Smokin' Joe

The last time I saw Joe Frazier he didn't look good.  My friend and I saw him at an autograph session outside the jockeys' silk room at Saratoga this past August.  He wasn't promoting a book, just signing autographs of anything anyone presented him with. The appearance had been announced at the track during the week that he would be there on Friday.  Some people had boxing gloves, track programs, or just plain paper.

There was decent line that did move. My friend and I didn't get on it, but we did angle around to take a good look at Joe.  He was seated, dressed quite snappy, but didn't look well at all. He looked a little wane. Someone was standing quite close by, seeming to be lending physical, as well as perhaps mental support.

When I looked at the line and who was on it I quipped to my friend that no one who was born after 1960 should be on it. It had been 40 years since the first Ali-Frazier fight, that Smokin' Joe won with a unanimous 15 round decision over Muhammad Ali.  Before the fight both were undefeated heavyweight champions. Never before had undefeated heavyweight champs fought each other. It was a fight for the ages.

As Dave Anderson leads off today, Frazier and Ali, Ali and Frazier are two names that are forever linked.  Even that day at Saratoga, they were linked. Without Ali anywhere in sight, the second race was named the 'Ali vs. Frazier 40th Anniversary Race.'  This, despite the fact that the fight took place in March 1971 and it was now August. Someone knew something was up.

I was at the first Ali-Frazier fight. AT the fight, in Madison Square Garden, last row of the blue seats with my father and another friend; $20 tickets that I had gotten IN THE MAIL when the fight was announced and tickets went on sale. Imagine that: face value tickets for that fight, in the mail.

The excitement was more than electric. It was Biblical. As Johnny Addie, the ring announcer intoned at the start, EVERYONE was there. Frank Sinatra in a tux was taking pictures from the ring apron with his Nikon for Life magazine. Burt Lancaster, also in a tux, was nearby. Mayor Lindsay was several rows back. Someone must have still been mad at him for flubbing the city's response to the 1969 snowstorm. Mayors continue to get embarrassed by snow. Lorne Greene could be seen through the compact binoculars we had brought, as well as Colonel Sanders, dressed just like he was on the bucket. Astronaut Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon, was there.

The next day the paper reported that two people suffered fatal heart attacks at the fight. The build up had been tremendous. It was going on for weeks. The fight that you had to be at, or see in a theater in what was then the nascent pay-per-view days. It wasn't going to be on television a week later. And it wasn't.

Two undefeated heavyweight champions squaring off. $2.5 million dollars apiece. Ali would later exclaim to Joe that they got them cheap. Maybe they did.  The referee, Arthur Mercante, Sr. would later comment that he saw some of the best punches he had ever seen that night, from both fighters.

It was my first fight. I still have several of the $1.50 programs I bought that night.  The results of the preliminaries are unknown to me, I do remember the NYC Sanitation worker from the Bronx in a four rounder, John Clohesy, who would a few years later die of cancer himself.

Ali's brother Rahman Ali was also on the card in a six rounder. Jimmy Elder in a six rounder; Willie (The Worm) Monroe in a four rounder. Ken Norton was on the card in a six rounder. I remember nothing of Ken Norton in 1971, and why would anyone? He would of course become a nemesis for Ali, breaking his jaw in one fight, but his foot-in-the bucket style went unnoticed, uncommented on.

After that fight, I became a BIG boxing fan. Saw many fights at the Garden, Felt Forum, many on pay-per-view, and many at Sunnyside Garden, a local blood pit hard by the elevated Flushing train in Sunnyside Queens, now long gone to a Wendy's and flame broiled burgers.

Seeing Joe at Saratoga was sad, not just for the expired 40 years, but for the diminshment of strength, and invincibility, his and mine.

But before the end, there was the fury, and it was something to see.  There was the night at the Garden when he was tuning up for an Ali fight that he fought Jerry Quarry, a durable heavyweight who took as much as he gave, but usually ended up bleeding so much from cuts that his fights were usually stopped.

That night was no different. Frazier was thoroughly dominating a very good fighter. He was sharp. But almost a Christmas ghost was also in the ring with them. Joe Louis was the referee. THE Joe Louis. But that Joe was glazed-over, never really seeming to be with it. As Quarry was becoming a side of beef that Joe used to chop up in a Philly slaughter house, he didn't react to the danger Quarry was being put in.  Quarry's corner threw the towel in toward a befuddled Joe Louis.  It was over for Quarry. And it was over for Joe Louis. Smokin' Joe went on to meet further opponents.

Dave Anderson today tells you he liked Joe Frazier over Ali as a boxer, and a man. The boxer part is the one I have an opinion on, and I would agree. Joe always came in ready. In shape. Not distracted by his entourage, not needing rope-a-dope. Not giving a flurry of punches 15 seconds before the end of a lackadaisical round in the hope of fooling the judges that the prior 2 minutes and 45 seconds were just like that as well.

Joe was ready that day at Saratoga. He couldn't have been feeling well. He knew more than was publicly known. But he was in that winners' circle, presenting a trophy for the Ali vs. Frazier 40th Anniversary race, shaking his fist in the air. So what if it was holding a cane.

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