Joe's justification for changing Marvis into a swarmer was that Marvis fighting the way Benton taught him would've made him an undesirable opponent and that Marvis also would've been a boring fighter for the fans and wouldn't have made much money. But, I'm putting it a lot nicer compared to how Joe said it, since he implied Marvis would've had a joke of a pro career under Benton. "Understand this: A lot of heavyweights that are hot stuff in the amateurs, where a pure boxer has an edge in the way a bout is scored, don't cut it as pros. From my era, look at Mathis. A top gun in the amateurs, where they went nuts for his fat-man dancing act, he wasn't diddlysquat as a pro. Pros is a tougher game for heavyweights. Pros is a more physical, brutalizing deal. You can only go so far with slip-and-slide jive as a professional heavyweight. https://imgur.com/j0wPnna "For Marvis to make money - and that's why a fella fights, for money and for glory - it would take a bit more than what Georgie Benton had given him. That was my thinking at least. And critics be damned, I knew a few things about Marvis they didn't. Main thing was Marvis didn't have tunnel vision, the single mindedness his daddy did. Maybe in the beginning it was there - the quest to bring the title back to the Frazier family. But once he got married to Daralyn in 1983, by his own account he wasn't into boxing with that at-all-cost gotta-have-it urgency that I had. As Marvis put it: I was about family. From 1983, I wasn't there mentally the way I had been. In a way Marvis' niceness worked against him as a fighter. The best fighters are self-involved, self-absorbed; me-me-me is how they think. Marvis wasn't built that way. That and the fact that he was a small heavyweight who was skilled but without the really big punch made my job as a manager a bit tricky." https://imgur.com/Glgqx7N Here was Benton's side of the story. "Just who Marvis Frazier is these days as a fighter (and who he might have been) is a question that gets entangled in a role that Joe did not originally have in his son's development -that of his trainer. When Marvis first came to the North Broad Street gym as a 16-year-old, it was George Benton, a former world-ranked middleweight, who shaped the aspiring fighter. ''I had him a boxer - a fighter who didn't get hit with a lot of punches,'' said Benton, who now trains Evander Holyfield, Tyrell Biggs, Pernell Whitaker and Meldrick Taylor. ''Then somewhere down the line he became more a brawler type fighter.'' Toward the end of Marvis's amateur career (he had a 56-2 record, losing to Tony Tubbs and James Broad), Benton said that Smokin' Joe gradually assumed control of his son's training. ''The air got a little thin,'' Benton said. ''It was hard for me to breathe in that relationship. One day, Joe just said: 'I'll train the fighter when I'm here. I'll handle the boxing.' '' https://www.nytimes.com/1986/07/21/sports/for-marvis-frazier-does-father-know-best.html
To be fair to Bugner he was 10 years younger when he fought Joe, but Marvis did comment on how durable Bugner was. "FNU: In June of 1983, you beat Joe Bugner. He had previously fought both your father – as well as Ali and warriors including Ernie Shavers, Ron Lyle, Mac Foster, and Jimmy Ellis. What was it like to beat a guy who had that level of experience? Marvis: Oh, man, I wanted to knock Bugner out! I went into that ring saying to myself, “I’m going to knock this guy out.” At that time, other than his first fight, only Shavers had knocked him out. And I hit him with about a million punches, but he went the whole ten rounds. FNU: He was a durable guy, with solid defensive skills." http://unlimitedfightnews.com/wordpress/marvis-frazier-interview/
This. George Benton was a lovely man. If I was a fighter I woudda picked him as my coach. Joe Frazier saw Marvis as a reincarnation of himself and forced the boy down routes Joe wouldve taken. Joe was a jerk with Marvis' as a boxer. As for Benton , the fighters mentioned above , he wouldve done a good job with Biggs , bringing out his boxing skills but Duva always wanted to turn Tyrell into a brawler for the same reasons Joe Frazier stated above about Marvis.
