At the end of the day, I respect the man. I believe at the end of his life, he was fighting to get that respect. HBO broadcaster Larry Merchant, who became close with Frazier after covering him as a reporter in Philadelphia, was crushed by the news. It was his fights with Ali that would define Frazier. Though Ali was gracious in defeat in the first fight, he was as vicious with his words as he was with his punches in promoting all three fights -- and he never missed a chance to get a jab in at Frazier.
Frazier, who in his later years would have financial trouble and end up running a gym in Philadelphia, took the jabs personally. He felt Ali made fun of him by calling him names and said things that were not true just to get under his skin.
Those feelings were only magnified as Ali went from being an icon in the ring to one of the most beloved people in the world. After a trembling Ali lit the Olympic torch in in Atlanta, Frazier was asked by a reporter what he thought about it. He mellowed, though, in recent years, preferring to remember the good from his fights with Ali rather than the bad. Just before the 40th anniversary of his win over Ali earlier this year -- a day Frazier celebrated with parties in New York -- he said he no longer felt any bitterness toward Ali, who suffers from Parkinson's disease and is mostly mute.
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Herring-Stevenson takeaways: Shakur silences his doubters; Herring has nothing left to prove. He and his wife Florence Smith divorced in Frazier remained with his longtime girlfriend of forty years, Denise Menz, until his death.
In September Frazier was diagnosed with liver cancer. The disease quickly spread, and he soon was in hospice care. He died at his home in Philadelphia on November 7, We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Subscribe to the Biography newsletter to receive stories about the people who shaped our world and the stories that shaped their lives. African American boxer Joe Louis, who reigned as world heavyweight champion from until , is regarded as one of his sport's all-time greats.
As head football coach at Pennsylvania State University, Joe Paterno was one of the most successful coaches in the history of collegiate football. His reputation was marred, however, by the university's child abuse sex scandal in , which resulted in his dismissal.
Baseball legend Joe DiMaggio set a record with his game hitting streak in and won nine World Series titles during his 13 years with the New York Yankees.
Professional football player Joe Montana led the 49ers to victories in four Super Bowls, including consecutive wins in and Shoeless Joe Jackson was a top major league baseball player during the early 20th century who was ousted from the sport for his alleged role in game-fixing. Joe Biden is the president of the United States.
He also served as Barack Obama's vice president from Muhammad Ali was a heavyweight boxing champion with an impressive win record. He was also known for his brave public stance against the Vietnam War. Ali's standing was earned the hard way, by refusing induction into the Army during the Vietnam War. The decision cost him his title and an almost four-year layoff from the sport. Meanwhile, the man who won the heavyweight championship in his absence -- the 12th child born to Rubin and Dolly Frazier, sharecroppers from Laurel Bay, South Carolina -- was unforgivably cast as the "white man's champion.
Each man came wielding a legend in his left hand. For Ali, it was the jab; for Frazier, the hook. If they each recalled archetypes -- the Stoic and the Fabulist -- they were even greater together than by themselves. Together, they made an art of endurance. And the way that they did -- the qualities with which they fought, their abilities to withstand both cruelties and physical punishment -- feels today as if those prayers were answered.
To look at the recently remastered tape from Madison Square Garden suggests a film, or maybe several by the late director Sidney Lumet, which is to say something very specific in both palate and mood, time and place. It was the early '70s, and New York -- for all its turmoil and incipient decrepitude -- felt like the most potent city in the world. It was the American capital of sports, television and intellectual life. On March 8, , however, they would all converge. There were cops and mob guys and hustlers and Playmates and everywhere one looked an abundance of stars including mere writers, who counted as stars in that long-ago, far-away town.
It was a star, by the way, who pulled off the evening's most unlikely coup: Frank Sinatra finagling an assignment as a ringside photographer for Life magazine. Still, the most arresting description of the evening isn't visual but auditory. The intervening decades have done nothing to diminish the din. Merchant has heard it again since -- in the 10th round of the first fight between Evander Holyfield and Riddick Bowe, and in select spots during the trilogy between Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales.
But again, only in moments. That night was different. There was a sound -- a kind of buzz, really -- that sustained itself throughout the round contest. There were 20, in attendance. The judges' scorecards -- all for Frazier -- merely tallied the winner of each round. Under today's point must scoring, Frazier would likely have won the 11th -- in which the ropes seem to keep Ali upright -- and the famous 15th -- in which Ali was felled for the first time -- by margins.
But the scores are mere arithmetic. None of them reflect the majesty of the evening. As did Kilroy, whose sympathies were a matter of record. Still, neither man would argue with the result. You'll see men who are smaller and slower than you might have remembered them as a kid. They couldn't compete with today's players. But that's not the case here. Most heavyweights of today are bigger than Ali and way bigger than Frazier, who weighed pounds the morning of the fight.
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