The Sweet Spot

There's a statue that stands defiantly at the base of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It's of a fighter. One who used to train up and down the steps of the famous landmark. Who worked at a slaughterhouse, substituting a frozen beef carcass for a heavy bag.

The monument is of a fictional character. His real life equivalent, to this day, shamefully ignored by the city.

He was the Yin to Muhammad Ali's Yang. The yardstick by which both men would ultimately be measured.

Together they danced, or in Joe Frazier's case, slugged their way through 41 brutal rounds. Three fights in the 70s, the bookends of which forever remembered for different reasons.

Much has been written about the son of poor farm labourers from Beaufort, South Carolina. “Billy Bob”, the youngest of 12 children who, as a 12 year-old, damaged his left arm while provoking a wild pig.

The accident would leave him unable to straighten it again. “Cocked for a left hook – permanently cocked”, as Frazier would go on to state in his autobiography, Smokin' Joe.

It would come to be his trademark punch. The blow that would help chop down his opponents 32 times, 27 by way of knock-out. One that Ali, after being floored in their epic first encounter for the Heavyweight Championship of the World in 1971, described as “that evil thing”.

For the most part Frazier, considered small for a Heavyweight at 5 foot 11 inches, has lived in the perpetual shadow cast by Ali 's once brilliant pugilistic and verbal dexterity.

It was “The City of Brotherly Love” early in his career that Joe would relocate to. Philly the backdrop for countless early morning runs in between pounding beef at the Cross Brothers slaughterhouse.

Unlike Ali who was born to a middle-class sign painter in Louisville, Kentucky, Frazier had to struggle for everything he had.

Like Ali, he was subject to racism. Perhaps the greatest irony however is that the most offensive slurs Frazier received were from one of his fellow African-Americans.
“Gorilla”, came the taunt. “White Man's Nigger”.

Joe was blacker than Ali. Grew up poorer. Was less educated. Yet, according to the “Louisville Lip”, he worked for the enemy.

Ali has said he was simply trying to sell their fights. Peddling hate wasn't far behind.

It was just one facet of their complex relationship. For the most part lost in the passage of time is Frazier's gesture to help Ali regain his boxing licence following his exile for refusing to be drafted to Vietnam. And then Ali turned.

It was to have cataclysmic consequences. Frazier neither forgiving or forgetting.

Whilst he will be forever remembered as the first man to defeat Ali, perhaps Frazier's greatest moment was in the Philippines. The "Thriller in Manila" as it came to be known. The fight, that after 14 soul destroying, bruising rounds in oppressive heat, Ali likened to dying.

Frazier's enormous pride and courage along with Ali's flaws can be measured in both the final moments and the aftermath of that fight. With both of Joe's eyes swollen shut from the ferocious battering (one eye of which was already partially damaged due to an earlier training accident), Smokin' Joe pleaded desperately with his corner to be allowed to come out for the 15th and Final Round.

The test from his trainer, Eddie Futch was simple. Raising the palm of his hand, he asked Frazier how many fingers he had up. “One” came the response. “That's it. I'm calling it off” said Futch.

It was over.

And then. After countless cruel insults, Ali thought he would apologise. Not to the man himself, but to his son.

Frazier's response to his child Marvis was telling.

“You're not me son. He said all those nasty words, to all of those people. All those things. Let him come to me if he wants to apologise”.

Ali never did. Face-to-face at least.

The excellent book Ghosts of Manila by Mark Kram, Frazier's own biography and the documentary "Facing Ali" may give some perspective into the man.

However the definitive tale for mine is the Thriller in Manila documentary.

Sylvester Stallone may say the inspiration for Rocky was based on the stumbling, bumbling great white hope, Chuck Wepner.

For me it will always be Frazier. "Smokin' Joe".

The Greatest.