Word: frazier
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Some fans fancied the fight, which determined the heavyweight champion of six states (New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maine, Massachusetts and Texas),* as a bitter white-black confrontation. But it was more a clash of styles: Quarry the classic, come-to-me counterpuncher v. Frazier the swarming, go-get-'em slugger. Beyond that, each man was hungry-ring talk for the kind of cunning and courage that are born of deprivation...
...Boxing Association title, he injured his back when one of his brothers playfully crunched him into a jukebox in the family's saloon in Bellflower, Calif. He fought anyway, lost a split decision and ended up in a cast with three cracked vertebrae. Nonetheless, he went into the Frazier bout with only two losses in 37 fights; he was billed by his followers as the first great white hope since Rocky Marciano. "Screw white hopes," Quarry snapped. "I'm a fighter...
...Frazier agreed: "All I know is, he's a person and I treat 'em all the same way." That is, with the same brutal indifference that he once applied to sides of beef in a Philadelphia slaughterhouse. "When I was training, I got to thinkin' way back to the farm in Beaufort, S.C.," recalled Frazier, one of 14 children. "I thought about the days I ate raw turnip butts and radishes with dirt on 'em. Then I thought about how I will retire undefeated with a million dollars and go into business as a singer...
Hoked-Up Scene. With Quarry at 198 ½1/2 lbs. and Frazier at 203 ½1/2 lbs., the two collided at the opening bell like opposing tackles. Quarry, landing punishing body punches with a dull whap-whap that could be heard as far back as the $10 seats (the ones at ringside went for $100), took the early advantage. In the third round Frazier caught Quarry with a sweeping left hook, opening a deep inch-long gash under the challenger's eye. By the end of the seventh round, Quarry's vision was impaired, and the ring doctor...
Still undefeated after scoring his 21st knockout in 24 fights, Frazier immediately turned to the ringside seats and, in an obviously hoked-up scene, shouted at Jimmy Ellis: "You're next!" Muhammad Ali, the man who popularized such gate-building theatrics when he was known as Cassius Clay, got in his licks, too. After the fight, the suspended Muslim minister said that until his appeal on a draft-evasion conviction is decided, "I don't want to say I'm formally retired. And they can't have a real champion until I do that or until...