Up for
auction is a photograph of Joe Frazier on a 1960s
Harley-Davidson FL / FLH Electra Glide.
Olympic and World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Joe Frazier,
known as Smokin' Joe Frazier was a popular champion. Frazier had a bullying
fighting style, depending on bobbing, weaving and power punching. He is perhaps
most famous for his vicious left hooks. Compared to Ali's style, he was close
enough to the ideal bruiser that some in the press and media characterized the
bouts as the answer to the classic question: "What happens when a boxer
meets with a brawler." According to Frazier, he was partially blind in his
left eye due to a training accident in 1965. This would indicate that
throughout his entire professional career, he fought with only partial sight on
his left side. After Frazier won the Olympic heavyweight gold medal, his
trainer Yank Durham helped put together Cloverlay, a group of local businessmen
who invested in Frazier's professional career and allowed him to train
full-time. Durham was Frazier's chief trainer and manager until Durham's death
in August 1973. Frazier turned professional in 1965, defeating Woody Goss by a
technical knockout in the first round. He won three more fights that year, all
by knockout, none going past the third round. In 1966, as Frazier's career was
taking off, Durham contacted Los Angeles trainer Eddie Futch. The two men had
never met, but Durham had heard of Futch through the latter's reputation as one
of the most respected trainers in boxing. Frazier was sent to Los Angeles to
train, before Futch agreed to join Durham as an assistant trainer. With Futch's
assistance, Durham arranged three fights in Los Angeles against Al Jones,
veteran contender Eddie Machen, and George "Scrapiron" Johnson.
Frazier knocked out Jones and Machen, but went 10 rounds with Johnson to win a
unanimous decision. After the Johnson match, Futch became a full-fledged member
of the Frazier camp as an assistant trainer and strategist, who also advised
Durham on matchmaking. It was Futch who suggested that Frazier boycott the 1967
WBA heavyweight elimination tournament to find a successor to Muhammad Ali,
after the heavyweight champion was stripped of his title for refusing to be
inducted into the military, although Frazier was the top-ranked contender at
the time. Futch proved invaluable to Frazier as an assistant trainer, helping
modify his style. Under his tutelage, Frazier adopted the bob-and-weave
defensive style, making him more difficult for taller opponents to punch, while
also giving Frazier more power with his own punches. While Futch remained based
in Los Angeles, where he worked as a supervisor with the U.S. Postal Service,
he was flown to Philadelphia to work with Frazier during the final preparations
for all of his fights. When Durham died in 1973, Futch was asked to succeed him
as Frazier's head trainer and manager. In fact, Futch was also training
heavyweight contender Ken Norton at the time. He was in Norton's corner in
March 1973, when Norton broke Ali's jaw and won a split decision. After Norton
lost the rematch to Ali in September 1973, Norton's managers, Robert Biron and
Aaron Rivkind, demanded that Futch choose between training Frazier and Norton.
Futch chose Frazier, but not without regret at being forced to make the choice.
In 1966, Frazier won a disputed decision over Argentine fighter Oscar Bonavena,
despite Bonavena flooring him twice in the second round (a third knockdown in
that round would have ended the fight). In 1967, Frazier won all four of his
fights, including a sixth-round knockout of Doug Jones and a fourth-round
technical knockout (TKO) of George Chuvalo. In 1967, Muhammad Ali was stripped
of his world heavyweight title due to his refusal to be inducted into the
military during the Vietnam War. To fill the vacancy, the New York State
Athletic Commission held a bout between Frazier and Buster Mathis, with the
winner to be recognized as "World Champion" by the state of New York.
Although the fight was not recognized as a World Championship bout by some,
Frazier won by a knockout in the 11th round and staked a claim to the
heavyweight championship. He then defended his title by beating Manuel Ramos of
Mexico in two rounds, and closed 1968 by beating Bonavena via a 15-round
decision in a hard-fought rematch. 1969 saw Frazier defend his New York title
in Texas, beating Dave Zyglewicz by a first-round knockout, and beating Jerry
Quarry by TKO in the seventh round. The competitive, exciting match with Quarry
was named 1969 Ring Magazine fight of the year. On February 16, 1970, Frazier
became the undisputed world champion when he defeated WBA champion Jimmy Ellis
at Madison Square Garden by a fifth-round knock-out. Ellis had beaten Jerry
Quarry in the final bout of a WBA elimination tournament for Ali's vacated
belt, but Frazier had declined to participate. In his first title defence,
Frazier travelled to Detroit to fight world light-heavyweight champion Bob
Foster, who had set a record for the number of defences in the
light-heavyweight division. Frazier (26-0) retained his title by knock-out in
two rounds. Then came what was quickly dubbed the Fight Of The Century, his
first fight with Ali. This would be the first meeting of two undefeated
heavyweight champions, since Ali (31-0) had not lost his title in the ring, but
rather been stripped because of his refusal to be inducted in the Armed Forces.
On March 8, 1971, at Madison Square Garden, Frazier and Ali met in the first of
their three bouts which was widely called the Fight of the Century in pre-bout
publicity and the press feeding frenzy. With a worldwide television audience,
and an in-house audience that included luminaries such as Frank Sinatra (as a
photographer for Life magazine to get a ringside seat), comedian Woody Allen,
singer Diana Ross, and actors Dustin Hoffman and Burt Lancaster (who served as
"color commentator" with fight announcer Don Dunphy), the two
undefeated heavyweights met in the kind of media-frenzied atmosphere not seen
since Joe Louis' youth. Many factors came together for Frazier in this fight.
He was 27 years old and at his lifetime peak both physically and mentally,
while Ali, 29, was coming back from a three-year absence, taking on Frazier
soon after a bruising battle with Oscar Bonavena, whom Ali had defeated by a
TKO in 15. Frazier had exhaustively trained specifically for Ali under the
tutelage of famed coach Eddie Futch, who had developed a strategy based on
Ali's tendency to throw the right-hand uppercut from a straight standing
position after dropping the hand in preparation to throw it with force. Futch
instructed Frazier to watch Ali's right hand and, at the moment Ali dropped it,
to throw a left hook at the spot where they knew Ali's face would be a second
later. Frazier's staggering of Ali in the 11th round and his knock-down of Ali
in the 15th were both executed precisely in this way. Frazier lost a number of
early rounds but took Ali's combinations without backing down. As Ali started
to slow in the middle rounds, Frazier came on strong, landing hard shots to the
body as well as the powerful left hooks to the head by virtue of Futch's
instructions. Consequently, Frazier won a clear, 15-round, unanimous decision.
Ali was taken to the hospital immediately after the fight to have his badly
swollen jaw x-rayed, and Frazier spent time in the hospital during the ensuing
month. In 1972, Frazier successfully defended the title twice, beating Terry
Daniels and Ron Stander, both by knockout, in the fourth and fifth rounds
respectively. It was Frazier's turn to lose his undefeated record of 29-0 and
position as undisputed world champion at the hands of powerful puncher George
Foreman on January 22, 1973, in Kingston, Jamaica. Foreman towered over the
shorter, more compact Champ, and soon dominated the brief bout. The fight was
stopped in the second round after Frazier was knocked down for the sixth time,
three times in each round (the three knock-down rule was not in effect). The
first of these knock-downs prompted Howard Cosell's famous call, "Down
goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!" After his loss to
Foreman, now 29-1, Frazier won his next fight, a 12-round decision over Joe
Bugner in London to begin his quest to regain the title. Frazier's second fight
against Ali took place in 1974, in New York, with Ali winning a 12-round
unanimous decision. Frazier finished that year with another rematch, knocking
out Jerry Quarry in five rounds. 1975 was, once again, a year of rematches for
Frazier, but this time they involved more overseas travel. He met Jimmy Ellis,
the man from whom he had originally taken the WBA title, in Melbourne,
Australia, knocking him out in nine rounds. That win made him once again the
number-one challenger for the world crown, now held by Ali after an
eighth-round knockout of George Foreman in the famous "Rumble in the Jungle."
Ali and Frazier met for the third and final time in Quezon City (a district
within the metropolitan area of Manila), the Philippines: the "Thrilla in
Manila." Ali took every opportunity to mock Frazier, again calling him The
Gorilla, and generally trying to irritate him (and succeeding) at every chance.
The fight for Ali's title, which was attended by Philippine President Ferdinand
Marcos, caused another media frenzy and was seen live around the world. It was
far more action-filled than the previous encounter (there was no belt at stake
in the second fight), and was a punishing display that ended when Eddie Futch
stopped the fight before the 15th and final round with Frazier sitting on his
stool. Frazier never spoke with Futch again. For his part, Ali described the
match as "the closest thing to death" he had ever experienced. In
1976, Frazier (32-3) fought and again lost to George Foreman, this time by
fifth-round knockout, and retired. Frazier made a cameo appearance in the movie
Rocky later in 1976 and dedicated himself to training local boxers in
Philadelphia, where he grew up, including some of his own children. In 1981,
Frazier attempted a comeback that lasted only one fight, drawing in 10 rounds
with Floyd "Jumbo" Cummings in Chicago, Illinois. He then retired for
good. Since then, Frazier has involved himself in various endeavors. Among his
sons who turned to boxing as a career, he helped train Marvis Frazier, a
challenger for Larry Holmes's world heavyweight title, and trains his daughter,
Jackie Frazier-Lyde. Frazier's overall record is 32 wins, 4 losses and 1 draw,
with 27 wins by knockout. He won 73 percent of his fights by knockout, compared
to 60 percent for Ali and 84 percent for Foreman. He is a member of the
International Boxing Hall Of Fame. Thesedays, the magnificent Joe Frazier lives
in Philadelphia where he owns and manages a boxing gym! It must be very special
being trained by this true boxing legend!
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(racing) photos! Combine auctions and save on shipping.
Size: 8 x
12" (20 x 30cm)
Shipping costs will only be $ 7.00 regardless of how many photos you buy. For 5 or more photos, shipping is free!
All our photos are modern photos that are traditionally made from what we believe are the original negatives and are copyright protected.
(Note: A. Herl, Inc. does not appear on photo, for ebay purposes only)
No copyright expressed or implied. Sold as collectable item only. We are clearing out our archives that we have gathered from various sources.
All items always sent well protected in PVC clear files and board backed envelopes.
They make the perfect gift and are perfectly suited for framing. They will look gorgeous unframed and will be a true asset nicely framed with a border. They are a gorgeous and great asset in every home, workshop, workplace, restaurant, bar or club!
First come - first served. And you can always contact us for your requests. Please ask any questions before the auction ends.