How about one of these three @Russell? This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected
I love the pictures from that set, did you see the rest of them? I dig the grizzled look but he was going blind for years, had diabetes and all sorts of health issues. Shame he didn't have Ali or Foreman's money and passed away at 67 instead of 74 like Ali. I'm bitter, so what?
Yeah I was actually going to suggest that one, but I like the faraway contemplative yet content gaze the one I posted had. I'm totally in Frazier's camp, I've always had issues with how Ali treated him, he was racially abused by Muhammad who gets a pass for that a little too easily. He was on Howard Stern several times when I was in my teens, so that version of Joe was the first one I was really introduced to, so I think of it with fondness and at the same time sadness for him.
Frazier was an incredible person. A guy with a busted arm that never properly healed who overcame it by developing the literal perfect punch with that not fully functional arm? That's incredible. Ali portrayed him as some dumb goon and mocked him in a plethora of ways, including bringing in a nasty racial element. He tried the same sort of racial strife to promote fights with Bugner, Wepner. Now you have people getting in trouble over "cyber bullying", but back then? No one ever stood up for the understated and quiet Frazier when he was being race baited and humiliated in public to an audience of millions. He didn't exactly have the charisma or a gimmick to defend himself with like Ali. He was a clown in a circus he didn't want to be a part of. I don't know. I can't imagine how bitter he must of been after how hard he worked only to get shafted like that by someone he previously gave a bunch of money to, to help him during his exile. His damn kids ended up getting bullied at school because of fallout from his career. He lived the rest of his life in that same kind of stunted situation and it never sat well with me. Ali is the consensus 1 or 2 best ever at heavyweight, but a real ******* who actually said and did some fairly awful things. Also Frazier beat him in perhaps the biggest fight of all time, and it was either the best or a close second best win of all time. In the modern age, nothing else really comes close besides Duran/Leonard. /End rant.
What's the closest we've seen to Joe Frazier since he retired anyway? I want to see a "little" heavyweight come along and bob and weave and just crush bigger opposition. Tyson did it, but I was too young to actively follow the sport then. I would just love to see an iron willed smaller heavyweight pressure fighter, with an endless engine, grind down and beat up the likes of lazy Jarell Miller or Chris Arreola. It's a damn feel good story, like when LHW Adamek upset Arreola. I'm so sick of seeing guys like Brazeale or however you spell his name. Imagine Joe Frazier's pressure against someone like that, or Anthony Joshua, who could barely deal with the pressure of a decent but domestic level Whyte...
1/20 - Adam Lopez vs. Daniel Roman - 12x3 WBA World Super Bantamweight Title Eliminator 1/21 - Cedric Vitu vs. Isaac Real - 12x3 EBU Super Welterweight Title 1/25 - Chayaphon Moonsri vs. Melvin Jerusalem - 12x3 WBC World Minimumweight Title Roman SD Vitu UD Moonsri UD