Back on 11th Avenue in Brooklyn in the late 70’s and early 80’s, every night was the ‘Thrilla in Manila’. My mother probably still goes to bed at night with the sound of clicking in her head as she recalls her soon to be teenage son re-enacting the legendary trilogy between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali – daily.
‘Click-click’ slammed the plastic recreations of Ali and Frazier against each other. ‘Click-click’, Frazier is down. He’s up. Ali is down.
Things were simpler back then and amusements didn’t come in the form of hi-tech gadgets, mp3 players, and video games. I’ve still got my Frazier and Ali action figures (don’t you dare call them dolls), and while they’ve been beaten beyond recognition, I’ve kept them, broken arms and legs, ripped trunks, re-painted and stained with fake vampire blood faces and all. No EBay for these two.
Nonetheless, in the interest of cutting to the chase, it goes without saying that talking to Joe Frazier while the former heavyweight champion prepares for the premiere of the latest stellar installment of Fox Sports Net’s ‘Beyond The Glory’ on Sunday, September 25 (6pm local time) was, to put it bluntly, a big deal.
So what’s it like to be, at 61, still relevant, still loved by the public, and still able to reduce adults into quivering 12-year-old fans again?
“I don’t want to be duckin’ and dodgin’” said Frazier. “I like to let people know that even though once I was a younger champion, right now that I’m an older guy, I like to mingle. I love the world and the good man put us here to love one another and to give to one another whenever they need. That don’t mean grab a bag and give ‘em some money, but I’m talking about helping the people who are really in need.”
Straight-shooting and to the point, Frazier’s style outside the ring was also reflected in his attitude once the bell rang. There was no feeling out, no dancing, and no hugging when Frazier got to smokin’. Over his 11-year career (not counting a one fight comeback in 1981), Frazier compiled a 32-4-1 record with 27 knockouts, with his only losses coming to two men – Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, even though Frazier laughs when he refers to the second Ali fight (which he lost via decision in 1974), “the judges said I lost to Muhammad, but I guess they were a little handicapped – they couldn’t see.”
The laughs come easy for the affable Frazier, who not only runs his own gym in North Philadelphia, but is a popular guest at various celebrity functions around the world (He recently returned from appearances in Australia and New Zealand). So it’s good to see that the former heavyweight king has landed on his feet, because he didn’t have the easiest life – growing up poor in South Carolina, forced into the role of second fiddle to Ali during the 70’s, and then dealing with such ailments as cataracts, arthritis, and high blood pressure, even during the tail end of his active boxing career, all of which are covered in the ‘Beyond The Glory’ documentary.
But you won’t hear him crying ‘woe is me’ or looking for sympathy. That’s just not the way you do things when you’re an old school icon like Frazier. He never was like that either; he was simply a man’s man, someone who did his job, did it well, and never looked for the pat on the back. And these days, Frazier’s simply not content with looking back; he’s only looking forward at what he can do for the kids of his North Philly community.
“We run the gym here, myself and Marvis (Frazier’s son and a former heavyweight title challenger),” said Frazier of his gym, aptly named ‘Joe Frazier’s Gym’. “We always try to keep the young boys and the young ladies all together. We’re not gonna get all of them to come in and be a part of us – we can understand that. But the ones that want to know and want to do what’s right, it’s our job to direct them in the right direction. And that’s what we’re doing here.”
Frazier estimates his gym is home to over 30 children per day, and even though he’s not 25 anymore, you still don’t want to mess with ‘Smokin’ Joe’.
“Trust me, I can get out there and protect myself if I have to, but I don’t want to do that,” he said. “But it gives them a little more inspiration when I show them that what I’m saying is the truth, and that it has to be done this way in order for you to get the job done.”
The Hall of Famer’s Joe Frazier Foundation is doing its part to get the job done for the inner city kids, and according to Frazier’s manager, Les Wolff, plans are in the works to expand the foundation’s reach to other urban areas around the United States. For his part, Frazier he won’t slam other ex-pro athletes who don’t do what he does; he will just continue on his particular road because it’s what he was raised to do.
“I can’t speak for them, and maybe we were raised on different ladies’ chests,” he said. “We were brought up different from other people and other families. My family came from the old time religion in the South, where we had one loaf of bread that we shared with 13, 14 people that lived in that house. That’s the real deal, and what has to be done, as a man, by someone who’s made something, is to give something back to the neighborhood.”
He hasn’t left Philadelphia, his home since he was 15, and the odds of him ever leaving are as small as you or I standing up to one of his debilitating left hooks. That’s okay though, as long as he’s got his gym, his family, and cars to tinker with. Oh yeah, and the former leader of The Knockouts is still singing.
“When we were in New Zealand, there was a 60 piece orchestra, three backup singers, and a crowd of 700 at a charity event,” recalled Wolff. “Joe sang ‘Mustang Sally’ and blew the place apart. I had never seen him sing before, and my jaw was down around my ankles.”
“It was something in my life all along,” said Frazier of singing and performing. “We came from a very religious family. If you didn’t sing on Sunday, when you got back to the house, Mom would want to know why. And she kept a switch in corner. ‘Why you can’t sing? You think you’re better than anybody else?’ ‘No, mom, I…” schhwupp. ‘You gonna sing next Sunday?’ Yes maam.”
With this type of no-nonsense upbringing, Frazier, one of 11 children, grew up tough. Pounding a homemade punching bag made of corn cobs, moss and bricks couldn’t possibly soften him up either. At 15, he made the trek from South Carolina to Philadelphia, where he began, not only boxing, but working at a slaughterhouse. As he trained, he hit slabs of beef during work hours, and did his roadwork through the city streets, culminating with a trip of the stairs of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Sound familiar? It should if you’re a movie fan, but unfortunately the only tribute to a fighter in Philly is to the fictional Rocky Balboa, and not the true fistic hero of the city. But that’s another debate for another day.
Frazier won a Gold Medal in the 1964 Olympics, fighting with a broken thumb, and as a pro he walked through all competition, taking the heavyweight title vacated by the exile of Muhammad Ali in the process. All the while, he made his way through the fight game with one undeniable equalizer – his left hook. Delivered with speed, precision, and thudding power, whether he tapped you with it once or a hundred times, you were going to remember it forever.
“It’s something that was there, and I also looked at a guy like Henry Armstrong,” said Frazier of his trademark punch. “Armstrong would throw 100 punches or more in a round. I used to watch him, and Yank (Durham, Frazier’s trainer) told me, ‘Your defense is your offense; keep him duckin’ and dodgin’ and tryin’ to hold on. Don’t try to clinch – throw punches. Let him worry.’”
Citing the greats (Armstrong, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Ezzard Charles), Frazier, even in his early sixties, still sounds in awe of these legends. It’s the way today’s fighters should speak of fighters like Frazier, but unfortunately a lot of contemporary boxers have short memories.
“These young guys don’t take the time and watch what’s going on,” said Frazier. “And sometimes the trainers don’t do it either. But that’s what my trainer used to do. Yank would say, ‘I want you to watch Armstrong, Louis, Ezzard Charles, Rocky Marciano, and you make sure you see what they’re doing. If you watch what they’re doing, then we’re gonna see that tomorrow.’”
Is that what’s missing with today’s fighters?
“I think that’s one part missing,” said Frazier. “Plus, I really don’t see no big fights going on now anywhere. They’re really ain’t fightin’ no more today. I can’t see a guy coming in with one punch and on the punch he missed they stop the fight.”
When it comes to big fights, there was none bigger than Frazier-Ali I on March 8, 1971. Aptly titled ‘The Fight of The Century’, the bout between the two undefeated heavyweights stopped the world for one magical night. But even though Frazier can appreciate the magnitude of the event now, back then, his focus was clear.
“The part about stopping the world, I didn’t pay one ounce of attention to that,” said Frazier. “My job was to watch him (Ali), and figure out what he was doing, otherwise he was gonna wrap me up and throw me away. I didn’t focus on all the great entertainers that were there or on the crowd – some of them were with me, some of them with him. My job was to concentrate on what Yank told me in the corner and to get the job done.”
Frazier, who dropped Ali in the 15th round en route to a decision win, still recalls moments of his crowning victory fondly.
“In the sixth round, I dropped my hands and told him ‘Sucka, it’s the sixth round and I ain’t stopped yet,’” said Frazier, referring to Ali’s pre-fight boast that he would stop the champion in six rounds. “Then I pulled him off the ropes and laughed at him.”
And even when Ali’s antics and underrated toughness started to chip away at Frazier’s concentration, Durham quickly reeled his charge back in.
“Muhammad shook his head when I hit him with three or four hooks, telling me that he’s all right,” said Frazier. “I went back to the corner and I said ‘Yank, is this guy out of his mind? Is he going crazy?’”
Durham’s response was as quick and to the point as a Frazier hook.
“‘Don’t worry about that. I want you to go right back with your left, and he’ll fall after a while.’”
Frazier kept throwing the hook that night at Madison Square Garden, kept focused, and though Ali didn’t fall for a ten count, Frazier still got the biggest win of his career.
“The thing that I was concerned about was him and I,” he said. “I couldn’t surround my mind around the people that were there, whether Sammy Davis would say something wrong when I threw the left hook, or about Frank Sinatra snapping pictures. My mind was on getting the job done.”
Would Frazier agree that this determination was a key ingredient of his success?
“I would say yes, but I don’t know how any man could get caught up in the fans out there when he knows he’s got me in front of him,” he laughs.
After beating Ali in 1971, Frazier would defend his title twice more before meeting up with another unbeaten future hall of famer, George Foreman.
“I always thought that I was the best and I wasn’t worried about the man’s size; I said, let me take him on and give him a shot,” said Frazier.
Frazier and Foreman met in Jamaica on January 22, 1973, and it was no contest, as Foreman dropped the champ six times before the bout was halted in the second round. Even looking at the tape of the fight 32 years later, Frazier is still amazed by the power of Foreman.
“He wasn’t just strong, he was tall,” laughs Frazier. “But he was powerful, trust me, he was. This guy had stuff I had never heard of before. I looked at the tape a couple of days back, and this guy lifted me up off the floor with one uppercut. I keep saying ‘wow’. Don’t get me wrong, I did try to get him, but he kept beating me to the shot.”
‘Smokin’ Joe’ only went 3-3-1 in his final seven bouts after the loss to Foreman, but included in that series was the legendary ‘Thrilla in Manila’ in 1975, when Ali and Frazier pounded each other for 14 brutal rounds before Frazier trainer Eddie Futch had finally seen enough and called a halt to the fight. His 1981 comeback fight against Jumbo Cummings ended in a draw, and Frazier never returned to the ring again. Ask the gym owner what he misses about the sport, and he chuckles.
“I’ve got nothing to miss, I’m there every day.”
You don’t even miss the roar of the crowd?
“I don’t hear nobody anyway. I don’t hear the big noise. The only noise I’d hear was when I’d go back to the corner and hear Yank and Eddie.”
A rigorous travel schedule precludes Frazier from watching too much boxing these days, either live or on television, but when he’s in the gym, it’s obvious that his heart is still in the game, and more importantly, on its participants.
“I’d give the game back to the boxing guys who have been there,” said Frazier when asked how things could be done differently in the sport. “All these shim-sham-shoo guys, whoever they may be, come around, trying to tell a guy how to fight. How are you gonna tell someone how to drive a car when you can’t drive one yourself? Baseball, football, basketball, hockey, all of these other sports, the guys that were on the field go back and teach the guys how to play. Boxing is a whole different thing. They may want to train, but not at Joe Frazier’s gym. If they ain’t had gloves on for at least four or five years, he ain’t gonna train nobody in here. I’m not gonna let it happen, because that’s how people get hurt.”
As Frazier explains, in the best case scenario, a trainer who has been in the trenches will know when a fighter is hurt in the gym and take immediate action.
“If a guy comes up to me and says, ‘Look, I don’t feel good in the head Joe,’ we’re gonna go to the doctor and see what the problem is,” he said. “I know that plenty of times I got shook, but the Lord has been with me. If the fight is two weeks away, two days, or one day away, let’s put it on the side and get it checked out because you may have a problem. If somebody has been there, been shook like I did, he knows exactly what I’m talking about and it ain’t nothing to play with.”
That’s Joe Frazier – fighter, father, survivor, and friend to the men and women who are following the same road he walked decades ago. And for a man who will always be remembered as a great fighter, he wishes to be remembered for traits that have nothing to do with wearing gloves or winning a heavyweight championship.
“I want them to remember that I was fair, concerned, and I had a lot of love in my heart for people,” he said. “That’s where it’s at. I wanted to be fair to everybody, and I want everybody to have a chance.”
The Joe Frazier episode of ‘Beyond The Glory’ airs on Fox Sports Net on Sunday, September 25 at 6:00pm local time.
