When should Joe Frazier have retired?

Never did understand why Joe fought Foreman again, I never thought he needed money but that's the only reason I can think of. I thought he could have avoided him and got an opponent better suited for him. But I don't think Joe had anything left at this point anyway so another loss probably was inevitable.. The Jumbo Cummings fight was hard to watch

 

Few retire at the perfect time, but Frazier probably should have retired March 9, 1971, the day after the first Ali fight. He didn't look good fighting Stander and Daniels, he fought Foreman without proper training. A smaller, pressure fighter has to work harder than his opponent, the smaller, pressure fighter has to want it more than his opponent, he has to train harder than his opponent. Frazier was at his best from Ellis 1 to Ali 1. After that, it was downhill.

 

For bragging rights / "legacy," after the first Ali fight.

But fighters fight for money. I don't know what Frazier's financial situation looked like in the 70s, so I can't really answer the question of when the best time was.

 

Joe Frazier retired at the right time in 1976.

He'd just gone toe-to-toe for 14 rounds against the top boxer in the sport. Ali said Frazier's corner stopped it just before he was going to quit. If you're Joe, you know you are still better than really just about everyone else, except for that one guy, Ali (who you beat already). It's so tempting to keep going.

The only person Frazier fought in his career who he didn't have a win over was Foreman. So he fought him. The winner would be the clear #1 contender. If Joe won, he'd have beaten everyone he faced as a pro. But it didn't happen, and Joe went out facing the top two guys in the game.

He shouldn't have come back against Jumbo Cummings. But most people tend to overlook that.

What really would've been interesting is if his 1978 comeback would've come off. He was scheduled to fight Gerrie Coetzee, who, at the time, was virtually unknown by Americans but was among the top rated WBA contenders. ABC was going to televise their fight which was scheduled for April that year, two months after Leon beat Ali. But literally the week of the fight, the South African government blocked it because the promoter hadn't gotten permission from the government's sports authority to okay a fight between a white man and a black man. (You needed government permission back then.)

Coetzee probably would've stopped him like Gerrie beat Leon, so that was a blessing.

Then Joe signed to fight the other top-rated South African, Kallie Knoetze, who had recently knocked out Duane Bobick (Frazier promoted Bobick) and that fight was scheduled for May in Las Vegas. Knoetze was at or near the top of the WBA ratings at that point. And I think Joe probably could've beaten him. Kallie wasn't very good. But Joe got hepatitis and the fight was called off.

But, if Joe had become a top contender while Leon was the WBA champ, before the Spinks-Ali rematch was ever inked, that would've been fascinating. A win over Knoetze and Joe is probably right behind Ali in the WBA ratings. Butch Lewis was part of Frazier's team when he was active. Lewis controlled Leon. Would Butch have given Smokin Joe a shot ahead of Ali? Probably.

Would've been in interesting few months.

Anyway, retiring in 1976 seemed like a good call. But I still think Frazier could've beaten some of the dregs in the WBA ratings in the late 70s, and maybe beats Leon in '78, too.

 

Didn't really make sense to fight after Manila

 

i doubt Frazier would have beaten Knoetze at that stage

 

We never saw him fight in 1978. We saw him in late 1981, which was years later.

Frazier couldn't have been any worse than Knoetze. He wasn't good.

 

It's hard to walk away when you're rated among the top two contenders.

Jerry Quarry actually came back in 1977 because Frazier had retired and Foreman had retired and guys like Earnie Shavers were getting title shots, and Shavers was someone who Quarry had stopped in one round like four years earlier.

Quarry was like, what am I doing watching this? I beat this guy.

So Quarry came back against Lorenzo Zanon. Quarry couldn't catch up to him. Felt off. Still knocked out Zanon. And retired again.

THEN FREAKING ZANON got a title shot a couple years later.

That's what a wasteland it had become. A totally done Quarry could still knock out guys who would soon be getting title shots.

When Ali is on top and Foreman is the top contender in 1976, I'm sure it looked dire for Frazier. And he figured why go on? But, within a year or two, everything had changed.

The division didn't look so bad-ass with Foreman gone, Leon as the champ, and Kallie Knoetze as the top contender. Even Norton was a former Frazier sparring partner.

No wonder Joe tried to come back.

 

Joe Frazier in 1978.

This content is protected

 

I’ll say what I said in the similar Ali thread, quoting one of the writers who appeared in the HBO documentary on Manila … that’s the point when both of them should’ve linked arms and walked off together. But Ali had to many people feeding at the trough to walk away and Frazier was just too stubborn at that point to realize that he couldn’t get it up anymore unless it was against Ali and he was fueled and motivated by hatred.

 

In a perfect world after the 1st Ali fight as he was never the same after that, and I don't think any fight after that really added to his legacy apart from bravery he showed in The Thriller In Manilla.

But let's be real with the rivalry with Ali he was never gonna retire after beating him once. As I said in the Ali thread I think Ali should've retired after The Thriller In Manilla, and I think the same applies for Frazier it felt like a fitting end TBH.

 

Yeah, that's another thing that makes it hard to answer. What's the acceptable tradeoff between brain damage and money? What part of your life is it most important to assure good "quality of life" in?

Obviously, the answers from the fighter himself may differ depending on when in his career you ask him.