muhammad ali interview on frazier-foreman

Yeah, you may be right. It also says something about the preparations for the fight. George was after all already before the fight known as abnormally strong and powerful, much more so than anyone Joe had met previously. You'd think that they at least would have had some thought on how he would act if knocked down and hurt, since this was a wholly different animal in terms of size, strength and power than anything he'd known perviously.

But the total lack of a contigency plan is of course the hallmark of an overconfident champion.

 

If Bonavena had resorted to Foreman's well known tecnique of shoving Joe back and manhandling him more he may have gotten that third knockdown. He seemed to lose his heart for it when Joe back burrowing back in to him near the end of the 2nd. oscar was certainly strong enough to shove Joe off of him..who knows, maybe one of those wildly thrown blows of Oscar's may have paid off.

 

Certainly George Foreman's power and strength was well-known by that time. He had broken Luis Pirez's arm in a bout in the fall of 1971. However, the feeling at the time among most sportswriters was that George, a large, crude slugger, was Frazier's cup of tea, and that Foreman was just not ready to face a Joe Frazier. That's why Frazier was a 3-1 favorite going into the fight. And I believe that feeling led to an attitude of overconfidence in the Frazier camp. If I remember correctly, Joe came in at 214 pounds for George - 10 pounds over his best fighting weight, similar to his weights against Daniels and Stander. Joe and George were both undefeated prior to this fight, but Frazier was overconfident, overweight, and unmotivated. Despite this, most felt that Frazier's style would trump Foreman's style, whereas the reverse proved true.

 

Yes Joe was heavy which Ali noted aswell as a lack of fights but it's easy to say George is crude when you haven't felt his power when he did connect. Ali hadn't experienced that power at that time. I'm sure i read in his bio that the first time George did connect on his jaw he went into a dream state and taking a punch from Foreman was like getting hit with a sledgehammer but Ali still said he punched like a girl in the ring at the time LOL - you gotta love Ali's unbeatable fighting spirit

 

That the chip was off Joe's shoulder after the FOTC can be discerned, I believe, in his interviews following the defenses against Daniels and Stander. He had nothing left to prove, and no longer had the drive to attain public acceptance as champion. He was now a rich man, a mainstream celebrity, and seemingly set for life. I don't think even a second defense against Ali would have been sufficient to rouse him to his former trim. He candidly admitted he was now in it strictly for the money. For whatever it's worth, Smoke did come in over three pounds lighter for Foreman than Stander, suggesting that he made a more concerted effort in training for Jamaica.

Coming in at 208 for Bugner as a former champion, he still just didn't look the same, maybe because he knew in his own mind that he no longer had the potential to defeat the man who dethroned him. Kinshasa renewed his hopes.

For the rematch with Foreman, his mobility was especially shocking given the sheer weight of his huge lead testicles. A ridiculously gutsy choice to step back in the ring with George after Manila, but he was certainly discussing a potential fourth bout with Ali during the post fight press conference in the Philippines, and probably would have needed to somehow get through Foreman to get one more crack at Muhammad.

 

I remember Ali saying before Frazier-Foreman II that "if Joe beats George, he's got another title fight." At that time, Dick Young wrote in his Daily News column "... tonight Joe Frazier will go into the ring against George Foreman to answer the question - if I had trained properly the first time, would I have beaten George. The answer is yes - he would have. But it is three years too late now." While George was clearly the betting favorite in the rematch, he was not the fans' favorite. I watched the fight on closed circuit TV in Asbury Park's Convention Hall, and when Frazier was introduced, the place erupted with cheers. With Foreman, it erupted in boos. Interestingly, Joe entered the ring with his head shaved, probably a psychological tactic. He looked a bit roly-poly in the ring, and with his defensive maneuvering bore little resemblance to the Smoke of old. Still, it was a tactic designed to take George into deep water in the later rounds. The crowd cheered wildly especially at the end of the first and second rounds after Joe had survived without being even knocked down. But as we know, it all ended in the fifth for Joe.

 

Interesting, that Dick Young wrote that a properly trained Frazier would have definitely beaten George in Jamaica. Even I believe the FOTC took too much out of him for this. I wonder how many other scribe eyewitnesses shared his opinion.

Did Futch act to preserve Joe's pride by halting Manila and Foreman II before in ring action would have caused an independent halt to the contests? (Carlos Padilla says he would have given Smoke about 45 seconds to rally before stopping Manila in the 15th, while the three knockdown rule was in place for Frazier's rematch with George, something Joe fortunately or unfortunately didn't have to contend with in Kingston during round one.)

 

:good An unbeatable fighting spirit plus flawless nerve.

 

A 1972 title defence against Ali would revived the 'eye of the tiger' in Frazier. I reckon that it would have been similar to their '74 rematch except for the 15 round distance,obviously. Muhammad would have regained the title,albeit after a fairly close one.

 

Whats kind of bull**** is Ali talking about, saying that he did'nt really lose the first Frazier fight, it was'nt even close at the end of the fight, Frazier beat him around the ring and absolutely dominated him from 11 onwards,

 

Based on what happened in '74, I'm not entirely sold on anything less than a rubber match firing up Joe as necessary for another great performance. Their middle bout was a good scrap, arguably better than any of the Ali-Norton trilogy, but Smoke didn't have the same spark he carried into the FOTC and Manila. (Now, the Ali of fight two against the Frazier of fight one is an excellent debate, because the Ali of January 1974 was probably the fastest and most mobile version of Muhammad to compete during the 1970s.)

Stevie, a 1972 rematch certainly would have been more timely for Joe, as he would have been younger with less progression in his arthritic physical deterioration, but it couldn't have been the huge event 1971 produced with two undefeated HW champions squaring off, and only Ali would have really been out to make amends for getting decked and having his jaw swell to grotesque proportions. (A first time match in 1972 or late 1971 might have been even more scintillating though, but Ali had no way of knowing in late 1970 that a supposedly adverse SCOTUS would rule 8-0 in his favor on June 28, 1971. The FOTC took place on March 8th, his case was argued on April 19th, and he only returned to competition against Ellis a month after that verdict was handed down. How the FOTC goes down with that ruling in his favor prior to his 1970 comeback, giving him all the time he needed to fully sharpen in competition is a worthy question. He clearly rushed into the FOTC ahead of those legal issues, and did amazingly well, but still spent a lot of time against the ropes he may not have needed to with a couple more longer bouts under his belt first.)