how good was smokin joe...

Frazier's speed is under-rated. Before the first Ali fight he was a bobbing target--hard to hit clean. He slowed down after the 1st Ali fight.

 

Joe Frazier had good power and underrated handspeed. He was hard to hit at times as the opponent would have to punch down to hit hi. If the opponent punched down then Joe would come up top with his signature left hook. I feel he is very underrated around here because of what Foreman did to him. Truth is, Joe had a pretty decent chin, his style just aws tailor-made for Foreman.

Joe is definetly a top 10 Heavyweight and is my all-time favorite, a true warrior.

 

The late 1969 thru 1971 Frazier would have been competitive against all the great heavywts, except for Foreman & Liston (style problems).

The post YR 2000 Superheavyweights have to be viewed as a seperate issue.

 

Really. ****ing. Good.

 

He was good, but not great.

 

I consider Frazier a staple top 10 heavyweight of the gloved era. In the second half of the '60s through the early '70s, Frazier cleaned out the best available opposition about as thoroughly as any champion ever has, and did so in dominant fashion. His win over Ali in their first encounter is one of the single greatest victories any champion has ever achieved, and he lost only to two of the best heavyweights ever in Ali and Foreman. I don't believe that more than a handful of heavyweights have a strong claim to having bettered that career.

 

Frazier was damn good for a stretch of about 4 or 5 fights (Ellis I, Quarry I, Foster, Ali I), and for as long as he could keep his weight down around 205-ish. Once he ballooned to around 215-220, he was never the same again.

 

I wouldn't call him a one trick pony at all. For years, Frazier fought top rated contenders, fringe contenders, and quality veterans, ultimately cleaning up the entire division. By the time he had defeated Muhammad Ali in 1971, there was nobody left to prove himself against. Fighters like Foreman, Norton, Shavers, and Lyle would not truly emerge until around 1973, and Norton specifically was under the same managerial umbrella as Frazier, meaning the match was never likely to happen. Theoretically, Frazier could have retired right then and there, and no one would have had any bones to pick about it.

 

frazier before ali was an immense warrior who is easily top 10 heavyweigth but after he beat ali he lost alot of fight as he had already accomplished alot

 

Not my kind of fighter regarding his overall style.

 

Never would have guessed with the avatar

 

It always amazes how people say Frazier was a slow starter? Well yeah, when compared to Ali, who was the fastest heavyweight of all time. I believe this is one of the misconceptions about Frazier because he was a faster heavyweight than a lot of people give him credit for. Only Marciano and maybe Tyson can remotely compare to Frazier in terms of pressure and pace.

He was never the same fighter after the FOTC which kinda justifies Ali's greatness. He was significantly diminished by the time he fought Foreman which was pretty clear in the Ron Stander fight where he didn't look good at all. I still say the prime version of Joe Frazier woud've given Foreman a much, much tougher fight and if it goes more than eight rounds, Frazier stops him. Perhaps Frazier's greatest attribute is his stamina, which Dr. Ferdie Pacheco called the "greatest quantity" on the Greatest Fights Ever broadcast of the FOTC.

 

When people say he was a slow starter, they don't mean he was physically slow, but that his pace started out slow and increased over the course of the fight. He didn't come out raging, looking to blow a guy out like Dempsey or Tyson, but more often ground his opponents down.