If Frazier had retired after the first Ali fight

I never understand threads like these.

People who box (or play any sport) for a living don’t retire at the height of their earning potential. Or while still peak/prime. (Unless it’s for medical/legal reasons.)

Joe was 27 years old. He is going to need to eat, put a roof over his head and has children to raise. He’s going to need money to live for decades unless he steps in front of a bus or contracts some soft of fatal disease. He could go back to an hourly wage job in a slaughterhouse or he can command big bucks doing the thing he is best at. Really tough choice, lol.

These are real people. They are not going to end their livelihood so someone half a century later can say they had a better resume and rate them higher when discussing their career at a bar or on the internet, haha.

 

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Given that FOTC counts as the most valuable win in 150 years of HW history, and Frazier would be undefeated, an absolute, lineal champion at worst, I would rank him right behind Rocky Marciano, and he could even be ranked ahead of Marciano; depending on bias.

 

What you’re talking about is Frazier retiring at his absolute peak, both in ability and earning power. And while he had a NYSAC version of the heavyweight title, he really, truly only became champion when he beat Ali.

So you’re suggesting a completely unrealistic mental exercise.

Marciano was 32 years old — getting toward the end for many fighters in his era — and had developed back problems. Training to absolute perfect shape like he did, and needed to do to remain on top, had become too difficult.

Tunney was a bit younger, early 1930s, but short of a third match with Dempsey that wasn’t going to happen, there were no enormous paydays for him to stick around for. Likewise, Crawford had been a champ for many years when he got his ‘last’ big payday and ‘retired,’ but I think the jury is out on whether he will return or not.

But to humor the question, what if Joe had retired after FOTC? He’d have come back a few years later, lol.

 

A very interesting question. I think it's much more reasonable than speculating on how Sam Langford would have fared against Fury or Roy Jones.

I think that if he had retired after the FOTC, for example, due to health reasons, which he did have, he would have been widely considered number two behind Joe Louis, and most people would agree that if he had continued his career, he would have been number one.
I'm assuming, of course, that the entire story unfolds as it did, with Ali beating Foreman, etc. He might even have gained a bit, because Manila drained Ali so much, he could have had more fuel.

On the other hand, if Ali hadn't regained his license, Frazier would be as forgotten today as Jimmy Ellis.
I don't think anyone would have him in the top 20.

A great alternative, and it's the exact same boxer.

 

No one really knows what became of Waldo after graduation.

 

No. He was the undisputed, universally recognized champion after he beat Ellis. Ali retired and abdicated a few weeks before that fight.

 

Not to forget that Tunney married an heiress to the Carnegie Steel Company fortune. They wed in Rome in 1928, on the condition that Gene retire from boxing. Probably not the worst trade-off...

 

Of course, Joe Frazier would be rated higher. Of course, the losses hurt him.

If Joe retired in 1971 with wins over: the undefeated 29-year-old Muhammad Ali, Oscar Bonavena (twice), Jimmy Ellis, Jerry Quarry, George Chuvalo, Buster Mathis, Bob Foster, Eddie Machen, Doug Jones.

No losses.

Olympic Gold.

Perfect career.

He didn't beat anyone of note after that except Bugner. One win over Bugner didn't rank higher than the four losses and the draw.

And he was a 3-1 favorite to beat Foreman, so it's not like people would've just assumed, if they never fought, that Joe would get demolished by Foreman.

Joe Frazier, if he retired in 1971, likely would be viewed as a top 3 all-time heavyweight.

Frazier WOULD even have a case for being #1 ahead of Joe Louis.

Ali, on the other hand, with NO wins over Frazier, probably wouldn't have been viewed at any point as "The Greatest." And with NO wins over Frazier, George Foreman probably wouldn't have been viewed as highly, either. So, their careers come down a peg, or quite a few pegs, as well.

Losing to Foreman the way he did was devastating.

 

He was not lineal til he beat Ali as far as I’m concerned.

 

Agreed. I also think that Ali 1 performance was Fraziers last prime performance. He left a lot in the ring that night and was out of his prime after the fight.

Frazier was dropped twice by Bonavena when he was on the way up and his legs went wooden against Manuel Ramos after an uppercut. He powered through Quarry but took some shots in that fight too. He was a skilled slugger with a great hook but he was getting hit frequently even when he was on the way up. I think that version of Frazier when he was on his way up would still beat Foreman though. Foreman got lucky meeting Frazier when Frazier was shot. That's my opinion although very few agree but I've watched Joes early fights and believe me he was very shot by the time he fought Foreman.

If he had retired after Ali 1, he would be seen as a legendary iconic fighter and very highly ranked, you would have many arguments for people having him number 1 GOAT. But that would be because people don't realise that Ali was about 20% of what he was, after he came back from being inactive for 3+ years.

Nowadays Frazier gets judged off the shot Foreman performances and Ali losses although he does get a small bit of credit for the win over Ali but it's overshadowed by the losses. Don't get me wrong though, if Ali never got banned, he would have stayed on top and handled Frazier with a comfortable decision win. But if we are judging Frazier we should take care to keep in mind that he is out of his prime after Ali 1, in the interest of fairness. I don't know how he lived with the thought of those Foreman losses hanging over him when he must have watched clips of Foreman and knows he realistically would have ran through George if he was in his prime but instead he had to live with the legacy of getting pumped by George and punched into mid air at one point during the fight.

 

He would be remembered more like Rocky Marciano. His fans would say he was the greatest of all-time. He was better then Ali since he proved it and could beat any of the modern superheavyweights that outweighed him by 50 pounds of muscle. Others would try to say he retired before the larger heavyweight started to abound and never proved himself against them much like we see the arguments in this forum made over Rocky being the greatest of all-time.

 

Joe Frazier's purse for the first Ali fight was more than any athlete's purse/yearly salary in any sport in the history of sports at that time. $2.5 million.

(For comparison, the highest paid baseball player in 1971 earned $167,000 annually. And he was THE HIGHEST paid ball player in the whole league.)

He was also damaged in that fight and spent quite a while in the hospital. (His team said it was high blood pressure. But you don't spend weeks in the hospital with high blood pressure when you're 27.)

In fact, Yank Durham said, when Frazier decided to return to the ring (after a year out), Durham was so unsure how good Frazier was (because he never fully recovered) that they signed to fight Terry Daniels and Ron Stander because Durham almost wanted to start over again with Frazier, like he was a new pro. (Of course, that went out the window when he was told to fight Foreman.)

So, long story short, Joe Frazier very easily could've retired in 1971. At that time, most athletes in the history of sports never made a million dollars in their entire careers, let alone in one year.

 

I agree.