The plan: The man called Joe Frazier The Frazier-Ali feud The sad tale of Patterson I Joe Frazier: In the beginning MUhammad Ali: In the beginning The Frazier-Foreman fight The sad tale of Patterson II Ali, Liston and Malcolm X The sad tale of Patterson III Mike Tyson goes to war The build up to Manila The Thrilla in Manila The sad tale of Teddy Atlas Frazier: life goes on In the meantime, Frazier had lost his title, in January 1973, to George Foreman in Jamaica, a poorly selected opponent if there ever was one. If someone had consulted the holy dictionary of styles, big George would have leaped out as an unfortuitous choice. Might as well have placed Joe up against a wall. He was too small for George, who, before future modification, was a reclusive, semihomicidal sociopath in study. George had no arsenal of punches, and giving him Joe—always there, not hard to locate—was like throwing meat under the door. To the surprise of only those who thought Joe was invincible, Frazier was clubbed to the floor six times in the opening two rounds. But what was more interesting was what went on behind the scenes. Nobody in Joe’s camp wanted Foreman—except Joe, who approached the bout with a camp full of doubts about what was left of him and concern for his well-being. His attitude, highly anomalous for him, was that of a yacht owner ready to dive into the sun and fun. Yank was worried about him and had sought to cut his gloves off for good. The Frazier Foreman fight The Heavyweights A series of threads about Frazier, Ali, Patterson and Tyson This content is protected “I think it’s over, Joe,” Yank said. “Too much damage. I don’t want to play with your life. You shouldn’t either. You got a nice family.” “I gotta hear this from you, too?” Joe said. “That’s all I hear at home from Florence.” “Joe, you got enough money,” Yank said. “Look at me. Don’t turn away. You got enough money. Damn it, give it up. What’s to gain?” “I’m world champ,” Joe said. “You think I’m gonna walk just like that? All the work and sweat. Climb a mountain this high, pain all the way, and come down by plane. You hittin’ that juice you used to make?” “I’m not gonna be around forever.” “You wanna walk then? Walk out on me?” He thought for a second. “You sick?” “Naaaah, just some high blood.” “You takin’ the medicine? Take the pills!” “When I think of the **** . . .” Yank said. “Take it every day,” Joe said. “We’ll be all right, Yank. I’m in good shape. Just keep takin’ them pills. Promise, Yank?” “Yeah, cocksucker,” Yank said. Futch was puzzled by Yank’s diminishing zest for life, but he agreed about Joe. “He had lost something,” Futch said. “Ken Norton had worked with Joe for three years, and Joe always handled him, and here in Jamaica Norton was taking it to him. So I told him, ‘Ken, you’re not working with him anymore. Have a nice vacation here.’” Norton said: “He seems to have lost his drive.” Eddie nodded, for there was no intensity in Joe. Away from the gray-iron grasp of the gym and weather in Philly, he had been lulled by the soothing balm of the island. “The atmosphere,” Eddie said, “was one big party and distraction. I changed what I could.” He also had an eye on Durham. “For the last year,” Eddie said, “he’d say time after time . . . ‘Eddie, if something happens to me, promise you’ll take over Joe. Look after him.’ I told him that he was just a young man, about fifty-two, and that I was sixty-three.” After his loss to Foreman, Frazier also took on the earnest Bugner, a one-man rehabilitative stop for name fighters. Frazier had just enough to win against a heavy that traversed the ring like a trolley with scheduled stops. Yank brought up retirement again. “Damn it, Yank,” Joe said, “you too nervous. I see your eyes every day, and they say quit. Let me be. Just stay on your medicine. I’m worryin’ more about you than fightin’.” Back in South Carolina in August of 1973, Joe was working on his vast spread that resembled a plantation when he got the news. Yank was down with a stroke, and dying. He raced his Harley to Charleston, took a plane to Philly, but he was too late. As Red Smith wrote: “Those organ tones are still.” Fighters don’t find point men like Yank, who preferred the high road but, if he had to, wouldn’t back down from a game of chicken on the low road. Except for formal learning and no interest, he had the stuff to be a first-rate politician. “Eddie,” Joe called Futch. “He’s gone. What are we gonna do?” Eddie had been the genius behind Yank, the wizard of tactics and preparation; not even Joe was aware of how deep was his contribution. Never wanting to court press favor or shorten Yank’s shadow in any way, Eddie whispered to Yank, who passed it on to Joe. Yank took the heat and the praise and loved being out front just a shade more than the sound of his voice, a velvet treble that he sharpened with work on tape. Critics faulted Durham for Joe’s lack of evolution, for seeming to be the same fighter who first walked into the gym. That overlooked the obvious, that he was set in a mold, performed to his body type, endomorphic, and could never be other than he was. Durham straightened out his footwork, sharpened his natural rhythm, and built him into a windmill volume puncher. Without light legs and with a disposition for battle, an intractable aggressor without fear, he could have been ruined so easily in lesser hands. Joe was stunned by his passing. He stood over his body, saying: “Yank, Yank, I told you to take the medicine.” As an afterthought he added their term of endearment: “Cocksucker.” An incident later underscored their bond. After the Mathis fight, they each bought goldplated guns, not for protection, but as a symbol between them. After Yank died, Joe’s bodyguard Tom Payne showed up with the same gun; he had married Yank’s widow. “Where you get that?” Joe asked, and then he fired Payne. Cloverlay immediately put Futch in charge, with no complaint from Joe. He was a marked contrast from Yank, reserved, soft-spoken, and a ring scholar. His two interests were keeping fit and a love for the work of nineteenth-century poets that he had studied over a lifetime. He had begun as a lightweight in Detroit, became close to Joe Louis, who insisted that Eddie be a sparring partner because of his speed and cleverness. A heart ailment eventually ended Eddie’s career, not his work with fighters. Ali knew how smart Eddie was and often tried to lure him into his camp, motivated, perhaps to deprive Frazier or to have the security of Eddie’s presence. Why else? He surely wouldn’t have listened to him. next: The sad tale of Patterson II
