How might Joe Frazier have left a stronger boxing legacy?

I consider him great. He's my #7 heavyweight.

The question was, how does he leave a stronger legacy? I told ya.

Retiring early artificially inflates his legacy. He'd never duck the fact that he DUCKED rematching Ali, ESPECIALLY after Ali regained the title and started to defend it. I think his legacy benefits from the fact that was a trilogy. All I can see that he could have done better, is actually DONE something with his undisputed title, like he did with his belt prior to FOTC, and not gotten obliterated by Foreman: Finding somebody else to fight before rematching Ali.

 

There are some who castigate Muhammad for fighting the likes of Rudi Lubbers and Jean-Pierre Coopman,while seemingly forgetting that Terry Daniels,Ron Stander and Dave Zygliewicz were at the same level.

 

I've seen it many times here on this forum. But partly they're are attempted wind-ups, I think.

 

Fighting two worthwhile opponents after FOTC. Most likely Mac Foster, or Jeff Merritt.

 

Difference being that Ali ,at 32 was three years older than Frazier when he fought Lubbers ,and his two previous fights had been with Ken Norton.For his fight with Koopman Ali was 34 years old, and his previous three fights were Bugner, Lyle ,and Frazier.In other words he was entitled to a couple of easy ones.

 

Frazier took it as far as he could by TFOTC....and thats far enough. He was obliterated by Foreman but that was just the natural order of things, he had cleaned house with his own generation and Foreman was the new. He hung around for money fights but that should not take away from what he did before.

Perhaps had Frazier kayoed old Patterson and Liston it would have helped his resume?

 

So what, Frazier being obliterated by Foreman doesn't count because he had cleaned out a generation? What nonsense.

Ali and Louis cleaned out 2-3 generations and never got dominated like that anywhere near their primes. Naturally Frazier has to rank a fair bit below those two to start with.