Why did "Lewis-Tua" of '00 fizzle in heat / action over its 12 rd limit? Your words.

He's probably sucking his gut in for the cameras but also not bending down which makes it look worse.

Tua was bulked up and heavier than he should have been, but not horribly fat as is sometimes made out to be by Tua's supporters who believe a little too much in his supposed prime abilities. He was what he was, a short, stocky puncher. Far from the type of boxer that gave Lewis problems.

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lennox reach and height was too much for tua.
its the same with vitali and wladmir using the jab expertly and the shorter guys knowing if they get inside they'd eat a big right hand before they land anything. suprised tua didnt steam in, he wasnt as elusive as tyson.
but his chin as amazing.

 

Tua's hair got in his eyes.

 

It was the haircut

 

Tua did not choke against Ike ... he fought a tremendous fight that was a give and take war and deserved to edge out the decision ... te reality was that Tua could be outboxed, especially when he was not in top shape which was often the case in his post Ike career .. for him to come in at 245 v.s. Lewis was a terrible move and Lennox was simply too big and too good ...

 

I think the reason the fight was a bit flat, was not that Tua was fat or unmotivated, it was that he had the misfortune of fighting the premier Heavyweight of the last 15 years at his absolute best.

Lewis was brilliant that night, in a performance that showed Lewis could of competed with any of his peers of the last 110 years or so.

 

At the end of the day, even if Tua came in top shape at a solid 226lbs, he always had slow plodding footwork & was always greatly troubled by even decent jabs, due to his lack of elusive headmovement. There was no way he was going to solve the puzzle of how to get past the great telephone-pole jab of Lennox. I think the first Rahman fight in '98 proved Tua could never beat Lewis. Tua lost 8 rounds in a row & was getting dominated by Rahman's jab, but he was allowed to land 3 nuclear lefthooks on/after the bell at the end of the 9th, so when round 10 came about, it was simply a case of getting rid of his still hurt foe, albeit with a somewhat premature ref stoppage.

 

Even at his best Tua was outboxed over the course of long fights in the same exact manner by far more limited fighters. It was his stamina and relentless pressure that allowed him to win a lot of those fights. Once he took fitness out of the equation he was reduced even more. He would most likely have never beaten Lewis, but he could have given himself a better chance.

 

What did Tua's thighs measure? Frazier's thighs were recorded at 27 inches when he was at his slimmest during his professional career, under 200 pounds in 1966. When Joe had trouble fitting those thighs in his pant legs, he first walked into a boxing gym specifically to lose weight, so he was actually trying to minimize the size of his thighs. (Today, Frazier would definitely have been competing around 230, his weight for Jumbo Cummings. He was approximately 250 when he started boxing. Just a thick, stocky, powerful man who had to train insanely hard to get his weight close to 200.)

The much bigger Tex Cobb had thighs which measured 30 inches (making him a powerfully deadly kick boxer), but his legs were hardly those of a super heavyweight power lifter. (For Tex to be able to perform a full split at his size was impressive though. The sheer force of his kicks against Big John Jackson in their PKA showdown actually slowed Cobb down a bit as that matched progressed, but Jackson indicated they were the hardest blows he ever absorbed in competition.)

 

Did Frazier often have a "walk around weight" in his prime years of 250lbs?

That certainly would be very impressive training down to drop a whopping 45lbs to fight at a trim 205lbs!

Do you believe he could be fast & elusive fighting at 230lbs? :think

 

Well, that walk around weight of 250 pounds was before he became an athlete. He was always a diligent trainer during his years in competition, and exerted himself considerably in the Foreman rematch at 225, moving around the ring in an atypical side to side and reverse pattern. He didn't gas in the Nassau Coliseum, but got caught by George after his contact lenses reportedly got knocked out, compromising his ability to accurately see and avoid Foreman's shots. However, his mobility for four and a half rounds at nearly 25 pounds above his peak weight at age 32, after Manila, against maybe the best HW ever at cutting off the ring, was much better than might have been expected.

Yes, I absolutely believe he could have been fast and elusive fighting at 230 pounds while in his early and mid 20s, before arthritis hindered his body as it did Braddock's. Against Jumbo Cummings in 1981 at about that weight, he sidestepped quickly, demonstrated much better boxing skills and hand speed than his younger and bigger opponent, and surprising stamina when pushing 38 years of age, clearly winning the ninth round. (Round ten is not currently available on youtube.) Joe competed in the championship round era when a premium was placed on minimizing weight.

This clip of him competing in a swimming event at the inaugural Superstars competition (and nearly drowning) gives some idea of what his walk around physique looked like when he wasn't training for a bout. He's obviously thick and solid, but clearly not 250 pounds. That shot of his physique when between matches comes up at :55. (I like how he bounces up on the platform several seconds before anybody else steps up, something which hints at his spirit. And he didn't even know how to swim! "How was I to know unless I couldn't, unless I tried it?" Smoke has mad guts.) Now, this took place in March 1973, a couple months after he lost the title to Foreman at a weight of 214, and four months before he took on Bugner in London, so it's probably safe to say this shows his walk around physique when not in training.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPk2zl5s6xM[/ame]



Here's Frazier utilizing those powerful thighs to win a bike heat in that competition the hard way, by coming from behind to overtake Rod Laver from way outside, redeeming himself for the swimming debacle. (He also finished second overall in the weightlifting competition, despite never having touched a barbell in his life, to a man who trained with weights for competition. If Smoke had any training or technique at all in how to lift weights properly, he would have won that event easily. He clearly had the most functional physical strength of anybody in the field that year, but the Superstars was then a brand new novelty, and these athletes were all pioneers tentatively feeling their way through a new concept.) Joe later gassed badly at the halfway point after jumping out to a huge early lead in the bike final, showing that he wasn't in competitive boxing shape at the time. If he was in the kind of condition he was for Bugner at 208 later that July, he likely wins the bicycle final.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uqNsun3KnQ[/ame]

 

Thanks for the superb detailed response & rare footage. :good

I was impressed by both Foreman & Frazier in the rematch. People say Foreman was far from his best post-Ali, but in that fight he was utilizing his boxing ability on top form, perhaps greater than in the Chuvalo fight. I was impressed by the Frazier who was meant to be shot too. Sure he was badly past-prime, flabby & damaged goods from the FOTC, Foreman I & Thrilla fights combined, but his side-stepping mobility was much more than decent.

I've never seen the Cummings fight. Is it worth watching on youtube? I assumed it would be a miserable affair, like the depressing Ali-Berbick or Tyson-McBride. Do you think Frazier deserved a close decision rather than a draw? How did Joe's side-stepping ability against Cummings compare to in the Foreman rematch?

I would guess Frazier is about 235lbs there? Or would you suggest something like 240lbs? Certainly a long way off 250lbs when he started boxing, but i can see he's naturally a big man in comparison to his fighting weight. Smoke is a gutsy man indeed as we know from his courageous ring performances, i'm surprised he did so well with zero swimming experience! I think a lack of stamina in his untrained shape was what hindered him from continuing.

Frazier showed natural athletic ability here, & again it was his stamina while untrained which held him back, the difference being he could've feasibly won the bicycle final if he'd actually trained as you said. Is there footage of Joe doing the weightlifting? I looked but he wasn't in the Superstars '76 video. For Smoke to have such functional strength it just shows how strong Ali & George were... perhaps they both would've won the weightlifting competition Frazier competed in?

 

Yes, Wlad has had many boring fights

But Lewis - Tua was indeed extremely boring fight!

I was watching this fight with my uncle, and he LITERALLY fell asleep after the 3rd round

 

I think it is worth watching, even if only as part of an education to his career. Beyond that, he was simply more exciting to watch than Ali usually was when Frazier wasn't sharing the ring with him.

Of course Frazier wasn't the Smoke of old, but I think if you didn't know who either of these fighters were, and enjoyed watching fisticuffs in the ring, I don't believe you'd have felt ripped off as a spectator. Joe always did his best to give an audience their money's worth, and the commentary of others who have watched this fight on youtube express surprise that Frazier performed as well as he did. Despite the years of rust and arthritis, I felt he demonstrated respectable hustle and energy for somebody pushing 38 who was coming back from an absence of five and a half years. Many expected that Jumbo would use his weight trained physical strength and muscularity to overpower Joe like Foreman had done, but it didn't quite work out that way for Cummings. Others I've spoken to who watched it don't seem to have been depressed about it like many who sat through Berbick-Ali. Really though, there's no substitute for watching it yourself and forming your own conclusions. No, it's definitely not Holmes-Ali. Smoke hardly resembled a cadaver in this one. Interestingly, the then 15-1-0 Cummings had won his last victory, and this one draw on his record began a career ending six fight losing streak. Jumbo later hurt Frank Bruno far, far more seriously than he ever did Frazier.

The action begins at 4:05. (You may decide to view it with the volume off if the utterly incompetent announcing becomes too grating. If I knew how to delete the sound of that commentary without losing the other live sounds of the fight, I would.) Frazier-Cumming has eight parts because the uploader mainly separated it by rounds (with round ten not included).

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIFeg0BAa0o[/ame]

Well, your guess is really as good as mine here with respect to what his weight was then. If I were to meet Joe, this is one of the questions I'd ask Frazier himself. Judging from the footage though, his body does appear to be in better tone than Ali's was for Young and Berbick.

Here's that weight lifting competition. Joe's form couldn't possibly have been worse. He was almost as ill suited for this event as he was for swimming. Keep in mind that he couldn't lock his left arm out straight due to the hog wrestling injury as a youngster which ironically led to the development of that hook. Peter Revson's form was infinitely superior, and Killy also demonstrated some know how, yet Smoke handily beat them both. Everything he does here is with sheer brute force, and he powers the heavier weights up very slowly. (Bob Seagren likewise displays impressive physical strength in winning, but the military press was a part of his training regimen for the pole vault.)

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrtDitGCOBk[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUTxgTEdZTA[/ame]