With all his bobbing and weaving he never deliberately head butted anyone. Did he even head butt an opponent?
Arthur Mercante wrote in his autobiography that Frazier was very clean for his style of boxing, while Ali was very dirty with his tactics. Following his first match with Frazier, Jerry Quarry told Howard Cosell that Joe was very aggressive and effective in a subtle way with his head and elbows, but immediately qualified that by admitting he wasn't exactly a saint himself in that regard. Despite Frazier's body punching orientation, I don't recall him ever even being cautioned for hitting low. Joe was highly susceptible himself to having his face swell, and that caused Eddie Futch to stop Manila before Carlos Padilla said he would have. So deliberate head butting could certainly backfire on him. Like Marciano, Frazier led with his guard, not his head.
Joe’s low blows seemed unintentional for the most part, he was one of the fairest fighters and practically never initiated a clinch.
And didn't Marciano used to talk about fighting his opponents in terms of causing them grave injuries such as "ruining them" and things to that effect, Frazier never seemed to do that even, not that he didn't hurt his opponents but he let his skills speak for themselves
Physics would suggest if you throw a lot of hooks and work the body it's hard to avoid any low blows.
It's deemed to happen for any fighters that liked to do it,even McCallum who's notorious for being a masterful technician can't avoid these low blows.
He's supposed to have really hammered Ali's hips, but I'd need to specifically look for that on the footage. (I rarely evaluate footage for periphery like this, although I have scrutinized Jack Sharkey's textbook ATG refereeing in Moore-Durelle I & II. If Jack had been the third man instead of Johnny LoBianco, Duran-Buchanan definitely would not have ended with that low blow, and Cleveland Denny would not have died with old and obese 67 Rosarioy/o Baillargeon impotently waving it off behind them, because the athletic Sharkey, who jogged three miles daily through retirement to support his outdoorsman lifestyle, would've instantly stepped in and between the combatants.)
In defense of him from whom? I've never once seen anyone accuse him of being a dirty fighter. His reputation is quite the opposite.
A better argument to defend against would be he relied exclusively on his left hook, or that he was a slow starter.
And those errant suppositions are easy to defend against. His right tore open Jerry Quarry's face in their rematch, and George Chuvalo made it very clear his right was nothing to sneeze at. JQ I? Jerry pitched 93 shots in the first round, but Frazier fired back with 64 of his own, hardly a slow pace. He took 13 seconds to floor Ziggy, set him up for the finisher with an excellent short right uppercut, knocked Machen out of the ring in the opening round, sat Ramos on the ropes in the first three minutes and decked Terry Daniels in the opening round. He could be far more dangerous in the first stanza than legitimately slow starting buddy Norton. (Ken's 59 second wipeout of Duane Bobick was perhaps the wildest anomaly of his career.) Looking at the JQ 2 masterpiece, Joe jabbed well along with utilizing his right. He also used his jab and right well in his comeback finale against Jumbo Cummings, where he was much the better boxer. And he thwarted Jumbo's attempts to bull him backwards with quick sidesteps. He also moved well on Chuvalo, Stander and in the Foreman rematch. Beating Frazier entailed much more than merely trying to back him up.
Both persistent lies, with the exception of maybe the very first round where he could be slow out of the gate.
Frazier appeared to be as clean as a whistle. The only time he might’ve appeared to have semi launched his head was in Manila, don’t ask me which round, but Ali was holding in him down at the time so that’s the context. It’s a wonder that Frazier didn’t lose his discipline in their second fight when Ali was holding him to a ridiculous degree.