Rewind to January 1973 and the exotic location of Kingston, Jamaica. Not too many experts were predicting a George Foreman win in his challenge of the unbeaten Joe Frazier. The fight, dubbed “The Sunshine Showdown,” shocked the boxing world. Now, there were plenty of enormous shocks generated by the heavyweight division alone during the 1970s, but Foreman’s slaughter of former slaughterhouse worker Frazier ranks as one of the biggest.
But going in, one man had predicted a Foreman win. Foreman, all 6’3.5” and approx. 218 pounds of him, was unbeaten but largely untested. Frazier, at a little too heavy 214 pounds, was almost two years removed from the greatest win of his career, this the triumph over Muhammad Ali in the so-called “Fight of the Century” (a fight that just might have earned the distinction). While a big rematch between Frazier and Ali was widely anticipated, two big upsets got in the way. First, Foreman turned “Smokin’ Joe” into a human yo-yo, sensationally knocking him down six times inside as many minutes to rip the crown. And then, a couple of months later, a largely unknown Ken Norton broke Ali’s jaw on the way to a decision victory.
Frazier-Ali II would have to wait.
Foreman, looking like an absolute killer in Jamaica, with him saying later he even begged Joe’s trainer Yank Durham to stop the fight for fear of landing some permanent hurt on Joe, seemed set for a long, long reign. But Ali’s great trainer, Angelo Dundee, had predicted a Foreman win over Frazier, and he was already plotting Ali’s return to the throne. Dundee may not have felt Foreman would win so easily and in such brutal fashion, but the wise old trainer had told Foreman with a smile that he would win.
“I saw him before the fight,” Angelo told the Toledo Blade after the January 22 fight. “I said, ‘George, we want to talk to you after you win.’”
To which Foreman replied, “You know, Angie, you’re one of my favorite people.”
Foreman, 38-0(35), who had smashed 3-and-a-half odds along with Frazier, was now Ali’s target. The main man of the division, Foreman, was in no mood to think about his next fight, though. Foreman instead said he was going to travel around, speaking to kids, telling them they could achieve their dream too. And it would be some months before Foreman and Ali fought. For now, Ali was training, lightly as it turned out, for first a fight with Joe Bugner and then his date with Norton. Foreman was basking in his glory. Frazier seemed finished, the manner of his crushing defeat telling some people he would never, ever be the same again. So, what had Dundee seen that told him Foreman could beat Frazier? What did Dundee see in the new champ who told him Ali would beat him and regain the title? Put it this way, Dundee, sometimes criticized as a trainer quite unfairly, had a fine boxing mind, and he could see things a less cerebral person could never see.
And sure enough, things came full circle for Ali: he would first gain revenge over Norton, then over Frazier (who, of course, did come back), and then “The Greatest” shocked the world himself by sending Foreman toppling in Africa in October of 1974.
But on this day 52 years ago, George Foreman was the baddest man on the planet, and he might never, ever lose a fight. That’s the way minds worked at the time, courtesy of Foreman’s pulverizing of Frazier. But Angelo Dundee’s mind worked a different way.
