Posted on 11/08/2011 8:11:35 AM PST by Morgana
(CNN) -- Joe Frazier, the hard-hitting boxing heavyweight who handed the legendary Muhammad Ali his first defeat, died Monday, shortly after being diagnosed with liver cancer, his family said in a statement.
The former heavyweight champion, who was 67, became a legend in his own right and personified the gritty working-class style of his hard-knuckled hometown, Philadelphia -- a fitting setting for the "Rocky" film series, starring Sylvester Stallone as hardscrabble boxer Rocky Balboa.
"You could hear him coming, snorting and grunting and puffing, like a steam engine climbing a steep grade," Bill Lyon wrote in a Philadelphia Inquirer column about Frazier, nicknamed Smokin' Joe.
"He was swarming and unrelenting, and he prided himself that he never took a backward step, and he reduced the Sweet Science to this brutal bit of elemental math: 'I'll let you hit me five times if you'll let me hit you just once.'"
Frazier's family issued a brief statement about his death.
"We The Family of ... Smokin' Joe Frazier, regret to inform you of his passing," the statement said. "He transitioned from this life as 'One of God's Men,' on the eve of November 7, 2011 at his home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania."
Muhammad Ali said in a statement that the "world has lost a great champion."
"I will always remember Joe with respect and admiration. My sympathy goes out to his family and loved ones," Ali's statement said.
Star boxer Floyd "Money" Mayweather offered to pay for Frazier's funeral.
"My condolences go out to the family of the late great Joe Frazier," read a post on Mayweather's official Twitter feed. "#TheMoneyTeam will pay for his funeral services."
(Excerpt) Read more at wlky.com ...
RIP Smokin Joe.
And that's one of the pictures he most cherished, I'm sure.
“This guy knew only one style - straight ahead”
To be fair, his style consisted of making himself a hard target by crouching. Saying he did nothing but go straight ahead makes him sound like an idiot.
I admired him for it.
I read that he soaked his head in salt water so he wouldn’t cut as easily
It is total disrespect to this real world champion to have a bronze statule of Sylvester Stallone in Philly and not
Joe Frazier. The Rocky movie was partly a ripoff of
Joe Frazier’s life in the Philly area. He was not credited in the movie and didn’t receive a cent of royalties. RIP Mr. Frazier. You were one of the all-time greatest heavyweight champions.
I always rooted for him over Ali and his flashy rope-a-dope style.
Cremation, right?
“Speak for yourself.
I admired him for it.”
What is “it,” though? My point was that his style did not consist of nothing but going forward. If you admire him for that, you admire a phantom. Because that’s not what he was about.
This has only been posted 5 million times if not more.
“I always rooted for him over Ali and his flashy rope-a-dope style”
Ali was flashy in general, but Rope a Dope in particular is the opposite of flashy. It consisted of playing possum, and he never used it against Frazier.
“The Rocky movie was partly a ripoff of
Joe Frazier’s life in the Philly area. He was not credited in the movie and didn’t receive a cent of royalties”
They took the city and the fighting style from Frazier, but also based Apollo Creed on Ali; does that mean they owe Ali, too? The premise came from Ali’s fight with Chuck Wepner; does that mean Wepner gets a cut? The recent movie “Real Steel” borrowed liberally from “Rocky;” does Sly have a check coming?
Public things are public. You don’t have to pay for general inspiration.
But relatively to his contemporaries, Frazier used very little lateral movement - he tended to moved forward. He admitted as much.
“Obviously - he also swung his arms /s”
Don’t be cute. Swinging your arms is not a style. Crouching is, and it contradicts the original poster’s contention that Frazier had “only one style - straight ahead.” You’d know that was the issue if you had been paying attention from the beginning, which I doubt.
When a baseball fan says ‘he has an arm like a cannon’ I can only imagine your response.
... I also happen to know that Ali didn’t really float like a butterfly & sting like a bee, either:)
“When a baseball fan says ‘he has an arm like a cannon’ I can only imagine your response.”
Seems like you’re in a different conversation. Hate to interrupt, but what does this have to do with anything? Perhaps you think I took the original poster’s point too literally? I don’t see why I shouldn’t have. It didn’t seem figurative, metaphorical, poetic, or whatever. Even if it was, you’d take away from it that, as compared to the flashy and cerebral Ali, Frazier was just simple, hard-workin’ folk. Or perhaps an iron-tough blockhead like Rocky (who was partly based on Frazier, as established above).
Which is misleading, if not outright false. Because Frazier had an ingenius style, as inscrutible in its way as Ali’s floating and stinging. He didn’t let Ali rain blows on his face, relying on his constitution and sheer willpower to win. He rather turned himself into a jumble of arms, shoulders, and back, giving little for the opponent to strike.
And, yes, going forward while doing it. But to pretend like that’s all he did, or most of what he did, or the part of what he did that is most worthy of comment, makes him look like an idiot, like I said. Rocky may have been all heart, but any real life boxer who fought like him wouldn’t have got past Golden Gloves.
Sylvester Stallone has admitted that the character
Rocky Balboa was a composite of Chuck Wepner and Joe Frazier, mostly Wepner. As far as I know neither one were acknowledged in the credits and neither one received any royalties. Both could have sued, especially the journeyman Wepner, because Rocky was almost a ripoff of his life as a fighter. The rags to riches story and finally getting a shot at the title. Ali fought Wepner for the title. Stallone said after watching the Ali/Wepner fight he wrote the script for Rocky. Even if he received no money, wouldn’t you think that at the end of the credit it would have said “Thanks to Chuck Wepner, for inspiring me to write the story of Rocky”. Stallone didn’t want to give him a cent, so he didn’t mention him.
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