Crazy pick time: Frazier beats Lewis!

Well, he did have that uppercut, but he took 8 rounds to get a shot Tyson out of there, and Tua was just a plodder who waltzed with him for 12 rounds.

 

Could go either way. Lennox best plan is to attempt to nail Joe right off. The longer the fight goes,however,the better for Frazier. All the pressure he'd bring would be a nightmare for anyone.

 

Yeah, you're referring to the sort of uppercut Ramos landed on Frazier which would have been much harder coming from Lennox, and Ali also had some success catching Smoke boring into the corners with Muhammad's own right uppercut in Manila.

Once Joe was hurt though, it was critical to aggressively press that advantage in a way Foreman uniquely did (although Ali was positioning exactly as he did right before his killer combination against London when he had Frazier cornered in the second round of their middle bout just as Tony Perez erroneously stepped in to prematurely stop it), and I just don't see Lennox following up a knockdown or pressing an advantage on a stunned Smoke before Joe could recover.

Hurting Frazier early tended to wake him up. Bugner uniquely came off the floor to buckle Smoke with a downward driving right as Frazier went for the kill in round ten (the latest round by far in which Smoke was seriously stunned by a single shot), but Frazier himself quickly recovered just as Bugner had moments earlier.

 

I take it that this is a joke,yeah ?


I've never got this thing about Frazier being chinny. His chin was as sound as most.

 

Although he took 8 rounds to get Tyson out of there, it was that first uppercut in the first round which did the damage.

Lewis most likely will use that same technique on Frazier to keep him honest.

 

I've seen nothing to indicate that this would be much different from Foreman-Frazier.

 

I don't see Frazier winning, but I don't think it's a crazy pick

 

Lewis was hardly hurt or bothered by left hooks. With him, it was always right hands. The video's will show you this.

McCall, Rahman, Klitschko, and the Croatian guy he took the distance.

Right hands, not left hooks were the best way to beat Lewis.

Besides Briggs and Bruno hit has hard, or some say harder than Frazier.

 

Yes, I sense sarcasm as well . He got lifted off his feet for a knockdown and got up!

 

Except for those 5 examples.



In all fairness the people who say that did so while looking for Bigfoot.

 

its a valid argument I agree, that does not mean it would of happened,,

LL by UD :bbb

 

To win Frazier II, Ali needed a second round bomb of a right to nearly deck him, and the best combination of sustained hand and foot speed he produced after his exile at 212 pounds. For winning Manila, he had to produce what he told Cosell when reviewing his career was the best fight of his career, with a punch rate he only discovered he was capable of for that rubber match war. (This was when Howard interviewed him upon his formal resignation of the WBA Title after Leon Spinks II, in July 1979. Ali gave a great interview, by the way, differentiating between Liston I as his greatest achievement, Cleveland Williams then Zora Folley as his peak performances, Manila as his best fight, Shavers as the hardest puncher, Patterson as the most skilled, and he indicated Norton might have been his most difficult opponent over Frazier when Ali was in top condition, Muhammad being at 212 for both Norton II then Frazier II.)

Because of how that second round right in Frazier II nearly dropped Joe on his face, when compared to the two rights Ali landed on Liston in Lewiston (the first at 1:07, the second for the knockdown of Sonny at 1:44) and the knee buckling right he nearly felled Liston with in Miami Beach the previous year 0:12 into round three (a right which was also powerful enough to open a bloody gash under Liston's left eye) there is objective proof beyond footage that Ali had the necessary power to drop Sonny as he did in Maine if he chose to unload with force. (As far as Muhammad himself not being sure immediately after Lewiston whether or not Sonny lied down on purpose, he also said in his post fight interview following Folley that he would need to see the rerun of his first knockdown of Zora to describe it. SRL was somebody else instinctive and fast enough to need replays for reviewing many of his knockdowns and knockouts.)

Knockdown and knockout punches are said to not usually be seen by the victims, but this is often also the case for those making the delivery of these punches. Ali proved with his uncertainty in the Folley post fight interview about his first knockdown on Zora that he may not have consciously unloaded the right which floored Liston in Lewiston, he just spotted the opening and reacted without conscious planning, therefore not conscious recall. This can be essential when it comes to not telegraphing a punch for catching the target unprepared.

Could Lennox surprise Frazier like that, and follow it up successfully if he did. Foreman didn't draw Joe in like Ramos (who fought Frazier about as intelligently as Manuel could have managed, as overmatched as he was), but used a rare combination of punching power and physical strength in an illegally aggressive way to shove Joe back once Frazier was stunned.

Lennox would not get stopped by Joe, I don't believe. I think he'd just get out-hustled with punching volume and aggression in using his size and strength to last the distance. I believe this one might wind up looking very much like Tony Sibson-Dwight Davison, LL standing his ground in mid ring like DD (as best I remember the live telecast I haven't seen since), with Smoke going inside with his hook like Sibbo and doing all the work (and even with Cummings, Joe sustained his characteristic hustle through ten rounds).

 

Round two of Foreman-Lyle was just two minutes long, while Ron was dropped by George in a round four exchange of knockdowns. This means that for Foreman-Frazier II, a shot post Manila Smoke who actually outweighed George by half a pound at 224-1/2 lasted longer and remained on his feet for more time than everybody else Foreman was able to hit enough to defeat between Peralta II in May 1971 and George's first retirement with Young in March 1977.

Foreman won 17 bouts in that seven year period between Peralta II and Young. Including himself in losing his title to George in Jamaica, Joe Frazier lasted longer and remained on his feet for the longest uninterrupted stretch of any defeated Foreman opponent in their rematch. One doesn't even get to the fifth round with young George having yet to be floored if chinny.

While I think Frazier-Foreman I always would have been a tough one for the best version of Smoke hypothetically, his adjustments in their 1976 rematch raises some questions in my mind about George winning a peak for peak rematch. At Frazier's best prepared peak condition for a rematch, I believe he would have taken Foreman beyond round five, the latest round in which George produced a knockdown during his first career, and as Foreman gassed entering the double digit rounds, Smoke's hook would have retained the potency to begin hurting George. (As it was, Joe's hook did swell up Foreman's right eye by the end of their rematch, and George may have started having trouble seeing it coming in a longer bout. Ali previously showed in Kinshasa that Foreman's face was susceptible to swelling quickly.)

Yes, it's a controversial guess, but without Patterson-Ingo II & III, the presumption would have been that Johansson always knocks out Floyd. Frazier moved well against the physically stronger Chuvalo at 204-1/2, and far better than he ever should have been able to at 20 pounds more for Foreman II, and 25 pounds more with those quick side steps for ten rounds with Cummings in 1981. Joe was no cutie, but coming forward on him like Stander and Cummings attempted to do was no guarantee of a win, in and of itself, certainly not when Frazier was at his 1969-1970 peak.

If Ali had never returned from exile to deplete Joe in the FOTC, Frazier and Foreman might have been the defining heavyweight rivalry of the early 1970's, and I think Smoke had the chin and adaptability to pull off a rematch win to set up a rubber match if George pulled an Ingo-Patterson I on him in their first bout. (There's a lot of discussion about Joe's fractured ankle between Ellis I and Bob Foster ending his true peak in mid 1970, but Frazier does show fully restored mobility for his final successful defense against Stander in May 1972. The stylistic thing in favor of Foreman is one consideration, but the progressive nature of arthritis against Joe is another. Bear in mind that arthritis also did in Braddock's career just as Jimmy's experience and skills fully developed.)

Originally, Frazier had some idolatry for Ali, winning Olympic Gold during the aftermath of Ali's Miami Beach upset of Liston, but Yank Durham and Eddie Futch reminded him that he was too short and thick to consider adopting a style like that.

Likewise, a young Clay idolized Patterson as a reigning champion and imitated Floyd's peek-a-boo for a while, getting him a sparring session with Liston for Sonny's first bout with Patterson so Liston could practice swinging downward. A photograph of the two of them sparring in headgear (Clay in peek-a-boo position on the left in the photograph) was published in an early 1980's issue of Boxing Illustrated that I'm looking for but haven't been able to relocate yet. Surprised it hasn't appeared online, but there's tons of stuff which doesn't exist on the internet. Of course young Clay grew too tall for the peek-a-boo to be any more appropriate for him than sticking and moving would be for Frazier.

Marciano idolized Louis like everybody else of his generation, and Carnera had also been a big hero in the Italian-American community when Rocky was a boy, but we have to be what we are, and Charley Goldman's greatness as a trainer was in making the most of what Marciano was. (Just how good was Cus D'Amato as a trainer? He seemed pretty strongly invested in the peek-a-boo. Floyd himself brought a son who was not biologically related to himself to two world titles WITHOUT having him use the peek-a-boo, and becoming the first father to take a son to a championship, adopted or biological makes Tracy Harris Patterson a criminally overlooked part of Floyd's legacy.)

Joe Frazier's first KD at the hands of Bonavena came courtesy of a monstrous shot. But a lot of respectable punchers failed to dent him. Jimmy Ellis decked Bonavena twice, with a third round right which Ringo used substantial survival skills to recover from, and a tenth round counter hook which Oscar weathered through the round only because it happened with 25 seconds left to go before the bell.

After Frazier-JQ I, Jerry told Cosell that Ellis actually hit him with the harder punches, and Ellis-Bonavena suggested that JQ was telling the truth in his own experience as of 1969. (Of course Jimmy didn't have the stamina to sustain consistent power like Joe, and countering rather than attacking was more how Ellis produced his power shots.)

Buster Mathis (who decked Wepner), JQ and Bob Foster made no impression on him with their power. Jerry decked Mathis with a second round right, was the only guy to ever drop and stop Mac Foster (who took as much punishment from Ali in 1972 as anybody who went the distance with Muhammad), we've seen how he one punched Bodell and wiped out Shavers in a single round, and saved himself from Zanon in a horrible showing with a sudden display of power late in the ninth. Norton also had his knees buckled by Jerry right before it had to be stopped. Part of why Ali beat JQ so easily was by respecting his power and avoiding it completely, staying out of range.

Nobody got hit by Jerry as much in a winning effort as Joe Frazier did in their first bout. Can't do that with somebody like the Bellflower Belter and be chinny. Take a look at how Jumbo Cummings knocked the glass jawed Bruno silly with a single shot at the end of the opening round. In ten rounds, Cummings was never able to do anything resembling that with an old, arthritic and overweight Frazier coming off five years of rust.

Smoke was on his feet at the end both times with Foreman. (Futch did rescue Joe in their rematch from the indignity of an automatic three knockdown stoppage though. Eddie was forced by Norton's backers to choose between Ken and Frazier. It says something for Smoke that Futch stayed with Joe, just as Frazier showed the whole world what a father is when embracing son Marvis after Holmes stopped him in one. Also says something about how close Joe and Larry remained in retirement, having much more in common in the way of an impoverished rural background than either had with the middle class Ali.)

 

Stevie, when was the last time BE was taken seriously about anything? (My idol. I never want anything I post to be taken seriously either.)