Smokin Joe Frazier

[FLINT ISLAND]

Where does he rank in the all time great list of heavyweights compared to the likes of............

Mike Tyson
Rocky Marcino
Muhammed Ali
George Foreman
Lennox Lewis
Vitali Kilitshko
Evander Holyfield
Joe Louis
Sony Liston

etc
etc

[Srebmun]

Below all of those, and a few more too.

[Srebmun]

Edit to add. 'cept Klit (Klit might beat him due to sheer size tho')

[exittored]

I have respect for Frazier but take out the Ali win and his championship reign wasn't all that good. He basically just got lucky, had he faced Ali in 1968 than we probably still wouldn't be talking about Frazier and when he finally did face Ali, it was the rusty 50% version.

I may still have him in my Top 10 though, one of the greatest Left Hookers of all time and tough as nails.

[McCannW14]

I have respect for Frazier but take out the Ali win and his championship reign wasn't all that good. He basically just got lucky, had he faced Ali in 1968 than we probably still wouldn't be talking about Frazier and when he finally did face Ali, it was the rusty 50% version.

I may still have him in my Top 10 though, one of the greatest Left Hookers of all time and tough as nails.

He basically got lucky?

How old are you and how long have you been following boxing?

[granberry]

UNLUCKY

[granberry]

UNLUCKY

[granberry]

UNLUCKY

[I Feel Fine]

I rank Frazier ahead of Tyson, "Sony" Liston, Holyfield and any and all Klitschko's.
I think he was better than Rocky, but I have Marciano ahead based on accomplishments.
BTW... based on his two knock downs of Frazier, Bonavena has to be ranked ahead of Smokin' Joe. Those are apparently the rules according to recent photographic studies.

[Goodnight, Irene]

I have respect for Frazier but take out the Ali win and his championship reign wasn't all that good. He basically just got lucky, had he faced Ali in 1968 than we probably still wouldn't be talking about Frazier and when he finally did face Ali, it was the rusty 50% version.

I may still have him in my Top 10 though, one of the greatest Left Hookers of all time and tough as nails.

Kindly make like your name & exit...this is a discussion for the grown-ups.

[BoxBuzz]

UNLUCKY

What? I'm outraged! You are not showing how this durable fella got right up and back into the fight? Anyone can get knocked down by a thunderous Joe Frazier left, but not everyone can get back up and resume a fight in the wake of such a destructive blow. But not a mention of that. Not one picture of those moments? Nope gronkcherry is blind to every positive attribute of this remarkable and supremely god gifted pugilist. Granberry offers no explanation as to how this man got back up....gran is uninformed, unimpressed and in denial regarding this man's obvious granite jaw and remarkable recuperative abilities. He's so goofishly misguided that he even claims "slips" are knockdowns. He is silent on how many left hooks Joe threw that DID NOT land. Claiming that Ali was completely without a competent defense as if Joe never hit anyone but Ali in his entire career with that jawbreaker left. He's silent on How Joe was sent to the hospital in the wake of this fight, clearly having absorbed the "preys" share of the punishment on that night. He may be silent, but he also silently knows full well and without doubt that it was the great and talented Ali that clearly was the better overall fighter. And it tortures him with every post that he reads on this remarkable and wonderful boxing site, that he has not been able to bamboozle "the folks".

gapalarry was unable to guide Biff Cline to greatness due to these glaring deficits in his own character, and his warped analytical abilities. He was unable to show Biff how to counter a left, or how to cut the ring off effectively. Or even how to wait for the bell to ring before he stopped fighting. He was unable to recruit a good cut man, or find quality sparring partners for Biff, and in the bitterness of these failures he lashes out at possibly the greatest heavyweight fighter of all time.

gabadashary has never posted a picture of How Ali buckled Frazier knees with his raw egg crackin' power in their second fight? Requiring the ref to step in and give Joe a break, so's not to have the evenings festivities end too abruptly? In order not to disappoint the fans that paid to see a longer fight? Not a picture of M.A. forced Joe's friends to save Joe's life in the third fight?

garbhairy once again lashes out at the fighter who he knows to be a man who competently and gracefully floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee and rumbled like there was no tomorrow.

branflurry....I believe that NOW is the perfect time for you to read all of the great Tommy Hauser's books on this important subject and make that choice to become a convert to the religion of that brash young man from Louisville, the one and only, the inimitable and incomparable........well...you know who I'm talkin' about here.

[Robinson]

I don't care to make all time great lists...
I have my idea as to how Frazier would go head to head
against the men you listed.

But I always find Frazier entertaining to watch. In the
early days he was a versatile, in shape, swarming hurt
machine...that seemed to become less conditioned and
more of a one trick pony as his career went on.

In any case, the man hit hard and threw more than just
a hard left hook when he was at his best.

[BoxBuzz]

all kidding aside, I don't know how you could ever find a fighter who more embodied the spirit of "the fight game" than Joe Frazier. If his body would have been as indestructible as his spirit, no one would have stood a chance. (And in his early days it was and no one did) I talk about Ali getting up and how amazing it appeared to me that he was able to finish his fight with Joe. But Joe's performance of getting up time after time in the face of George's bombs may well eclipse Ali's in that dept.

My guess? If the Foreman/Frazier fight would have been held without a referee, I imagine Joe would have kept getting up and he would have eventually worn Foreman's fists down with his chin alone. Cause the man aint gonna quit till he's dead. For all their differences they had that in common and it's what made their rivalry so dangerous and at the same time appealing to fight fans.

[yancey]

all kidding aside, I don't know how you could ever find a fighter who more embodied the spirit of "the fight game" than Joe Frazier. If his body would have been as indestructible as his spirit, no one would have stood a chance. (And in his early days it was and no one did) I talk about Ali getting up and how amazing it appeared to me that he was able to finish his fight with Joe. But Joe's performance of getting up time after time in the face of George's bombs may well eclipse Ali's in that dept.

My guess? If the Foreman/Frazier fight would have been held without a referee, I imagine Joe would have kept getting up and he would have eventually worn Foreman's fists down with his chin alone. Cause the man aint gonna quit till he's dead. For all their differences they had that in common and it's what made their rivalry so dangerous and at the same time appealing to fight fans.

Exactly the reason why Frazier remains my favorite figure in boxing history. As absolutely a pure of warrior as I ever saw, and a much cleaner fighter for his style then a certain other heavy he is frequently compared to.

While I would probably have him somewhere around the middle of a top 10 list due to shortness of prime (which his style would mandate) I think the peak Frazier of '68 to '70 would be an extremely dangerous force in any head to head matchup.

[dempseyfire]

Frazier is a top 8 heavyweight of all time.

Klitschko's name shouldn't even be in the same ballpark. Foreman beat Frazier using balls and aggression vs a puncher that the Klitschkos have never shown and via a punch they never throw (uppercuts)

[granberry]

One day I was leaving Frazier's gym and as I walked down the sidewalk I saw he was picking up his car at the carwash next door.

The carwash guy was giving Frazier back the keys to his car with a great deal of obsequiousness, or you could call it respect, showing that he considered Frazier highly and was very happy to have his business.

I had just seen that Herbert Goldman, acting as the “answer man” in Bert Sugar’s bastardized excuse for what was left of the Ring magazine, had answered the question

“Why did Frazier go to the hospital with kidney trouble after his (first) fight with Ali?”

The correct answer was because Frazier had a bad kidney infection before the fight
and TWO commission doctors refuse to pass him in the prefight physical.

It wasn’t until they dredged up a third doctor who agreed to sign off on passing Frazier that the fight was able to go on.
Interestingly, Frazier fought the whole 15 round fight with a kidney infection, which would have a major bad effect on physical energy, endurance, etc.

Genius Herbert Goldman as Bert Sugar’s “answer man” gave the following ‘answer’ to the question, “Why did Frazier go to the hospital with kidney trouble after his (first) fight with Ali?”

“BECAUSE OF ALI’S BODY PUNCHES.”

Of course this was a dead giveaway (as if any were needed) of Goldman’s total and complete incompetence to do with the subject,

since Ali didn’t know how to throw a body punch

and did not throw a single punch to the body in the entire fight.

I walked over to Frazier as he was getting in his car and said. “Did you see the latest “answer man” column in the Ring magazine? They asked, ‘Why did Frazier go to the hospital with kidney trouble after his fight with Ali?’

“And the answer was ‘Because of Ali’s body punches.’ “

Frazier had a look of EXTREME disgust on his face, cursed, got in his car and drove away.

[BoxBuzz]

Good one.

[I Feel Fine]

Certainly Frazier was never hit to the body by Ali. The only one doing any illegal kidney punching in those fights was Frazier.
As for Frazier's prime; the world's smallest violin playing at that one. He was fighting Ali who was returning out of exile with diminished reflexes and leg speed, though his hands were still about as fast. Ali's style very much depended on youth. That said, to say that no one would be talking about Frazier without Ali's exile is retarded, to say the least, Frazier would have been a hall of famer one way or another. His fights with Ali would have been classics either way, and dismissing his wins over Ellis, Quarry, Bonavena, Mathis, Chuvalo and others shows lack of historical perspective.

[granberry]

Certainly Frazier was never hit to the body by Ali. The only one doing any illegal kidney punching in those fights was Frazier.

Ali was the foulest fighter who ever held the hvywt title.

Until Holyfield came along.

Jeffries and Liston were the two cleanest.

[I Feel Fine]

Ali fouled more than Dempsey, Sharkey, Marciano... Holyfield was dirtier than Tyson, the king of elbows, forearms and biting... Frazier never bent the rules, despite medical evidence of Ali's damaged kidney's after their fights, which in part led Pacheco to leave Ali's camp when he refused to retire... not to mention Joe using his head at times...

I would have a joke for granberry's last post, but I'm just not as funny as he is.

[granberry]

IFeelFine is boxrec's authority on boxing techniques.

Ali worshippers like IFeel never saw Ali pull Frazier's head down over 120 times in his 2nd ft with Frazier. And of course IFeel is deaf so he never heard stooge ref Tony Perez warn Ali over 100 times but never take away a single point.

Ali spent more time grabbing the back of his opponent's neck in his fights than he did throwing punches.

Why did Ali look so bad against Jimmy Young?

Because Young was prepared and negated each and every one of Ali's fouls.
Ali was left with nothing but boxing punches as a result of Young's handling of his fouls, and Ali showed he wasn't too good when it came to using only them.

In the Young fight Ali tried to hit Young across the face with his forearm at the end of every clinch. The 'referee,' a local stooge who wanted to be asked back by Don King to ref other fights, was frantic as he asked Ali politely not to do that, but he never took away any points.

When an opponent bent low Ali hit upward into the opponent's face with the heel of his upturned hand, a blatant non-boxing foul. There are photos of 'boxer' Ali doing that against Quarry and others.

The first thing Ali did in his title defense against Henry Cooper was run acrosss the ring, grab Cooper's head in both of his hands, and try to twist his head off.

Ali would get in close and push down with his forearm where the neck joins the shoulder and where a number of nerves and blood vessels are located.

What happened when he tried that against Jimmy Young? It's right there on the film. None of his non-boxing fouls worked for poor Ali that night.

The so-called 'referee' of the first Frazier-Ali fight fouled Frazier by sticking his fingers (hard) into Frazier's eye (10th round).

If that would have happened to Ali we would never hear the end of it.
But the Hauserites lamely claim it never happened even though it is right there on the film.

The fouling Ali did in the first round of his fight with Ron Lyle should have gotten him disqualified.

Ali was a blatantly foul fighter. As Bob Brown, Jimmy Young's trainer who prepared Young for the Ali fight said of Ali, "He's more a wrestler than a boxer."

[Robinson]

Re- kidney blows. When a boxer goes to the ropes and turns slightly, some
times it is hard for the puncher not to hit the kidneys. I do not think Frazier
was intending to blast Ali's kidneys, but he no doubt did..as well as hit Ali
on the thighs, hips etc, When you are shorter and are blasting at that
body sometimes a fighter hits high and low.

It is for the Ref to be there and to warn the offending fighter for doing this.
I in all honestly do not think that Frazier was trying to foul against Ali, but
these fouls were more a by product of his aggressive style.

As for Ali, holding the back of the head, holding and hitting, throwing back
hands and so on, well this became part of the trade mark Ali style. For better
or worse, I think we seldom saw any Ref warn him for doing any of this.

[yancey]

Don't you love how Ali got away with not going to a neutral corner against Bonavena and getting those quick followup "knockdowns"?

That was a complete freaking joke. Only Ali could pull that crap, get away with it, and the lapdog media never say a freaking thing.

Robinson, your feeling that Frazier was not intentionally going low against Ali is correct. Pachecho, to his credit, said the same thing after the fight.

[yancey]

It was well known AFTER the FOTC (well, maybe not known to the Ali squirrels here) that Frazier had medical issues going into the fight.

Possible eye problem, blood pressure problems for sure, maybe having something to do with other things Gran enumerates, I don't know.

I remember being surprised at the time when I found out that Ali went the distance that night. I thought Frazier, off of what he did in '69 and '70, would finish him sometime after round 10. After looking at the films, I think it was a combination of Ali rising to the occasion and fighting one of the great fights of his life + Frazier just not being quite the same machine he was in '69 and '70.

Yank Durham knew what was going on with Frazier's health and advised Frazier to retire after the FOTC. In retrospect, Yank was right.

[I Feel Fine]

Roinson... It is fair enough to say that Frazier may not have been doing it intentionally, we do not really know, but the fact remains that he was doing it, and if he got away with that and with using his head then a frivolous foul like holding behind the head is not going to garner a point deduction. You cannot make an equivalency between holding behind the head and hitting someone in the kidneys; hitting someone in the kidneys is a serious foul while ref's rarely take points for grabbing behind the neck. Ali's opponents almost never lost points when they fouled him, he was often hit with low blows and behind the head, it was not an era where ref's took many points, whether it be from Ali or from his opposition, including Frazier. To say that Ali was the dirtiest Heavyweight champion of the pre-Holyfield era is retarded, he probably isn't even top 5 all time. And I don't think Ali did too much holding and hitting. I don't recall him hitting too many people with the back of his hand, certainly not intentionally like a Max Baer or Holmes in the Shavers rematch.
The fact is that most good pro's know how to bend the rules, the idea that we are going to single Ali out for this is ridiculous, especially for something like holding behind the head as compared to Frazier crushing Ali's kidneys. The idea that he should have been DQ'd against Lyle is inflammatory nonsense. The idea that Young fought so well and should have won is because he avoided some mundane fouls and not because his opponent was old and out of shape is selective memory. Young at Ali's age, 34, was absolute garbage.
I never denied that Mercante (accidentally) stuck his finger in Frazier's eye. That Perez broke Ali off of Frazier when he had Joe hurt in the rematch does not get mentioned often by Joe's fans.... if Frazier had been pulled off a hurt Ali, granberry would be sure to mention it. Boxing is not an easy sport, shit happens and fighters have to deal with it, sometimes things will break in one guys favor sometimes in the other guys; when something breaks in Frazier's favor no one notices, when something breaks in Ali's the conspiracy theorists come out of the wood work with their aluminum foil hats.

Don't you love how Ali got away with not going to a neutral corner against Bonavena and getting those quick followup "knockdowns"?

That was a complete freaking joke. Only Ali could pull that crap, get away with it, and the lapdog media never say a freaking thing.

Robinson, your feeling that Frazier was not intentionally going low against Ali is correct. Pachecho, to his credit, said the said the same thing after the fight.

Ali shouldn't have been allowed to get away with it. And Marciano shouldn't have been allowed to get away with his fouls, and Frazier with his, and Tyson with his, and Holyfield with his. People who watch boxing know that refs make mistakes and misjudgements in every fight, the idea of singling out Ali is foolish. You don't like him, so everything that happens in his favor is magnified. Frazier fans have nothing to complain about as far as the refs were concerned, his fouls were worse than Ali's fouls, Ali's were just easier for Frazier's gerbils to point out because a head butt is easier to miss than a clinch.

It was well known AFTER the FOTC (well, maybe not known to the Ali squirrels here) that Frazier had medical issues going into the fight.

Possible eye problem, blood pressure problems for sure, maybe having something to do with other things Gran enumerates, I don't know.

I remember being surprised at the time when I found out that Ali went the distance that night. I thought Frazier, off of what he did in '69 and '70, would finish him sometime after round 10. After looking at the films, I think it was a combination of Ali rising to the occasion and fighting one of the great fights of his life + Frazier just not being quite the same machine he was in '69 and '70.

Yank Durham knew what was going on with Frazier's health and advised Frazier to retire after the FOTC. In retrospect, Yank was right.

Right, because Ali was so easy to stop.
Joe had health problems, I don't think this has been denied, but the idea that he fought less well against Ali than he did against Quarry or Ellis is myopic nonsense, and Ali had his own problems due to inactivity. The Frazier gerbils may not like it, but fighters cannot be at 100% in every fight, probably not in any fight. Excuses in boxing are a dime a dozen, what matters is who wins the fights, and Ali beat Frazier two to one. Frazier was still a destroyer after the first fight, ask Quarry for instance. And in terms of over all rankings which is the main point of this thread, considering their full careers, Frazier is not even competitive with Ali career for career.