While Ali's career is celebrated, Frazier's is overlooked

[granberry]

While Ali's career is celebrated, Frazier's is overlooked

by Bernard Fernandez Jan. 16. 2007
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/columni ... 22376.html

BIRTHDAYS SHOULD be happy occasions, a time to spend quality time with family and friends, to blow out candles on a cake, maybe even to receive some presents.
But not all birthdays are created equal, as the continuing disparity in the level of public recognition accorded former heavyweight champions Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier this month demonstrates.
Ali turns 65 tomorrow, and the date will be observed with a smorgasbord of tributes. ESPN Classic, in fact, got an early jump on the party, beginning 52 hours of programming on Sunday. Tomorrow, though, it's all Ali all the time, with a 24-hour marathon on the cable channel whose mission seemingly is preservation of the Ali legacy.
Replays of seven Ali bouts - 1964, Sonny Liston I; 1965, Liston II and Floyd Patterson I; 1966, George Chuvalo; 1974, George Foreman; 1975, Chuck Wepner and Frazier III - will be televised in their entirety, to be followed by "Ali Rap," a recent ESPN special; "Ali's Dozen," a compilation of Ali's best and most important rounds; and "Ali's 65," an ode that dwells on Ali's effect on society.
"No one represents what ESPN Classic is all about more than Muhammad Ali," said John Papa, Classic's vice president of programming.

You might have noticed that one Ali bout that won't be televised is his March 8, 1971, showdown with Frazier in Madison Square Garden, the opening act in their three-part passion play that arguably was the most anticipated boxing match of all-time. In that pairing of undefeated superstars, Smokin' Joe floored Ali with a leaping left hook in the 15th round, the exclamation point to his unanimous-decision victory.
An oversight? Or is Ali's legend-sustaining machinery served only by tapes that reveal him in the most favorable light?

Papa said Ali-Frazier I can't be shown on ESPN Classic because ESPN does not own the rights to that fight. Fair enough.

Still, there sometimes appears to be a revisionist history, one in which Ali's stature continues to expand even as Frazier's contracts. And it shouldn't be that way. These two warriors engaged in boxing's most riveting rivalry, which should have ensured ring immortality for both in near-equal measures.

Instead, on Jan. 12, Frazier turned 63 to little or no fanfare.
"It's always that way," Pete Lyde, Frazier's son-in-law, said of the widening gap in the way Ali and Frazier are perceived.
Lyde said he hoped to put together a "private event" for Smokin' Joe's family and friends, "maybe a couple of hundred people" at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, but it didn't come off.
"I'd like to do something really nice for him, maybe black-tie, at some point," Lyde said. "If anyone deserves it, it's him."

But while a meaningful celebration of Frazier's place among boxing's greatest champions remains on the drawing board, Ali has been more recognized and saluted than any king or potentate.
The multimillion-dollar Muhammad Ali Center, in Ali's hometown of Louisville, Ky., was the site of a 1-year anniversary gala on Nov. 19, 2006, with 7,000 in attendance.

Ali has been lionized in a 1996 documentary, "When We Were Kings," which details his '74 upset of Foreman, and in a 2001 feature film, "Ali," which starred Philadelphia native Will Smith in the title role. Another documentary, "Louisville's Own Ali," has been shot.

[ThatOne]

I don't see how that Ali's fault.

He's a cultural icon that transcended his sport.

Why is Michael Jordan's career celebrated and Bill Rusell's career overloked?

Why is Babe Ruth's career celebrated and Hank Aaron's career overlooked?

Why is Robert DeNiiro's cinematic career celebrated and Paul Reuben's cinematic career overlooked?

[Collins2000]

STOP using Frazier's name to help push your own race hate agenda, granberry.