To be fair, there were still question marks about Tyson at that point in time, and Marvis Frazier was coming off a 10-round decision over the dangerous Bonecrusher Smith. Marvis Frazier was ranked as high or higher than James Tillis and Mitch Green at the time, and Tyson had failed to KO both of them. Frazier had generally fought a better level of opposition than Tyson had. And Frazier had got off the floor to win fights. So it wasn't outrageous at all for Joe to have figured this kid Tyson, (who had still not turned 20 when they signed to fight) was worth a shot at.
When this was posted back in April, Frazier-Cummings had yet to appear on youtube. A few weeks later, it did become readily available for viewing, and anybody wondering about it should check it out for themselves.
I thought Joe sidestepped quickly, jabbed well, and his right looked good. His hand speed seemed fine, and he displayed some skill and energy. He was clearly the better boxer of the two, retaining flashes of the technique he showed against Foster and in the Quarry rematch. If he'd gone in bizarrely planning to win a decision behind his jab and cross, he might have pulled it off cleanly. What was missing was the power and effectiveness of his hook. Maybe that's in part because Jumbo was well prepared for it. No, Frazier was not what he once had been, and he's a disappointment when measured against the standard of Manila, but this wasn't a snooze fest marred by long stretches of clutching and inactivity, like Ali sometimes produced. Smoke made an honest, hustling effort, respectful of the fans and the money they paid, and Jumbo was in far better condition than many latter day heavyweight leviathans. Draws are often stereotyped as dreadful non efforts on the part of both participants, but this was neither boring or a mismatch as I saw it. Taken at face value, I thought it was a decent scrap, in and of itself, and better than Snipes-Cummings had been. Again SG, I don't believe anybody should take our words for it, but view the match, judge for themselves, and determine to what extent either of us are misleading them. It wasn't Hopkins-RJJ II, and I think a case can be made that taking on Foreman a second time was worse for Joe than Cummings.
Not his fault RJJ got ko'd in 1 round, was his fault that he could've fought Dawson for the same amount of money but ducked him.
Well, the thing is, Holmes just got caught- He was doing okay until he got knocked out. It's not like he was getting punished every single minute of the fight.
Davila-Bejines - if memory serves me correctly Bejines hadn't fought in a year and had lost his last fight, so why was he fighting for the title? Hopkins-Hakkar - say no more Hopkins-JD Jackson - again, without checking out boxrec, hadn't Jackson lost his last fight to an absolute clubfighter? Milt McCrory vs. just about all his title defenses up to Curry Tommy Hearns-Pablo Baez - I recall him having an abysmal record and hadn't beaten any one of note to get a title shot. Scartissue
When Hazleton began with steroids he was already out of the business and had taken up body building. Scartissue
Yes, and then he returned to boxing, and had beefed himself up to 222 and a winning record by the time he retired Bob Foster. Hazelton has always cited the Foreman loss as providing his initial inspiration to consider steroids. (I wonder if the aforementioned Foster would have pursued the same course if the thought had occurred to him following his losses to Frazier and Ali. Bob has always delusionally maintained he would have knocked them out if he could have only weighed a couple more pounds.)