Joe Frazier is unproven

Oh dear.

 

Well he's deceased so.....

 

Not Smokey Joe. You probably mean Marvis.

 

The desire to create "hot takes" is ruining communication and discussion and that's my cold take.

 

Depends what you mean by "unproven". In the context of his era(which most consider the best HW one) he is, at least compared to his peers. Frazier almost beat Ali twice hes obviously proven in that sense.

Frazier is 1-4 against Foreman and Ali and didn't fight Norton,Young, Lyle or Shavers. Fraziers wins are against lower top 10 HWs for the era and against your bigger opponents like Bugners and Mathis's he did struggle a bit. And the reason that matters is because most of the guys mentioned above fought each other. So Frazier stands out in a negative way there.

 

Going out on a limb here but it seems to me there are worse things than being an Olympic gold medalist, linear heavyweight champion with several title wins and having your only losses be to Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. Were there some styles that proved to be his weakness ? Sure but the same could be said of everyone

 

Joe Frazier and unproven don't even belong in the same sentence.

 

It's ok if hot takes have even a teeny bit of foundation but.............

 

He does to most sluggers what he did to Ramos. Also despite starting later that Ali, he was much more of a late 60's fighter, falling out of his prime rapidly after FotC.

 

OP, I'm not sure this is the sport for you to follow...

 

Frazier never lost a fight until he started partying and singing with his band and giving those things priority over his boxing career. As a smaller, pressure fighter he needed to train harder than his opponents. Whether it was his lifestyle or whether it was physical problems, after the first Ali fight, Frazier was not the dedicated, well conditioned fighter he had been prior to that fight.
He fought Ron Stander and Terry Daniels after beating Ali. Prior to the first Ali fight he had fought the best available in the heavyweight division. He had beaten Ali, Quarry, Ellis, Bonavena, Chuvalo, and Mathis.
His record after March of 1971 was 5-4-1. Frazier could be called "unproven" against fighters who came along after the first Ali fight, but from the time he turned pro until the first Ali fight he trained hard and beat whoever was put in front of him.

 

Good news, you’re redeemed.

 

I know you're going to get alot of stick for this but i know what you're trying to say i don't think Frazier fought any of the real notable big bangers of that era like Ron Lyle, Mac Foster, Earnie Shavers, etc although i don't think he avoided any of them let me clarify that.

Although in defense of Frazier he did beat Chuvalo who had alot of stoppages and had some power although Frazier pretty much dominated him.

I think your choice of words maybe wrong because he did beat fighters who had power and he beat plenty of quality fighters like Jones, Bonavena, Quarry x2, Chuvalo, Machen, Ellis x2, Bugner, along with the greatest single win in Heavyweight history over Ali and that's a very respectable record.

But i do know what you mean i'm not entirely confident of Frazier's H2H ability against bigger men who carry serious power. There's a thread here atm in regards to Ruddock vs Frazier and i wouldn't be totally confident in picking Frazier in that encounter to be quite honest.

 

The "word" is Frazier took it to Norton in sparring

Here's a hot take- Ali could probably crack at least as hard as Louis when he wanted and especially against Frazier was likely some of his hardest punching