44 years ago today: Joseph William "Smokin' Joe" Frazier vs. Floyd "Jumbo" Cummings

This content is protected

5½ years after crushing defeat in the Foreman rematch, Joe Frazier returned to extend his professional career into a third decade. Let's just say, while he did earn the privilege of not retiring off a loss, his eighties campaign...didn't exactly have legs. And was fat. And slow.

With a measly 6.5k attendant live gate (a scant 18% of his career peak, in Foreman I, and no more than a fifth of any installment of the Ali trilogy) showing that his decline in drawing power was as steep as his terminal-velocity nosedive in skill & fitness, the sport's most famous heavyweight practitioner of both the bob & weave and the left hook since Patterson - and probably remaining the greatest until Tyson, if not the present - labored to a draw with the unremarkable Jumbo Cummings.

Cummings, besides Frazier, fought a total of 21 opponents - and of the maximum of 6 that you might've heard of, he lost to all. Frank Bruno and Tim Witherspoon? No shame; they both went on to hold world titles. Renaldo Snipes and Mitch Green? At least they were fringe contenders. Jeff Sims, though? Yeah, not great. Cummings even lost to a lesser Frazier - Laughin' Larry (of Seattle, not Philly - no relation) - less than a year after holding old Joe to a tie.

To his credit, Frazier took heed of the universe's hint and never laced up again. Of his five blemishes (the others being a pair of losses to all time greats George Foreman and Muhammad Ali) this is by far the most embarrassing - and for Cummings, it's his crowning achievement without a doubt. Which makes it odd that -broke and mired in legal trouble, he tried suing ESPN for rebroadcasting it almost two decades ago. "Oh no! Don't show the world that I fought a top fifteen HW of all time and he didn't beat me. What a brutish intrusion on my privacy, good heavens! "

 

I can't think what in the modern day even compares with this. I wanted at first to say maybe Horn upsetting Pacquiao but honestly...Horn >>>>>>> Cummings p4p, and that Manny wasn't nearly as compromised as this Joe.