Without The Smoke: Last Philadelphia Days of The Late Heavyweight Champion Smokin’ Joe Frazier and Career Reflections
By Robert Brizel, Head Real Combat Media Boxing Correspondent
In Joe Frazier’s final years, Smokin’ Joe Frazier, without his usual lifelong colorful personality of emotional “Smoke”, suffered from type 2 diabetes, a diseased liver, and underwent surgery for neck, back and shoulder problems. By the time he died in hospice care in 2011, Frazier, 67, also endured financial battles and legal battles, including income tax appeals in court for years, and suing his designated business partners (claiming his signature was forged and he had no knowledge of the sale of his Bucks County Pennsylvania farmland, valued today at over 100 million dollars).
Five years after Frazier made his purchase, a developer agreed to buy the Frazier homestead farmland for 1.8 million dollars. Smokin’ Joe initially received annual payments from the trust set up to buy the land with money he had earned in the ring.
Frazier subsequently sued his business partners, claiming his signature was forged on sale documents, and he was given no knowledge of the sale of his property assets. When the trust went bankrupt, the payments to Frazier ceased, more than likely because the trustees and / or the people with Power of Attorney who had assets to the trust looted it.
Frazier lost his gym and home of nearly 40 years in North Philadelphia on March 30, 2008. His son, Rev. Marvis Frazier, also a former heavyweight boxer of noteworthiness due toh is famous father, had served as its general manager, supervising new talent, since 1990. The gym had opened at 2917 North Broad Street (above Glenwood Avenue) in 1969, a few years after Joe, who memorized eye charts and had legally functional vision in only one eye turned professional in August 1965 after winning a Gold Medal at heavyweight at the 1964 Olympic Games.
Unlike Muhammad Ali (BMG) and George Foreman (The George Foreman Grill), Frazier, who never marketed and sold his likeness and image, would up financially destitute by the time he reached a Ring 8 benefit partially on his behalf. “Joe Frazier’s name means something to people,” his son Marvis noted. Unfortunately, Joe never cashed in on his name and likeness as other famous people and celebrities did, lacking property business savvy and acumen. A collection of health issues, bad investments, generosity, naivete, and bad decisions combined to implode Joe’s emotional and financial resources.
The last 15 years of Joe’s life were a slow but sure downward spiral, a descent Joe was ultimately unable to climb out of. In 1996, Frazier was seriously injured when he stumbled on a stone in the grass while mowing his lawn in Chester County and ran the lawn mower over one of his toes when he fell. At the time, Frazier had been touring the United States promoting his autobiography, co-written with Phil Berger. Smokin’ Joe: The Life of Joe Frazier, written by Mark Kram Jr., was another book on Joe which emerged later.
Frazier, in green boxing trunks, singer and colorful ring figure, fought professionally between 1976 and 1976, with one comeback draw in 1981, and went 32-4-1 with 27 knockouts. Frazier lost twice to Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, beat Ali once, and drew with Floyd “Jumbo’ Cummings in his final bout.
When one looks at the quality of names Smokin’ Joe fought, backwards to forwards from the end of his career, one can be thunderstruck in boxing legend and lore. Joe fought Jerry Quarry twice, Muhammad Ali twice, George Foreman twice, Joe Bugner, Bob Foster, Oscar Bonavena twice, Jimmy Ellis, Ron Stander (who, like Quarry, had knocked out th later blooming top rated heavyweight contender Earnie Shavers), George Chuvalo, Eddie Machen, Doug Jones, 28-2 Dave Zyglewicz, Mel Turnbow, literally a who’s who of the heavyweight division at the time. Missing from Frazier’s ring resume was Sonny Liston, Chuck Wepner, Ken Norton, Cleveland Williams, Mac Foster, Lorenzo Zenon, Larry Holmes, Earnie Shavers, Jimmy Young, and some of the better known names of the 1960s and 1970s. Why Frazier fell silent between 1976 and 1981 happened because he was just no longer of promotable interest after losing to Ali in “The Thrilla in Manila” in the Ring Magazine 1975 Fight of The Year. Joe went 0-2 with one draw in the last six years of his career, an inactivity and lack of wins which signaled the end of his career, one way or the other.
Joe’s appearance with Ali on “This is Your Life” after Ali’s initial 1979 retirement proved, by his demeanor, there was not bad blood between him and Ali, and in his final interviews, joe expressed sincere caring about Ali’s declining mental condition due to the progressive effects of Parkinson’s. Any bad blood Joe had for Ali at times, whether emotional or financial envy, was in his own mind. Ali was a better salesman of himself combined with his colorful personality. Smokin’ Joe was not. Perhaps Smokin’ Joe’s biggest mistake was putting his overprotected and overhyped lookalike son Marvis Frazier, who o held decision wins over Joe Bugner (who went the distance with Muhammad Ali twice) and James Tillis (who went the distance with Mike Tyson) in with Larry Holmes and Mike Tyson. Marvis did not make it out of the first round against Holmes or Tyson, fear factor or otherwise. Joe did not appear as the trainer of any other noted fighters on television, but he could have marketed himself as a boxing trainer or his likeness better.
Looking back, now, it is hard to qualify the rivalry between Frazier and Ali. Frazier first met Ali in 1968 after Joe was World Heavyweight champion, and Ali’s boxing license had been taken away for dodging the draft during the Vietnam War. Smokin’ Joe was passionate and compassionate about getting Ali back into boxing as the two “seemingly” had become good friends. He loaned Ali money during his suspension, testified to Congress on Ali’s behalf, and even petitioned President Richard Nixon to have Ali reinstated. After all, getting Ali back into the ring was a real possibility worth huge Pay-Per-View megabucks at Madison Square Garden in 1971 when it happened the two undefeated heavyweights finally met, a boxing promoter’s “mega dream”, an event more valuable than the Muhammad Ali versus Rocky Marciano computer fight of two versions.
Frazier, nearly blind in his left eye, and Ali brutalized themselves in three grueling memorable bouts the public loved. Both boxers channeled their dislike into an unforgettable rivalry trilogy, trading memorable blows, the most famous being Frazier’s right hook dropping of Ali in the fifteenth round at Madison Square Garden in 1971. In Manila in 1975, like The Garden, Frazier had trained for 15 rounds. Ali expected an early victory in the third match, which ended only when Frazier Eddie Futch refused to let Frazier out for the fifteenth round, telling him “Nobody will forget what you did here, son.”. In an early round clinch, Ali taunted Frazier with “Joe, they told me you was all washed up!” Frazier growled back “They lied!” and proceeded to bow, weave, stick and hook, taking the still talkative overconfident Ali on his third trip to living heavyweight hell.
Styles make fights. Styles also make personalities and longevity. Smokin’ Joe, more than anybody else, knew discipline outside the ring, especially diet, is as important as training for a bout inside the ring. Joe’s defense was evidently superior enough for him to fight with one eye, an emerge from his amateur and professional stellar career of memorable note with his senses and faculties relatively intact to his final breath. His 67 years were not ended by boxing injury. His one-eyed later life was marked by a less than perfect diet, a lawn mower accident, an autobiography, inability to market his image (which had potential major financial value), and financial betrayal by others. In this respect, Joe would not be the first person to have his trust betrayed. When Joe died in 2011, bickering persisted over where he would be buried, but ultimately Philadelphia prevailed. Ali was at the funeral. Through silent eyes, Ali knew when Joe went, his ultimate exit would not be far afterwards. Ali passed away in 2016 at age 74.
The subconscious interconnection between Ali and Frazier, and Ali and Howard Cosell, marked the magic years of the rejuvenation of boxing in the public eye after the loss of Benny “Kid’ Paret, the emergence of the Pay-Per-View sports event, and the concept of sports hype the Ali versus Frazier rivalry generated in the pre-Ray Leonard, Robert Duran, Thomas Hearns and Marvelous Marvin Hagler era, and the pre-Floyd Mayweather Jr. pre-Saul “Canelo” Alvarez era. There was such a thing as a box office draw, and Muhammad Ali and Smokin’ Joe Frazier were it. Frazier and Ali were not Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey, Rocky Marciano, Sonny Liston, Archie Moore, Floyd Patterson, Ken Norton, or Big George Foreman in that sense.
Frazier and Ali represented a publicity colorful magic, when put together, represents the self-reflection of professional sports in their time. When Frazier died, and then Ali died, it represented the end of the effulgent magic era of the heavyweight division, which occurred during a time period of the Vietnam War featuring antiwar dissent which constituted an emotional subconscious revolution. Ali went to the United States Supreme Court and won, getting his boxing license reinstated, with Joe among those supporting his right to fight while maintaining his religious beliefs in his legal corner.
Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali became sports iconic in the John Lennon and Joe DiMaggio sense, bright personalities in misunderstood era who made us forget the world around us was in turmoil, leading into the end of the Vietnam War and The Cold War. It says on Sonny Liston’s tombstone “A man.” Joe was too, and unlike so many other sports personalities, will be remembered fondly with Ali in the winds of boxing time. Smokin’ Joe has been gone for ten years, and love him or hate, Like Ali, it was fun with Smokin’ Joe Frazier while he and Ai traded verbal smoky barbs and innuendoes. Joe dressed and spoke with a certain style, which, when faced off with loud mouth bragging and taunting Ali, generated a certain wild. It was better hearing about Ali and Smokin’ Joe than anybody else back in the day. Even Donald Trump today, with all of the media hype and controversy, could not outdo the public interested in Frazier and Ai when it peaked. The key point is the world is at times a difficult world, and Ali and Frazier, in their moments, were colorful enough to make us forget.
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