Benny Jay: Joe Frazier

I was at the bowling alley the night Joe Frazier died.

When the news came over the television, I snuck off to the bathroom – didn’t want the boys to see me cry.

Not sure why I got so upset – must be getting old.

Back in the day, I never rooted for Smokin’ Joe.

There was a lot to like about him. He was tough, relentless and fearless. Always went the full fifteen rounds – if he didn’t knock you out with that vicious left hook.

As George Foreman once said: “If you hit Joe, he liked it. If you knocked him down, you only made him mad.”

Under different circumstances, he would have definitely been my man. But….

Muhammad Ali was my man – right up there with Norm Van Lier and Paul Newman.

Back in the `70s, I was one of the guys who laughed when Ali cracked jokes about Joe being big and dumb.

I was dumb and impressionable. If Ali was good than everyone against him was bad.

Including Joe Frazier.

What can I say? I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now — to quote you know who.

Joe Frazier: 1944-2011

 

Sometime in the late `70s I read The Greatest, Ali’s autobiography. Fabulous book, by the way. Let’s take a moment to praise the late great Richard Durham, the writer from Chicago, who co-wrote it.

It’s got a chapter about the time Ali and Frazier drove from Philly to New York City in Smokin’s Joe Gold Cadillac.

This is back in 1970 – several months before they fought the first of their three titanic fights. Frazier was the heavyweight champ because Ali had been stripped of the title after he was arrested for refusing to be drafted.

As Ali/Durham tell the story, Joe wore his “lemon yellow cowboy outfit: yellow shirt, tan Texas hat, brown boots, yellow striped pants.” And he “sat sideways in his seat, like he was riding a horse sidesaddle, so his left hand could spin the steering wheel with a touch.”

I’m telling you — Richard Durham knew how to tell a tale.

During the ride, Ali turned on a tape recorder. Their transcribed conversation takes up almost 45 pages in the book.

And what a conversation!

They talked about everything and anything – girls, sex, life, love, raising a family, black fighters versus white fighters, you name it.

Ali chastized Frazier for the way he dressed. Frazier told Ali he’ll dress the way he wants to.

In their three fights, Ali and Frazier pretty much fought to a draw….

 

They even sang songs. Frazier did The Glory of Love by the Dells. Ali sang It’s All Over Now, Mighty Whitey by Oscar Brown, Jr.

At one point, they passed a couple of white policemen, and Ali quipped: “They must be thinking: `Joe Frazier, Muhammad Ali? Why was them niggers together?’ They think we out here scheming.”

Ali’s envisioned a time when he and Frazier would “go through the ghettos, not forgetting our people because we both earn money and live halfway decent. We could get up in the morning preaching freedom and justice. I know both of us, deep down in our hearts, are sick and tired of seeing black people hungry, catching hell, being shot and killed.”

Alas, it never happened that way.  They were two black men literally fighting their way out of Jim Crow America, by bashing each other near to death.

“While I picked at him and made fun of him in public, underneath I truly admired him,” Ali wrote. “He had the heart of a black fighter.”

Well, like I said, I was always an Ali man. But to be the best you have to beat the best. And that was Smokin’ Joe Frazier.

Tough, relentless, fearless, always went the full 15.  Right up `til the very end….

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