By John Raspanti
“I don’t want to hear none of that ‘I’m-gonna-do-my-best’ stuff,” said Joe Frazier a few hours before his comeback fight against Jumbo Cummings. “I’m talkin’ about you holdin’ your end up.”
“Yeah, we’re old men, and we gotta show the world we can do it,” said Muhammad Ali.
“Don’t call me old,” Joe Frazier said.
“Joe hated that,” remembered advisor and close friend Richard Hone. “Mentioning his age bothered him.”
Joe Frazier was 37 in 1981.
Born dirt-poor in Beauford, South Carolina, Frazier moved to Philadelphia in 1959 when he was 15. He got a job at a slaughterhouse in 1962. Shortly after, he joined the Police Athletic League gym to lose weight and learn to box.
Gym director Duke Dugent noticed Frazier’s relentless determination and grit. He mentioned the youngster to boxing trainer Yancey ‘Yank’ Durham, who decided to take Frazier on. The move would prove to be fortuitous for both.
Durham helped Frazier hone his style, teaching him to bob and weave to get close enough to compensate for his average height with an endless flurry of violent artistry, punctuated by a wicked left hook to body or head.
Frazier captured gold at the 1964 Olympic Games and turned professional in 1965. He won his first 10 fights by knockout. Fight 11 was burly Oscar Bonavena in 1966 at Madison Square Garden.
In round two, Frazier found himself on the canvas, courtesy of a blistering Bonavena right hand. Frazier got up at the count of five, but seconds later was down again. One more trip to the floor, under New York State rules, and the fight would be over. Frazier beat the count and fought back. He outworked Bonavena over the next seven rounds to edge a majority decision.
In 1968, Frazier knocked out amateur nemesis Buster Mathis to win the New York State heavyweight title. A year later, he broke down Jerry Quarry and bludgeoned Jimmy Ellis with his signature left hook to win the WBA and WBC heavyweight titles.
Former champion Muhammad Ali, out of the ring for nearly four years after being stripped of his crown for refusing induction into the military during the Vietnam War, lurked loudly in the shadows. The present and former champions met on March 8, 1971, in The Fight Of The Century.
The buildup had been intense. Frazier was more motivated than usual to shut up the ‘Louisville Lip’ once and for all. For 15 rounds, they battled. Frazier took a frightful beating but refused to take a backward step.
In the 15th round, Frazier, his face resembling a lopsided catcher’s mitt, caught Ali with a thundering left hook that deposited the former champion on his back. Ali somehow got up, but the fight was Frazier’s.
Frazier defended his title two times until a big puncher from Texas arrived on the scene. George Foreman viciously ended his reign in 1973. Frazier fought Ali again in 1974, with Ali coming out victorious. They did it one more time the following year in Manila. Both fighters were slightly over the hill, but pushed each other to the brink. The seesaw battle ended after round 14, with Ali stopping Frazier.
Neither fighter was ever the same.
Frazier had one more rematch in him, this one against Foreman, who in 1976 ended his pugilistic career in Buffalo, New York.
Frazier stayed busy after retiring from the ring. He toured with his band, The Knockouts, doing local commercials. He also worked as a greeter at the International Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, operated his gym in Philadelphia, and trained his son, Marvis and others, while somehow finding the time to run a limousine service.
The former heavyweight champion said he loved the music, but working with his son rekindled an idea that had begun four years before, in 1977.
Had he retired too early?
Frazier thought so. The memory of being battered by Foreman was gone.
“Joe wanted to test himself,” said Horne.
Frazier considered the heavyweight division weak, especially as Foreman had retired after losing to Jimmy Young. He eventually signed a contract to fight Scott LeDoux in April, possibly at the Met Center in Minnesota.
Ledoux was called ‘The Fighting Frenchman’ and sported a record of 21 wins in 30 fights. He was tough, determined, and packed some pop. His style seemed suited for the comeback of Frazier, but Ledoux, though willing, was angling for a rematch against Leon Spinks.
In May, Frazier instead accepted a fight against contender Kallie Knoetze, a South African police officer who had only lost one fight.
There was speculation that Frazier needed a paycheque. But Horne said: “Joe had money. He was a proud guy who didn’t like how his career had ended.”
In November 1977, Frazier’s former opponent, Jerry Quarry, returned to the ring. Only 32, he moved like a fighter in his 40s. His reflexes had dulled. His twitch was gone.
Quarry’s two fights with Frazier had been tenacious wars. Quarry looked like a million bucks for a round and a half against Frazier during their first go-round in 1969 until the relentless smoke caught fire. Their second fight, five years later, was a beatdown.
Out of the ring for two years, Quarry fought a 10-rounder against Lorenzo Zanon in Las Vegas in 1977. Zanon easily won the first eight rounds, peppering Quarry with blows. Quarry pushed forward, finally catching, and stopping Zanon in round nine. His win was hardly impressive.
Frazier watched the fight on TV. Dick Young of the Daily News asked him if he saw any of himself in Quarry. “No,” said Frazier. “Jerry hasn’t been in the gym.”
The comeback in boxing is about as common as a bad decision.
In 1903, former champion James J Corbett, the conqueror of John L Sullivan, wanted a rematch against former sparring partner James J Jeffries. Corbett was 37 and had been in more plays than fights. Three years prior, Corbett had come within a few rounds of beating Jeffries until he ran into a right hand. Though he went back to the stage, the loss burned in Corbet’s soul. He requested a rematch against his former sparring partner.
Corbett threw himself into training with his usual energy, but things were different. His sparring partners were tagging him. On fight night in San Francisco, Jeffries tried to end things quickly. He fired heavy blows that Corbett evaded, but not for long. Corbett hit the canvas three times until his corner called a halt.
Jeffries and Joe Louis came out of retirement for different reasons. Louis needed the money. Jeffries didn’t, but the racial sentiment at the time was intense. Jeffries was 35, Louis 36. Both were shadows of their former selves. Jack Johnson battered and stopped Jeffries. Ezzard Charles beat on Louis for 15 rounds.
Corbett, Jeffries and Louis weren’t old in life, but ancient in the ring.
“I couldn’t do the things I wanted to do,” Louis said after his fight against Charles. “The openings are there, but the reaction is not.”
Frazier’s fight with Knoetze was cancelled after he contracted hepatitis. He oversaw his limousine service and accepted some singing gigs, but missed the action. Frazier was busy but bored, even occasionally indulging in bouts of drinking.
“But let’s face it,” he said in his autobiography, Smokin’ Joe, published in 1996. “I loved music, but I lived boxing.”
His family was against it, as was his former trainer, Eddie Futch. No matter, he wanted to try again.
In 1981, the Frazier comeback saw the light. He still needed the action boxing gave him. But what did he have left? His training with his son, Marvin, had convinced him he still had it.
“Everybody tells me that they don’t want to see me get hurt,” Frazier said in 1981. “I love me. I love me. I’m not about to get hurt. I know what I’m doing. Besides, a man has got a right to do what he wants, even if he hurts himself.”
With Ledoux no longer in the picture, Frazier signed to fight Oklahoma heavyweight Monte Masters in October.
“Fighting is my business,” Frazier told The Advocate-Messenger. “I never left. I just put it aside and rested it a little. It’s been there all along.”
Masters was undefeated in 22 fights, all in Oklahoma. His father-in-law, Pat Grady, reportedly said at the time: “He’s less of a prospect than a suspect.”
A big payday was on the horizon for the gangly Oklahoman, but after a couple of weeks, the pay wasn’t enough.
With Masters and Ledoux dropping out, and Knoetze moving on after Frazier’s illness, a fighter by the name of Floyd ‘Jumbo’ Cummings was picked by his team.
Built like fellow sculpted heavyweights Ken Norton and Mike Weaver, Cummings had spent most of his 31 years in stir. In 1979, he was released from prison after serving 12 years for murder.
While in jail, Cummings lifted weights and learned to box. Both served him well. He turned professional and reeled off 14 wins in succession, 12 by knockout, before meeting Renaldo Snipes in Atlantic City. Snipes handed Cummings (who bit Snipes during the fight) his first loss.
Cummings was offered the Frazier fight soon after Masters dropped out. He accepted without hesitation, confident of victory.
Before the bout, Cummings was quoted as saying he was not afraid of hurting Frazier – he was afraid of killing him.
Frazier cracked wise, calling Cummings a “jailbird”. He projected confidence.
“All the press people were saying that I was too old and over the hill because I’m 37,” Frazier told Newsday a few weeks before the fight. “Those press people ought to talk to these dudes I’m sparring with.”
Perhaps one of those dudes should have fought Frazier.
On fight night, there was no smoke left, only desire and determination. His once-fearsome left hook, the same punch that had knocked Ali on his ass in 1971, missed more than it landed. When it did connect, Cummings, whose jab couldn’t miss, showed contempt.
Frazier was stunned on a couple of occasions and bleeding. His legs looked like jelly, but his fighting spirit refused to give in.
The pro-Frazier crowd of more than 6,000 fans at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago were resigned to Frazier losing the 10-rounder.
The announced decision of a draw was shocking. Many booed.
Frazier partied after the fight as if he had won. Marvis bragged that his daddy had gone 10 hard rounds, but a few days later, after other family members told him he was finished, a sober Frazier finally agreed: There would be no more comebacks for the once fearsome Smokin’ Joe.
