Public perception of George Foreman going into the first Frazier fight

I was a FRAZIER FAN, he was one of my heroes as a kid. I remember shaking my head wondering what was he thinking?

 

We did go see the rematch closed circuit. My friend Gregg and I bet my late friend (who I mentioned in my previous post) $10 on Frazier...heck, small potatoes just to get a little excitement going among us!
Do you remember this?
When they came center ring for instructions, they took their hoods off and Joe...was BALD!; seemingly ready to kick butt.
Gregg and I were going nuts, with Mike shaking his head saying it doesn't mean a damn thing, which of course was correct.
An exciting night in my boxing memories...

 

He was considered formidable, but I personally though Joe was going to stop him as he appeared to robotic at times. Just goes to show.....

 

The consensus was that he was a dangerous puncher, but that he had feasted on fairly weak competition while building up an impressive record.

He was a 3-1 underdog

The revisionists say now, "Oh, Ali ruined Frazier. Of course Foreman stopped him." That's not the way it was perceived going into the fight.

 

I think at the time it was assumed that nobody could beat Ali or Frazier and this was just a stop on the way to the long awaited rematch. I was 14 and a huge Frazier fan and when I heard the result on the radio, they said that Foreman had won by a 2nd round TKO, I automatically thought at first that it must have been a cut, because I could not comprehend that Foreman had actually beat the **** out of Joe. That was how I perceived the two of them at the time

 

Yes it was

 

Untrue. AFTER the fight they were saying that. Before the fight few gave Foreman any chance of beating Frazier

 

Just because someone's a favorite, that means they were in their absolute prime? Nobody thought Frazier was still at his peak back then.

 

That was NOT the perception going into that fight. Joe was unbeaten, hwt champion and had bested Ali. Joe was thought of as unbeatable at that stage of his career. This bout was looked on as a stepping stone to Ali Frazier 2 and that is all. Few gave George a chance. Of course the tune changed after 5 minutes of fighting. The fight was then called a massacre along the lines of Dempsey Willard and 3 years later few gave Joe any chance in their rematch. Table completely reversed themselves.

 

Brash young, George Foreman, a strapping, handsome athlete, destroyed Frazier in less than two rounds Monday night but the observer would like to make one thing loud and clear.
Muhammad Ali had a big hand in the demise of the world heavyweight champion. Without taking, one iota of credit, away from Foreman's electrifying and sensational piece of work, Frazier was not the human howitzer who beat Ali on March, 8, 1971. It was generally agreed by those of us who saw that fight in New York that Frazier took a terrible head beating in slugging his way to a fifteen round decision. And from his sluggish showing Monday night, it was apparent he had never recovered." Source:http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=lHlQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=dBEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7050,1368041

 

Yes, AFTER the fight, when your cited article was written, it was easy to say this - in Hindsight.

Find us ONE article written GOING INTO THE FIGHT that (the theme of this thread) predicted Foreman would roll over a "shot" Frazier. Good luck with that.

 

Your post confirms my original historically accurate comments.

 

Um, as I said Frazier was still favored but it's not like everybody thought he was in tip top shape. I can and will find an article to prove it.

 

Will you stop lying! Frazier was NOT favored to beat George Foreman going into their rematch in 1976! Everyone understood a Frazier win would be a huge long shot.

 

When did I say right now that he was favored?