You might say heavyweight great Joe Frazier, who was so often cast in the shadow of his arch-rival, Muhammad Ali, was finally handed his flowers in the quite superb ‘Thrilla in Manila’ documentary from HBO, that came out in 2007. Well, now, in the equally brilliant – indeed, the must-see – ‘I am Joe Frazier’ film, Joe really does get a massive bouquet handed to him. Posthumously, of course.
Joe, who sadly passed away in November of 2011, this from cancer, would love the new film. And so did I. And so will you.
The film, that is directed by Pete McCormack, is written by McCormack, and is so very kindly available to watch now, features contributions from: Thomas Hauser, Tim Witherspoon, George Foreman, Larry Holmes, Al Bernstein, Tyrone Mitchell Frazier, Michael Bentt, Joe Hand, Joe Hand Junior, Darren Prince, Burt Watson, Richard. T Slone, and, in archive footage, Ron Lyle.
Beginning, well, where else, at the beginning, the film shows us how truly tough Joe’s formative years were. As a graphic in the film says – it was ‘Southern Uncomfort.’ Joe, having trouble with the law – “racial problems, you know,” as Joe himself says in the film – was sent from Beaufort to New York, this on a bus, on his own, at age 15. Joe would live with his aunt, and he would find work, famously, at a slaughterhouse. Wanting to lose weight “so that clothes would fit me,” Joe, who was 230 pounds, entered a gym. There, he found out he “had a punch.”
Yank Durham spotted Joe and his talent, and the great ring career Frazier thrilled us all with began. Now, plenty of fans are no doubt familiar with Joe’s story, but the new film, while reminding us all how great, how humble, how special, how likeable Joe really and honestly was, finds some new nuggets.
Of course, a large portion of the new film focuses on Frazier’s epic rivalry with Ali, but here too there are revelations. Did you know, for example, that to his dying day, Joe swore a man wearing white stepped into his dressing room inside Madison Square Garden, this just before his ‘Fight of the Century’ classic with Ali. Despite strict security, and a firm ‘no-one may enter’ rule, a solitary Frazier supposedly spoke with the man and, thinking – believing – it was God, asked if he would be forgiven if he killed Ali in the ring that night. Apparently, the mysterious figure said yes, Joe would be forgiven.
And as fellow heavyweight giant Foreman says in the film, Joe was himself willing to die rather than lose to Ali during that unforgettable night in March of 1971. Joe of course won the fight, by 15 round unanimous decision. Yet as the new film points out, again, Joe was still in Ali’s shadow. But the fight, one of the real classics of all-time, “stopped the world,” as artist Slone says in the film. “The people in Northern Ireland, who were having their troubles, apparently, they stopped fighting, and they watched the fight on the same TV in the bars. It stopped the world,” Slone says.
“That was the greatest fight of all-time, and Joe Frazier won that fight,” says Witherspoon.
Joe, hospitalised after the war, this mostly due to high blood pressure, then ran into Foreman. Incredibly, Frazier fought Foreman a second time. But that came later. First, Joe and Ali took each other to hell in October of 1975.
“It wasn’t water anymore, it was blood,” former fighter Bentt says, referring to Joe’s water bottle and the state it was in towards the end of the utterly brutal ‘Thrilla in Manila.’
Joe, blinded (and blind in one eye since the mid 1960s) was as we know pulled out by Eddie Futch. To this day, fans everywhere wonder what might have happened had round 15 been permitted to go ahead that day of almost 50 years ago. In the new film, Joe says he is not angry at what Eddie did that day.
“I’m not mad about it,” Joe says of his trainer’s decision to pull him out. “Because I can see. I can walk; I can talk. I can have a good time.”
Frazier fought on, with him facing Foreman again, in 1976, and then, in 1981, Joe took a fight with Jumbo Cummings – this a sad year for Frazier and Ali, as the film reminds us; Joe drawing with Cummings, Ali losing to Trevor Berbick. Joe then became a trainer, and there is some amazing stuff in the film regarding the fate of some of Joe’s kin.
Ali offered an olive branch to Joe in 2001, as has been documented. Ali said he was sorry for the nasty things he’d said about Joe and to Joe, and that he would take Joe as an ally any day if ever a holy war was called for. Joe, famously, told Ali to shove his apology. But did you know that Ali, fighting the ravages of Parkinson’s at the time, shot back to Frazier’s agent Prince how he should tell Joe “when you see him that he’s still a gorilla!” This aside, the recollections Prince has of Joe and Ali coming together, their shoulders resting on one another, this in 2001, is truly moving.
The love/hate/respect rivalry between the two greatest heavyweights of their time never did come to an end.
Oh, yeah, one more thing: despite what Ali was fond of saying, Joe Frazier could sing!
Check out this superb film as soon as you are able to do so.
