RIP Joe Frazier

I remember reading Kram's article and was in awe. Until I read Michael McCambrige's history of SI. Kram was a fabulist.
Kram spent the week in Manilla shacking up with a women he just met and later married. Kram was not at the banquet he described in the story. And read somewhere else that no one has been successful in confirming the scene in the bedroom where Frazier is quoted as describing Ali as a great champion. Kram said someone told him about it. Kram wrote the story off the notes of a Newsweek writer and from interviewing his photographer.

Kram is a really gifted writer but buyer beware.

 

Now that we've seen it all, ESPN deserves a salute for hauling out a lot of their unseen SportsCentury stuff on this one. They had by far the best coverage of Frazier's passing.

Met him once, years ago when I working in Philly, and was amazed at his demeanor. Always kind of thought of him as a sour guy, but he wasn't at all. He was a really nice, engaging guy. A very funny man, actually.

 

Joe was a good guy. You can't say that about everyone you meet, but he was.

 

Frazier would have hated this AP article about his funeral since it focuses a lot on Ali.

A quick count shows 12 mentions of Frazier and 10 of Ali and four of the first six paragraphs are about Ali.

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/boxing/story/2011/11/14/sp-frazier-funeral.html?cmp=rss

With his championship belt and a pair of gloves draped over his casket, Joe Frazier was going one more round.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson asked mourners to rise, put their hands together and for one last time "show your love" for the former heavyweight champion.

Muhammad Ali obliged.

Wearing a dark suit and sunglasses, a frail and trembling Ali rose from his seat and vigorously clapped for "Smokin' Joe," the fighter who handed Ali his first loss.

Ali was among the nearly 4,000 people who packed the Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church for a two-hour "joyful celebration" of Frazier's life. He died last week of liver cancer; he was 67. Also attending were former heavyweight champion Larry Holmes and promoter Don King.

His body ravaged by Parkinson's disease, Ali was accompanied by members of his family and wife, Lonnie, who rubbed his back while he was seated and held his hands as he entered and left the church.

 

AP's story sucked but let's face it, when you cover a funeral, you write about the people who show up. I thought it was a nice gesture on Ali's part.

 

Muhammad Ali was a great champion, and one of the 2-3 greatest boxers ever, but, yeah, he could be cruel when it suited him. I recall reading about when he fought Floyd Patterson in 1966 (or maybe it was late '65). In the pre-fight run-up, Floyd insisted on calling him Cassius, and Ali spent the whole fight doing just enough to punish Patterson without knocking him out, the whole time barking, "What's my name, Floyd? What's my name?" The ref finally stopped it in the 12th round.

I think Frazier got under Ali's skin because Smokin' Joe wasn't the least bit intimidated by Ali, and appeared to be immune to Ali's verbal barbs. One thing that always puzzled me, though, was why George Foreman never had any trouble with Frazier in the ring. Maybe I just missed it, but I've never seen that explained to any degree.

 

I thought William C. Rhoden had a nice column off the funeral:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/sports/william-c-rhoden-frazier-more-than-alis-foil.html

 

Immune to Ali's barbs? Have you ever read anything about the two?

From Nack's SI story in 1996...

There is no way Frazier was immune to Ali's barbs. He hated Ali because of them. Hated. Ali.


I am surprised Ali was allowed to attend the funeral.

 

That's good stuff, Evil. Very good stuff.

I guess what I meant was that so many fighters in that era let themselves be lured into the role of Ali's patsy, and they were beaten before they ever got in the ring with him. Joe refused to take the bait, let Ali's noise go in one ear and out the other, then got in the ring and went toe-to-toe with him, and Ali didn't like it.

But, obviously, there was a lot of simmering resentment that came out after they were done fighting. So, in the end, I guess he wasn't immune.

 

Yeah, he wasn't immune at all. Frazier lived his entire life with a distaste for Ali.

 

Boxing is a fraternity. There may be hatred but they all share a common bond. The death of a champion such as Joe Frazier shows that.

 

In addition to Patterson, I think Cleveland Williams also kept referring to Ali as Clay, and also got punished for it.

It was considered a very controversial thing back then when Ali changed his name, especially in the context of the Black Muslims and the '60s. It wasn't a joke to mock Ali, and he took it very personally, hence, the beatings he gave to Patterson and Williams.