frazier as saying. “I hope he’s doing fine. I’d love to see him.”

But as Frazier once told The Times: “Ali always said I would be nothing without him. But who would he have been without me?”




Some links:

RIP Champ

Read More
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

ShareThis

 
back to top
Stickgrappler's Sojourn of Septillion Steps