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A warrior who didn't know how to back down
By Tim Dahlberg |
November 10, 2011, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
GEORGE Foreman's crushing right uppercut connected for the first time in round 1 and, suddenly, the heavyweight champion of the world was on the canvas. At ringside, the shocking sight sent Howard Cosell into a frenzy.
"Down goes Frazah! Down goes Frazah! Down goes Frazah!" Cosell screamed into his ABC television microphone. Across the ring, Foreman was thinking one thing: Please don't let Joe Frazier get up.
"I saw him get up and I said to myself 'Oh boy, he's going to get me now'," Foreman recalled on Tuesday. "You didn't want him getting up, and you really didn't want him getting up mad."
Get up Frazier did, only to go down again and again. Six times in all before the bell could sound to end the second round. Yet there he was still, out on his feet but still upright and ready for more. Frazier wasn't going to surrender his heavyweight title until the referee mercifully put an end to the carnage in Jamaica.
"Joe Frazier wouldn't back away from King Kong," Foreman said. "Joe Frazier was one brave man."
Destined to lose
Brave enough to take on the fearsome and much bigger Foreman in a fight he seemed destined to lose. Brave enough to hand Muhammad Ali his first loss and then almost fight to the death with him in the Philippines.
But that's what Frazier was. An undersized warrior who didn't know how to back down. A fighter to the core.
Understand that, and you understood Joe Frazier.
He kept getting up when Foreman knocked him down. He kept trying to fight Ali even though one eye was swollen shut and he couldn't see out of the other. And he kept fighting for his rightful place in history until his death on Monday night in Philadelphia at the age of 67.
"His pride and dignity made him fight to the end," Don King said.
"Joe never forgave Muhammad Ali for what he did to him, but Joe Frazier proved that he wasn't only a great fighter but a great man."
No one in Madison Square Garden 40 years ago, it seemed, wanted him to beat Muhammad Ali. But they saw Frazier do what no man had done before - beat the great Ali. If that wasn't enough, he knocked Ali down in the 15th round with one of his classic left hooks to seal the deal.
He fought Ali the way he fought everyone, with his chin planted on his opponent's shoulder, because that was the only way he could fight. Frazier barely stood 5-foot-10, never weighed more than 205 or so. He wasn't going to beat people with his physical skills, so he figured out a way to keep relentless pressure on until he could find a way to land a left hook that surely was one of the most beautiful punches in boxing.
It didn't work against Foreman because Foreman was simply too big, too powerful. Ali found a way to beat him in their final two fights, too, including a fight so epic that boxing people simply shake their heads when asked what happened at the Thrilla in Manila.
The bitterness toward Ali that Frazier carried throughout the rest of his life was especially rooted in that fight. Ali called him a gorilla, an Uncle Tom. When Frazier returned home, his children asked why other kids at school were saying the same thing.
"Joe could never forgive him for that," King said. "But you have to know the times, the race struggle in America. Joe couldn't understand why some of the blacks looked at him with disdain and then extolled Muhammad Ali. But Smokin' Joe was an integral part of history. That fight changed things for a lot of people. It changed the respect paid when people would look at other people of color."
"Down goes Frazah! Down goes Frazah! Down goes Frazah!" Cosell screamed into his ABC television microphone. Across the ring, Foreman was thinking one thing: Please don't let Joe Frazier get up.
"I saw him get up and I said to myself 'Oh boy, he's going to get me now'," Foreman recalled on Tuesday. "You didn't want him getting up, and you really didn't want him getting up mad."
Get up Frazier did, only to go down again and again. Six times in all before the bell could sound to end the second round. Yet there he was still, out on his feet but still upright and ready for more. Frazier wasn't going to surrender his heavyweight title until the referee mercifully put an end to the carnage in Jamaica.
"Joe Frazier wouldn't back away from King Kong," Foreman said. "Joe Frazier was one brave man."
Destined to lose
Brave enough to take on the fearsome and much bigger Foreman in a fight he seemed destined to lose. Brave enough to hand Muhammad Ali his first loss and then almost fight to the death with him in the Philippines.
But that's what Frazier was. An undersized warrior who didn't know how to back down. A fighter to the core.
Understand that, and you understood Joe Frazier.
He kept getting up when Foreman knocked him down. He kept trying to fight Ali even though one eye was swollen shut and he couldn't see out of the other. And he kept fighting for his rightful place in history until his death on Monday night in Philadelphia at the age of 67.
"His pride and dignity made him fight to the end," Don King said.
"Joe never forgave Muhammad Ali for what he did to him, but Joe Frazier proved that he wasn't only a great fighter but a great man."
No one in Madison Square Garden 40 years ago, it seemed, wanted him to beat Muhammad Ali. But they saw Frazier do what no man had done before - beat the great Ali. If that wasn't enough, he knocked Ali down in the 15th round with one of his classic left hooks to seal the deal.
He fought Ali the way he fought everyone, with his chin planted on his opponent's shoulder, because that was the only way he could fight. Frazier barely stood 5-foot-10, never weighed more than 205 or so. He wasn't going to beat people with his physical skills, so he figured out a way to keep relentless pressure on until he could find a way to land a left hook that surely was one of the most beautiful punches in boxing.
It didn't work against Foreman because Foreman was simply too big, too powerful. Ali found a way to beat him in their final two fights, too, including a fight so epic that boxing people simply shake their heads when asked what happened at the Thrilla in Manila.
The bitterness toward Ali that Frazier carried throughout the rest of his life was especially rooted in that fight. Ali called him a gorilla, an Uncle Tom. When Frazier returned home, his children asked why other kids at school were saying the same thing.
"Joe could never forgive him for that," King said. "But you have to know the times, the race struggle in America. Joe couldn't understand why some of the blacks looked at him with disdain and then extolled Muhammad Ali. But Smokin' Joe was an integral part of history. That fight changed things for a lot of people. It changed the respect paid when people would look at other people of color."
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