Joe Frazier's management style- READ THE FULL FIRST POST

There has been talk lately from detractors of Frazier's legacy about the idea that Frazier's management feared facing powerful punchers and deliberately avoided them. I have explained time and again that this is a misnomer, but these detractors flatly ignore my central arguments. I recently posted the text below in the "Is Frazier underrated?" thread, and although some on my side of the discussion referenced it positively, the detractors ignored it altogether. I believe it summarizes Frazier's choice of opposition during his rise and reign fairly effectively, and as such I am using it in this starting post. If anyone wants to respond, let him read the entirety of my text below and reply to the arguments, NOT IGNORE THEM.

Frazier's first step up against a top 10 opponent was against Bonavena in 1966. This is the annual top 10 for '66:

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Aside from Frazier, I would say Bonavena is arguably the hardest hitter on this list-in other words, Frazier's management chose likely the hardest hitter in the top 10 at the time for his first step up.
Along with Bonavena, the hardest hitters here would be Patterson, Chuvalo and Ramos. Frazier fought Chuvalo the following summer. At the end of '67, this was the top 10:

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The hardest hitters on this list are probably Ramos, Bonavena and Patterson, two of whom Frazier fought within a year.

Come 1968, Ali was stripped of the championship and sent on hiatus, and Frazier was looking to establish himself as champion in the vacancy. The NYSAC chose Buster Mathis as Frazier's opponent for their vacant version of the title; note, Frazier's management did not say, "Let's fight Buster Mathis, he doesn't hit hard"; the NYSAC paired them up for a vacant belt.

Meanwhile, there is a WBC tournament going on for their vacant slice. The top four finishers are Ellis, Quarry, Bonavena, and Spencer- and Spencer drops out of the picture immediately. So, when looking to establish yourself as unified champion, who do you fight? Obviously Ellis, Quarry and Bonavena, all of whom Frazier DID fight in the next year-and-a-half from late '68 through early '70. If Mac Foster and Sonny Liston had topped the tournament, Frazier would have fought them to establish himself as champion. But the fact is Ellis, Quarry and Bonavena did. If you don't think they hit hard enough, that's too bad, but it doesn't change history. There is no ducking or steering going on.

Shortly thereafter, Ali returns and begins his comeback. In the interim before the Ali match, Frazier faces Bob Foster, who is coming off 13 consecutive KOs and has recently scored some of the most devastating knockouts in history. If your MO is to hide your man from punchers, this is a peculiar choice of tune-up. Frazier proceeds to fight and beat Ali; again, this is not some kind of cherry-picking. Neither Frazier nor his management controlled how hard Ali hit or the fact that he was their rival claimant to the title.

The next year, a burnt-out Frazier fights two journeymen in so-so performances. It is true that he did not fight any big-punching contenders this year, but obviously he didn't fight any contender of any kind this year; turning his failure here to face any contender, period, into an indication that he must be afraid of some certain type of contender that is not even the kind he would necessarily need to face if he did fight one is quite the logical leap.

Moreover, if you were facing journeymen in order to hide from the big punchers you wouldn't have had to face anyway, it would be the dumbest thing in the world to then do exactly what Frazier did and turn around and fight George-freaking-Foreman for your first opponent the very next year! Was Frazier's management team schizophrenic? Let me repeat this (as people seem to have a sort of blind spot to it):

If you are a manager who wants to steer his man away from big and hard-hitting opponents, you DO NOT match him up BY CHOICE with the biggest, youngest, hardest-hitting contender on the field who is a 37-0 Gold Medalist coming off 21 consecutive knockouts! Foreman was the first "big puncher" to reach the top three during Frazier's title reign, and he was given a shot like any other contender, even though there was no other special reason to make the fight; he was not a mandatory, he had not beaten any other elite heavyweight, and was clearly not #1 contender. Frazier could have fought Ali, Ellis, Terrell, Patterson, Bugner or Norton, all of whom were in the top 10 and were not nearly so big, strong, young, and monstrously powerful as Foreman; instead, he ELECTED to fight Foreman. I'm not sure there is any way it could be demonstrated more explicitly that he was not afraid of punchers than this.

Let's sum this up:
As I showed at the top, when Frazier's management first started matching him up with top 10 guys in '66-67, a time at which they were simply maneuvering their man up the ranks, they chose opponents who were among the hardest hitters in the top 10 at the time. In '68-early '70, Frazier's management was not simply "picking" fights, but rather was taking the necessary matches for him to establish himself as champion; four of his six fights in this time period (Mathis, Bonavena, Quarry and Ellis) were plainly directed towards this goal. He then faced Bob Foster, who was one of the most feared punchers that breathed coming off 13 consecutive KOs, followed by his rival for the championship in Ali (not Frazier's fault if Ali doesn't hit hard enough for you). After a couple of 1972 "breather" fights, when he returned to the big-time opposition in '73, the first opponent chosen was the biggest, strongest, youngest, hardest-hitting contender alive who was 37-0 (34 KOs) and coming off 21 consecutive knockouts.

Once this is all understood, the argument that Frazier ducked punchers comes down to: 1. ignoring the massive elephant at the tea party that is the Foreman fight, and 2. nit-picking at various tune-up fights and saying, "Why didn't Frazier pick arbitarily-chosen-puncher X for this match-up?" as though this is somehow the natural default option, and if a management team is not digging through the rankings to find the biggest puncher they can get ahold of for each of their man's tune-up fights, they must know he's secretly incompetent against punchers and needs to be carefully protected like a teacup (again, in this scenario they must have been suffering from schizophrenia in '73).

By the kind of logic this position holds to, one could argue that just about anyone is ducking just about anyone. For example:

I say Wlad Klitsckho is ducking Wladimir Virchis.
'But wait!' you say. 'Virchis isn't a mandatory challenger and there's no particular reason for the fight to happen.'
'Yes,' I respond, 'but Wlad recently fought Ray Austin and Tony Thompson, who rank lower than Virchis and don't hit as hard as Virchis does. Plus, I think Wlad has a suspect chin against punchers.' Note that I am here making the logical leap to the view that because (in my opinion) Wlad has a suspect chin, it must be the result of selective management if his opponent is not a puncher.
'But wait,' you say, 'didn't Wlad fight Samuel Peter, who was an undefeated top contender regarded as the biggest puncher in the division at the time, by choice?'
*I pause, then ignore this point and repeat my previous arguments incessantly.

 

You STILL evidently didn't read my post. Answer me honestly- did you or did you not read the entire text in my first post before making this response, which YET AGAIN ignores most of my points?

Most who've compiled such a list rank Quarry and Ellis in the top 50 of all time, although they blipped off the list at the time you're giving the ratings for.

I think Chris Byrd, John Ruiz and Lamon Brewster- who were, if I recall correctly, #1, 2 and 3 a couple years back, were a weaker top three.

We agree, but I say that a four-year run such as the one Frazier had, topped off with a win over Muhammad Ali, DOES clinch a spot as a top 10 all-time great.

We agree, but this in no way indicates a fear of punchers or any type of opponent in particular. Given that Frazier's VERY NEXT FIGHT was a non-mandatory championship defense against GEORGE FOREMAN, I would say that's a pretty ridiculous interpretation; what it really shows is how badly you're going out of your way to try and read things into Frazier's record which just aren't there.

Virchis is no more unknown than Lyle, Shavers or Norton were when Frazier was champion, and Liston was certainly an unknown in the late '60s as well, as he was fighting tomato cans and hadn't beaten a serious contender in years. Virchis is in the top 10, generally ranked from 7-9 these days. I absolutely do not believe that Wlad is avoiding him, but there is as much reason to believe that he is (very little) as there is to believe that Frazier ducked Liston or Lyle or Shavers. We disagree.

Like how Frazier fought everyone who was #1 during his own title reign? Why is the standard "if he gets a #1 ranking" for Wlad, but evidently Frazier ducked everyone he didn't fight who was ever ranked in the top 10????

1. None of those men ever had #1 rankings while Frazier was on top or were ever even in the top three. Foreman, who was bigger, stronger, younger and more dangerous than ANY of those guys, WAS in the top three (but not #1 and not mandatory) and received a shot. There is NOTHING peculiar about this. What IS peculiar is the way that you arbitrarily pick out a handful of opponents who were in the mid-to-lower top 10 or not in it at all when Frazier was champion and ACT as though it's peculiar that they weren't given shots! Ernie Terrell, Karl Mildenberger, Jose Roman, Chuck Wepner, Gregorio Peralta, and a bunch of others were also ranked in the top 10 while Frazier was on top and ALSO didn't receive shots, and these guys fit your notion of being "tailor-made" for Frazier just fine. You just don't fight everybody; Frazier consistently fought every contender who made the top 2-3 during his reign, with an occasional breather fight or two in-between. There is NOTHING peculiar about that either; all kinds of champions did it. It so happens- AND IS A FACT- that the top-three-ranking opponents for most of this period were Quarry, Ellis, Bonavena and Ali. When Foreman joined that group, he was given a shot. There is NOTHING inconsistent, peculiar or selective about it. YOU ARE READING IT IN.
2. See the large, bolded and underlined text which refutes your hypothesis.
3. ARGH!!!!!!! You STILL didn't read my post, did you? There was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING "peculiar" about Frazier's choice of opponents.Frazier's management actually chose the HARDER-HITTING contenders in the top 10 at the time in his early step-up fights, and then subsequently, when he was establishing himself as champion, it is a FACT that he opponents who he had to do this against were Mathis (matched up by the NYSAC), Ellis, Quarry, Bonavena (top finishers of the elimination tournament) and Ali (claimant to the linear title). These ARE the fights in which you're claiming Frazier was fighting "tailor-made" opposition, and they were DICTATED BY NECESSITY, not "hand-picked" or "peculiarly chosen." If you want a fight that Frazier's management actually DID choose WITHOUT any necessity, LOOK AT GEORGE FOREMAN.

 

I never discussed how hard Bonavena or Ramos hit except relative to their contemporaries; when Frazier was moving up for the first time in '66-67, the hardest hitters in the top 10- look at the list yourself- were Bonavena, Chuvalo, Ramos and Patterson, and Frazier fought three of those four men in that very time frame. In other words, far from hand-picking lighter-hitting foes, the opponents chosen when there was no particular imperative were among the harder-hitting ranked contenders. Then, after Ali was stripped of his championship, Frazier faced a series of opponents mandated by their own results in order to establish himself as champion; once he had beaten Ali, he took two fights off of the big-time- you make far to much of this, note; Ali, Louis, Holmes and other champions have made title defenses against opponents every bit as bad or worse than Stander and Daniels- and then came back to FIGHT GEORGE FOREMAN OPTIONALLY.

I DID address your constantly-repeated "Frazier-made-weak-defenses-in-'72" mantra- in fact, I've addressed it MANY TIMES, including TWICE IN THIS THREAD, and you just keep ignoring it! I discussed it in the first post, which you STILL evidently didn't read, and then I answered the reference you made to it in YOUR first post in this thread. READ THIS:

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Notice, I am answering this OVER AND OVER AGAIN, and you are just REPEATING YOURSELF as though I never did. Either you're not reading what I'm writing before you respond, or you're deliberately refusing to acknowledge it.
I address it when you raise what you view as an objection to MY hypothesis. I take what you write, I quote it and I explain what's wrong with it. YOU IGNORE what I write and go back to the same little paradigm of arguments. For example:

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