Joe Frazier TKO 4 George Chuvalo 1967

The post-fight picture of Chuvalo's eye is gruesomely brutal. I still think it was somewhat of a freak injury and without it Chuvalo would have given Frazier a tougher fight but nonetheless a great performance by a young Frazier. He mixed in good footwork along with his upperbody movement, left hooking and combinations to the body. Just shows that against a slower man than Ali, Frazier looked near invincible.

Highlights:

[dm]xf1ib9_frazier-chuvalo_sport[/dm]

 

he wasn't going down,wheredo you see that?he simply was protecting hes eye at that point.nobody ever put chuvalo down.

 

With a more sadistic ref, he would have taken a knee or been knocked down within 3 or 4 clean shots.

He wasn't doing anything offensive from that point on if it had continued.

Imagine that fight with the ref from the Williams-Jack fight... It would have got ugly.

 

Exactly Pete.

This version of Frazier was hungry and determined. By the time he got to Foreman he was lazy and disinterested. Chuvalo landed some pretty good shots against Joe and did back him up. Notice Joe's conditioning and footwork at this time in his career? I would add the Ellis fight with this as his best perfomances. Even against Ali in the FOTC, Joe wasn't as disciplined as he was here. He was mad as hell against Ali and was loading up on the left hook trying to knock him out. Joe threw a lot more jabs and right hands that he didn't against Foreman.

 

For all those who discredit Chuvalo's handspeed, take a look at the combination he threw at 1:23-1:26.

 

Chuvalo could throw some very decent combinations, it's just that his feet were as if stuck in cement.