Was Joe Frazier shot after the Fight of the Century?

Would somebody defined "shot".....in a boxing sense.

Not reduced skills or timing.....but "SHOT".

 

Apparently shot and prime mean your boxer lost and you need an excuse....

 

240 may be overstating it, but it is possible. But do you realize he made a lot of money for appearences, speechs, and exhibitions? He also kept shrp, and had plenty of periods where he worked out more frequently.

 

I said earlier, he let himself go. Look at his weight, his lifestyle after he made that big payday.

 

It's a great fight. I hear what you say, "beating" wasn't the right word. I too had Quarry losing every round after the first, but my point was that even though Frazier won and only lost the first round, he took a lot of punches, especially early on.

Well, they weren't war on the highest scale like Ali vs Frazier I. But i would still call his first fight with Quarry a war for as long as it lasted. Let me put it this way: he took a lot of punches in those fights. I do think lack of focus on boxing speeded up his deterioration: i thought he looked a lot better in '74 against Quarry than he did in '73 against Foreman, although that probably has a lot to do with the opponent as well.


But if you compare him to, let's say, Tyson. Up until the Douglas fights, how many really tough fights did he have? The Tubbs, Williams, Spinks, Biggs and Berbick fights were easier than his average sparring session. Tucker gave him 12 rounds but he rarely hit Tyson clean. He shook him up with a great, flush uppercut in the first but after that, Tyson didn't take many punches and lost only a few rounds in the entire fight. Smith held all night and landed his first significant punch in the 12th, moments before the bell. A great workout but not a fight that damages you. The Holmes, Bruno and Thomas fights were a bit harder but nothing serious there.

Comparably, Frazier took an enormous amount of punches up to the Ali fight. No one ever hit Tyson as hard and frequently as Quarry, Ellis or Bonavena hit Frazier, pre-Douglas.

 

Of course not. His overall peak may well have ran from about '67 right through to the FOTC (but he did have one maybe two decent wins after that. And was very competitive in at least one of the remaining fights vs Ali. I scored fight II 116-111 Ali.) He'd never quite hit those heights again but was still good for the next few years afterwards.

The Foreman blowout would always have happened (not that people where to know at the time) it was a stylistic Mount Everest for Frazier to climb and even the '71 version (though he would maybe last a bit longer) wouldn't scale it.

 

I can't see Foreman blowing out the Joe Frazier from 1967 - 1971. In fact, I can see 205 lb Frazier wearing down and knocking out Foreman late in the fight with a body shot. Foreman wouldn't have been able to handle his pressure and he wouldn't have been able to hit the FOTC Frazier as cleanly as he did. Ali had trouble hitting Frazier cleanly in that fight and he was light years faster, hand speed and foot speed compared to George Foreman. Why are many on this forum so quick to discredit Frazier, giving him no chance at any time in his career, prime or not against Foreman based on the fight in 1973? I don't think Frazier was shot after the FOTC but his decline is clearly visable. He was shot against Foreman in 1976 yet lasted five rounds with a different strategy. There's no comparison between the Frazier of the late 1960's and the fat, out-of shape version that got whupped by Foreman in 1973.

 

I am a huge frazier Phan...but I can't picture any version of Joe beating foreman. Some people say he did better in the 2nd fight, but I disagree. he backed up more and applied less pressure, and merely lasted longer as opposed to actually faring better. To me Liston and Foreman are probably always a Frazier loss...against anyone else though I like Joes chances!

 

your overating foreman hes not that good, ali made very easy work of him, he had life in death with ron lyle, and jimmy young beat him, sure he sometimes looked invincible but was far from it

 

i believe wasnt completely but that fight and foreman definitely took sumthing out of him
pressure fighters do tend to have shorter careers, even henry armstrongs busy reign was only for a few years
still, great great fighters though

 

it's not overstating it.

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This is from 1969. He weighted about 230 here. As you can see, he doesn't look fat at all, this is his walking around weight.

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As you see here he looks even worse. Check out his double chin as he's talking to Cus.

He really was not training much during this time.

 

I think saying he was "shot" is going too far, but he did noticeably decline in the aftermath of the first Ali fight- he gained 10 pounds, looked chubbier and slower in the ring, became less active, was unimpressive in his next two title defenses, and then got obliterated by Foreman. I think a combination of his health problems, what he went through in the ring, and the loss of a bit of the fire that brought him to the top all coalesced at that point in his career to precipitate a fairly considerable decline in his in-ring prowess.

 

What double chin? He did train, he was always training, maybe he occasionally took some time off and went up, but he was doing exhibitions on frequent basis, and head closed simulated fights in gym.

 

Ah, the "mystery fight",...the Fight of the Century, the one you never see. This is one of the reasons Joe Frazier tends to be underrated so much, because the Ali Nut Huggers at ESPN never shows the first Ali-Frazier fight. Joe was never quite the same after that one, and we should be able to see his greatest moment of glory. He definitely deserved the win, and put a whippin' on Ali's ass.

 

Because they saw an unbeaten world champ easily mashed probably. That's just a hunch.