How good was Joe Fraizer?

Difficult to rate fighters on the all time list.

Frazier was a really, really good fighter. What I called a natural fighter, that had be fine tuned.

I suppose I'd rate Ali, Louis and Foreman over Frazier.
Then it gets tricky. Marciano never lost, so I think you have to keep the Rock in the top 5.
I think Frazier beats Holmes everyday of the week. But Holmes might beat everyone else.
Lennox Lewis a strong possibility for a top 5 spot. Yet he was badly KO'ed twice by inferior fighters, so that hurts him.
Jack Dempsey is a legend, had 5 successful defenses. But the man had 9 draws, that no one mentions.
Jack Johnson had 8 successful defenses. Held the title over 5 years. Pretty much beat a midget for the title.
Holyfield not top 5 but maybe top 10.
Liston is kind of a boogie man historically. He did little with the title, but got screwed around a lot before getting a title shot.
Vitaly K. I'm not sure where to put him, but I think not top 5, but maybe.

I guess Frazier, for me, somewhere between five and 7.

 

Top ten for me

 

From the first Ellis fight through the first Ali fight Frazier was extremely good. He was always in shape during that time. After the first Ali fight, not so much. He didn't live the same life and it showed. The Frazier that Foreman beat was an overweight, unmotivated, under trained version of the Frazier that fought through the first Ali fight. Ali won the last two fights with Frazier but again that wasn't the best Frazier. Frazier through March 8, 1971 was a different fighter than he was afterward.

Frazier was a smaller, pressure fighter, when the desire is diminished and the training intensity is lowered, fighters like that are not the same. Frazier had to work harder than his opponents and when he climbed in the ring, he always tried, but when he didn't prepare and live right, it wasn't there. I don't know who said it first, but the saying is "the will to win is useless without the will to prepare." Frazier always "wanted" to win when he got into the ring, but he didn't prepare the same after March of 1971.

 

The only men who truly beat him were Foreman and Ali.

He was an exceptionally hard man to defeat.

 

Probably the two most acceptable losses for a heavyweight along with getting blown away by 88 Tyson

 

Love this.

It echoes precisely how I feel about him. I was fortunate to meet him in 2007 while eating breakfast in Philly, and it remains probably my favorite celebrity encounter. It is the Frazier, Hagler, and Chavez hardhat boxers I have always favored most, and I think the sport is poorer for the diminution of their ilk.

 

I love seeing this , let’s me know that hardworking fighters are appreciated.

 

Better P4P than Ali and most of the great HWs. The Ali trilogy was a draw Frazier would have won if his cornermen had waited a few moments to throw in the towel. But both he and his resume are too short to be ranked any higher than 5th or 6th IMO. The severity of the Foreman losses preclude him from being ranked above Ali and the HW GOAT discussion more generally. A discussion someone like a Riddick Bowe with an even shorter resume has a small place in even in many rank Frazier higher.

Frazier is the highest rated 3rd best HW of his era by a wide margin.

 

Thriller in Manilla changed that. Ali beating Foreman means those losses prevent Frazier from being compared to Ali positively which he otherwise would have been.

 

Frazier had better performances than Ali against Foster, Chuvalo, Jones, Mathis, Ellis

He finished Foster in a quarter of the rounds it took Ali

 

Top 10 for me!

I like fighters in which it is easy to define why they are great, and Frazier won the Fight of the Century. Nuff said.

On top of that, its not hard to find a plethora of good wins outside of Ali--QuarryX2, BonavenaX, EllisX2, Jones, Machen, Chavulo, Mathis, Foster, Bugner...

Finally, gets a lot of subjective points for a tough, crowd-pleasing style.

 

Top 10

 

There's a,,, L--O--N--G,,, list of heavyweights who weren't good enough for those 2. and he did beat the crap outta Ali.

 

Top ten ever though