Joe Frazier is dying inside a hospice in Philadelphia. He has liver cancer. Soon, the Philadelphia left hook that seemed to have a life all its own will have lost every ounce of its thunder. Soon, Joe will be gone
.
.
But Death be not proud because you will not beat Joe. He will simply have run out of time. In his last moments, his mind will still have him moving forward with that little bounce in his stride. And it will be as if he’s saying:
“Come on, Death. Show me what you got. You might win, but before you do I got something here for you.”
So what follows here is the way I will always remember him. I covered his career. I was there on the night in the Philippines when he and Muhammad Al left giant footprints as their legacy.
Perhaps the best way to understand that is to begin in the wake of their first dramatic meeting in New York. This was one week after Joe Frazier had dumped the once and future heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali on his rear end on that long gone night in Madison Square Garden.
Now we were standing outside a deli not far from the Joe Frazier Gym in North Philadelphia and these three kids, maybe 9 years old each, were running toward us shouting:
“Joe Frazier ... Joe Frazier ... Joe Frazier.”
And the smile on Joe’s face as they came nearer and nearer seemed to light up the tired, gray neighborhood. As they danced around him, Joe sent an aide back to his Rolls-Royce for autographed pictures. He gave one to each and Joe told them “Now y’all stay in school. Don’t make me have to find you.”
“My daddy says Muhammad Ali was drugged,”Two of them laughed but the third one said:
Frazier turned to me and said:
“You heard that. What I got to do? What the hell I got to do?”
There was nothing he could do. Not then. Not ever. The sheer force of Ali’s personality would doom him to a role as destiny’s stepchild. The impossible riddle Joe posed that afternoon would follow him through his always courageous and often brilliant career. It was a question with no answer.
This is what Herman Melville meant when he wrote of Ahab’s pursuit of the great white whale in Moby Dick. He and Ali would be linked forever inside a crucible of their own making. You could not mention one without the other.
Each time they would push each other to a place where neither had been before. Styles make fights and the very nature of their styles dictated that each time they met, they were not fighting for a belt or a crown. They did not fight for the championship of the world or Paraguay or Manila.
No matter that Ali had the personality, the charm, the wit to dominate America’s memory. Joe had the tools to force greatness upon Muhammad. That’s why the thing they fought to claim was the heavyweight championship of each other.
And they both knew it.
It was never more obvious than on a sweltering day inside the Araneta Coliseum in Quzon City just beyond the Manila Skyline. It was at least 100 degrees inside that arena. At the start, Ali was, well, Ali — dancing, jabbing, taunting, winning. But something out of the ordinary happened in the fourth.
Jerry Izenberg poses with Joe Frazier in Las Vegas in 1996.
For virtually all of his career, Joe Frazier was a one handed fighter — but what a hand. His left hook was ferocious. His right hand? Well, you had to wonder if he could even tie his shoes with it.
But in the gym in Philly, Eddie Futch, the head trainer, and Georgie Benton, his assistant, worked for weeks on that right hand. “You are going to give him something to think about,” Futch said over and over.
And in that fourth, Joe threw a right hand that landed on Ali’s head.
“You ain’t got no right hand,” Muhammad chanted in a amazement.
And then — POP. Another one.
“They told me you old,” Ali said, breathing hard.
“They told you wrong,” Joe shot back.
And now suddenly it was a fight. A fight? Hell, it was the greatest heavyweight fight since Cain and Abel.
The ebb and flow was incredible. Guys get off the floor in the business and once in a while win. But you rarely see one guy losing and then winning and then losing and then ...
Well, you get the idea.
In the en,d this fight was decided by anatomy. The shorter Frazier began to experience huge swelling around the eyes. In order to see, he had to straighten up — the exact opposite of his corner’s game plan.
Ali now was winning. But in round 13 he was so exhausted at a time when Frazier stood there with both arms down and legs exhibiting all the power of wet spaghetti. All Ali had to do was walk 5 feet or so and touch him and it would have been over. But he was too weak to do it.
Ali now was winning. But in round 13 he was so exhausted at a time when Frazier stood there with both arms down and legs exhibiting all the power of wet spaghetti. All Ali had to do was walk 5 feet or so and touch him and it would have been over. But he was too weak to do it.
In the corner after 14, Futch told Benton to cut Joe’s gloves off. Joe pushed and shoved and threatened, but they came off. Then Ali saw that it was over and collapsed.
Nobody was tougher than Joe Frazier. Nobody had a bigger heart.
Death will probably win this last fight, but knowing Joe in that hazy limbo that spells the end, he’ll probably tell old Death, “Don’t gloat. Fifteen years ago, you wouldn’t have laid a glove on me.”
And forever after, I’ll believe Joe was right.
Jerry Izenberg: jizenberg@starledger.com
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