January 2002 - July 2006 - The Jerry Quarry Foundation

name calling that started it off. Frazier's reported reactions behind the
scenes, and to this day, say to me that he was really hurt and angry, and never
got in the groove of building the gate, at least not on Ali's terms. There
aren't any dumb athletes at that level, but Frazier didn't have Ali's gift of
articulation. If he had, he could have nailed Ali back just as hard. I also
always wondered if Ali was ~really~ "kidding" to promote the rivalry. He could
have hit on so many other things other than stupidity, ignorance, Tomming,
gorilla racial stereotyping, punchiness, etc., and still put on a show for the
public. If I were a black person watching, Ali's spiel would have offended me.
I'd have thought, "Hey champ, aren't there enough white people talking this
trash? What's with you?."It could be that Joe was in on a staged act
ahead of fight two, but could have been surprised by Ali's material, and got
lost in a Twilight Zone between real and make believe. Funny that the virtually
illiterate Ali, who actually became a poster boy for the ravages of boxing used
to hit Frazier most often for being punchy and dumb and a primitive
gorilla.|
|1/8/04 04:41:17 PM|Paul|Sydney, Australia||PlMls4@aol.com||||10|Far from being
"thoroughly beaten", Ali was able to stand unassisted immediately after
Frazier's corner threw the towel in. Call round 15 and Ali was there, upright,
gloves up, waiting to fight on - but there was nobody there to punch back !
After his victory, Ali called Frazier's son, Marvin, to his dressing room. Ali
then graciously congratulated Marvin on his father's performance. Ali lavished
praise on Joe Frazier to Frazier's son in a gesture of great sportsmanship. As I
said before, the beauty of the Thrilla was that Frazier's own corner made the
decision by stopping the fight. Put bluntly, they surrendered (even though that
term unfairly describes the situation for the great warrior Joe Frazier). The
reality of Frazier's corner throwing the towel should make the result tamper
proof, but there are full mooners out there, revising history, overflowing with
excuses to try to cushion reality for fallen heroes (even though Joe Frazier
does not need to be protected from it - he fought extraordinarily bravely but
just wasn't good enough). Yet the full mooners dream of corrupt judges, biased
referees, fixed fights, a "thoroughly beaten" victor, a legally blind boxer who
only lost because viciously biased officials barred his labrador from the
ring....... and on and on and on the conspiracy theories flow. At least the
fluff and bubble of all those excuses make life entertaining and it's enjoyable
reading, too. And it tutors Massimo in his English. |
|1/8/04 05:20:54 PM|Angelo|Washington, DC||funktron@yahoo.com||||10|Agreed---it
was a good fight. Ali had his way in the early going, Frazier heated up and
"started smokin'" later, pressing Ali to the limit. But it can't be denied:
Ali won because Frazier couldn't continue. If there was any way he could have
come out for the last round, his corner would have let him fight on. He was a
sitting duck and Ali had enough gas in the tank to seriously hurt Frazier had
there been a 15th round. I truly believe Frazier would have been knocked out
because the fight was headed in that direction. Pure and simple, his corner
stopped Frazier from being knocked down and possibly knocked out and might have
saved further damage to his vision and serious injury. Clearly, Ali had been in
a fight and clearly he was physically extended beyond his own limits, but he was
ready to continue and Frazier wasn't. A victory couldn't be much clearer than
this one.|
|1/8/04 06:00:23 PM|Paul|Sydney, Australia||PlMls4@aol.com||||10|Angelo - I
think you sum it up very fairly. The fact that can't be rhetorically bypassed is
that Ali (far from "thoroughly beaten) was hitting Frazier 4 to 1 in the 14th
(Koo Koo says it was 5 to 1). Ali was ready to fight the 15th. Frazier wasn't.
But none of this takes away from Frazier's heroic effort. It took 44 rounds
against a man many believe to be the greatest ever before his corner
(prudently)stopped the fight. 44 rounds. Hell, Foreman only lasted 8. I truly
believe that Frazier was one of the greatest warriors ever, especially against