Word: frazier
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Gentleness and cruelty get mixed up easily in boxing. Frazier has always been a primitive, without a great deal of art, just a great deal of courage. He fought, as they say, with his face. But he is not insensitive to all pain, only to physical pain...
Muhammad Ali's reaction to losing the first "Fight of the Century" to Frazier in 1971 was to stitch PEOPLE'S CHAMPION on his robe and go about maligning Joe in the black community. That hurt Frazier more than any punch. Ali called Joe "Uncle Tom" for visiting the White House, though that was his own first stop after he retrieved the title from George Foreman in 1974. Whether punishing Floyd Patterson or taunting Ernie Terrell, Ali was never so cruel to anyone as he was to Frazier, whom he termed "ignorant." Frazier simply offended him aesthetically...
...forget how cruel and rude Clay was," says Frazier, who, as a result, never stopped calling his adversary Cassius Clay. "But I think, now, I can forgive him. Oh, I always respected him as a fighter. Our ways were so different, and we were so different, but here we are at the same place." The same place? "We're fighting without any championships." Once won, is a championship ever completely lost? "A champion would be a champion if he's a champion," Frazier says thoughtfully, a deep thought for him. "Do you know who said that...
...with that patter, but he is tired now. "When you're 40, you'll find you get tired," he says. A few silent minutes pass. "Every so often," and his voice diminishes again, "a certain breed comes along. History might produce something better than Joe Frazier and me later, but not now. You can't make me believe Sugar Ray Leonard and Tommy Hearns is as big as me and Joe Frazier in the Garden. Joe was great...
Last week in the decrepit Chicago Amphitheater, in the middle of the stockyards, Joe and Floyd ("Jumbo") Cummings fought to a melancholy ten-round draw. Frazier may still shake buildings, but what once would have been lethal lefts did not move Jumbo, a muscle-bound 30-year-old ex-convict, who almost knocked Joe out three different times. Joe's left eye was blackened, his lower lip was frayed, his face was starting to lose definition just like in the old days, and he felt wonderful. "It was worth it to me," he said. "When I got shook...