I don?t know how to classify this piece. It?s not going to be a career recap and I?ll tell you why. Joe has never fully gotten his due in my opinion. That is the way it goes when you share the ring with other legends, names get attached to each other and we recant the good, the bad and the ugly as if they are one and sometimes guys individuality gets lost in the shuffle. Smokin Joe Frazier is the only fighter I will mention by name today. That is by no means meant as a slight to his contemporaries, but we have all been down that road many times. I suppose today I just want to say goodbye to a friend.
With all of the poor decisions, greed, fighters not facing each other and the downright affluent cost of being a Boxing fan I know it is difficult for an outsider to understand how we cling to the sport so tight and without any intention of ever letting go. Now that is a difficult question to answer, but it lies within the emotional ties to our favorite fighters or that can even come up during a special fight that you entered without a major rooting interest. Boxing is a very personal Sport to follow. Now don?t get me wrong I bleed Raven purple for example so I?m not dismissing that attachment to team sports. But it tends to be the team and their results more than an individual that you feel like you?re bleeding with and win or lose you swell with pride thinking about their exploits.
On that note, last night after I got home from a late work night and saw that Joe Frazier had passed away. I immediately began to choke up and several times tears leaked out of my eyes. No I didn?t know him, I never even met him. Heck, I?m forty-two years old so I wasn?t even old enough to watch him live until the very out-skirts of his HOF career. But that?s another great thing about Boxing, the tapes. And yeah, I could go back and watch Ravens/Steelers from seven years ago, but it isn?t the same as watching Joe Frazier roar forward and engage. To borrow a Football term he was a downhill Boxer that exuded confidence and was downright defiant that he was tougher than you and was willing to violently grind and take what you had until you agreed with him.
It?s that kind of blood and guts that make me teary eyed even as I?m typing now, and I?m proud to do it. While I have no doubt that Joe probably sucked up pain quietly without a peep during his final days, I know that I am nowhere near as tough as Joe Frazier. I honestly don?t think anyone is and he carried all of that machismo with a class and warmth that you can get from a TV screen or reading the words of the people that knew him. Joe wasn?t a scholar, he was a fighter that gave every inch of his body for every second of every round and when the stage was at its brightest, and the distractions were flying from every corner, he was able to march into MSG and deliver not only the greatest performance of his career, but quite possibly the greatest performance ever authored inside the squared circle. Quite frankly, on March 8th, 1971 Joe Frazier was the greatest fighter on the planet and I don?t think any version of anyone would have stopped him that night.
His eyesight was already failing at that point and time and it?s odd how few people really talk about that. He was very skilled and it?s hard to imagine he wouldn?t have used them more often if he had been blessed with better eyesight. Joe?s star was one that burned out as fast as it blazed across the sky. But he will never be forgotten and like many of the greats in many fields that are overshadowed in life, I expect that there will be more realization of how truly great Joe Frazier was as the time passes by. And I don?t mean to come off as too melodramatic here, Joe is usually rated in the all-time Top 10 on most anyone?s Heavyweight list. It just always seems to come with buts?.
