Outside of Muhammad Ali I. Obviously I've seen some footage of Joe given how popular and lauded he is, but I want to look at him in detail. I saw him topple Foster, and it hadn't occurred to me before at just how pleasing his style was. Nothing wild or uncoordinated, he walks down his opponents, always moving his head, and bangs to body and head with great force. I want to see more. 1. What are Joe Frazier's top 3 Performances outside of FOTC? 2. Where do you rank him among the Heavyweights and why?
IMO joes best 3 performances were 1. jimmy ellis 2. jerry quarry 1 3. Bonavena 2 Joe was always easy on the eye for me for the rythmic way he went about his business. Very fluid to watch. The way he went about destroying poor jimmy ellis was a great example of controlled agression. You could almost feel every left hook jimmy took. Joe showed that he had great heart on many occasions and not too many would have fought Bonavena so soon again after the scare he gave him. Quarry too, was probably in his prime when facing joe. He sometimes comes in for a bit of stick because of the Daniels, Stander and Zygelwits (dont know where to begin to spell his name) defences but there wasnt too many he didnt fight. I may be knocked for this but i feel he should get a fair bit of credit for doing Mel Turnbow in 1 round. Many heavyweights have cited Turnbow as the hardest puncher they have faced, plus he was only a pro for 18months or so when they fought. Im not big on lists myself but when Frazier gets mentioned, i think of him as a top 10 fighter and 1 of the bravest guys to ever lace up gloves
Aside from FOTC,I would say both Jerry Quarry fights and the Jimmy Ellis one. Hard one to call,as anything between 1968-71,Frazier rarely looked anything less than awesome.
Agree with you. How many men would have the balls to face Foreman after being whipped by him the first time?(Not dissing Frazier I actually like watching him fight)
I want to see more too. Hopefully people post better quality of his fights then I might become a fan of his. Quarry 1 probably wasn't one of his best performances but I loved it, it was gutsy. I'm a big Armstrong fan so I guess that's what made me become a Qawi fan & be fascinated by seeing Frazier fight.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc7Kx468fiY[/ame] Here's a great video that I think captures Frazier well but it misses some footage imo. Some bodyshots he landed made me wince in pain.
The day i was born. Theres a great pic of him standing over Foster that i seen in a Henry Cooper boxing book
for me I liked as his best performances: 1. Buster Mathis...I always agreed with castellano's card and Mathis starting strong and frazier controlling the fight from the 3rd round on (Frazier says Mathis only edged the first). 2. Jerry Quarry I- Again after Quarry took the first I felt like frazier took the rest of the rounds...the 2nd round was close, and I guess could have gone to Quarry, but not on my card. 3. Jimmy Ellis I...Beutiful performance against the red hot Ellis Personally Frazier is my favorite, but through the years feel I have been able to put my bias out of my ranking! I find him to be around 7 anything worse than 11 seems a disservice to him above 5 seems to have a major bias. 1. Louis 2. Ali 3. Holmes 4. Marciano 5. Johnson 6. Foreman 7. FRAZIER 8. Dempsey 9. Lewis 10. Liston H2H I find him to be largely underrated....Outside of Liston and Foreman there is no one I would favor to beat him...Louis, Holyfield and Marciano I find super close...Favor him over everyone else including a prime ALI!!!
To me, prime Frazier vs prime Ali is a tossup. Frazier's inside work would have always given Ali hell, and we know he has the power to knock Ali down.
Frazier's top 3? *Ellis 1 *Bob Foster *Dave Zyglewicz He's had many other great performances, though.