by Phil Pepe
However, while the eight leading heavyweights were deciding who would be recognized as champion by the WBA, would there by anybody to fight? That was Durham’s risk, that was the fear of the minority Cloverlay dissenters. But Yank had made no mistakes in his handling of Frazier up to now, and he had earned the right to do as he wished.
To many boxing people, it was astonishing that Yank Durham was so shrewd, so cunning after only a few years in the business. That’s the mistake many people made. When he began handling Frazier, Durham was going on forty-five years old and most of those years had been spent preparing himself to make the decisions he was now making for Joe Frazier in the name of Cloverlay, Inc.
“I always had a theory,” he says, “that if left alone with a fighter who would listen to me, I’d be successful. I knew what I know now ten years ago. I got my ideas from listening to people, from watching them do things. I saw guys put fighters in remote training camps for weeks, up in the woods, away from everything, and treat them like animals. A guy could go crazy. I knew that wasn’t for me. I let them live their lives. But the fighter has to listen. I’ve retired prospects that didn’t. I tell them to quit fighting, to go get a job. I treat my fighters this way . . . any deal I make, the fighter can be right there, listening. The only thing I ask in return is hard work. Conditioning is what I stressed.”
These are ideas and theories that did not come to Yank Durham the day Joe Frazier walked into the PAL gym. They are part of the wisdom picked up over a lifetime spent in hundreds of gyms like the one on Twenty-second and Columbia.
Yancey Durham was born in Camden, New Jersey. “On Berkeley Street,” he emphasizes. “In 1921.” That means he has pushed past the half-century mark and for most of those years, he was just another former fighter trying to scratch out a living training fighters in what was a slowly disappearing business.
“I had nine fights as an amateur,” he says. “Not counting eleven bootleg fights.”
“A ‘bootleg fight,’ ” Yank explained, “is where you go someplace and get ten dollars. Places like Glassboro, Scranton, Pittman. They’d give you some flukey name and you’d fight. I fought on cards with Tony Galento, John Henry Lewis, Freddie Steele, Fred Apostoli. I thought I’d be a fighter.”
Then came World II and Yank’s career as a boxer came to an end during an air raid in Liverpool when a jeep ran him down and he suffered compound fractures of both legs, a fractured skull and a few broken ribs. He spent two years in hospitals. “I still thought I could fight when I came back home,” he says. “I was twenty-five, but I went to the gym and worked with Harold Johnson. I wanted to see what I could do. I was still a middleweight. But I couldn’t get in shape. I didn’t give myself a chance. I was supposed to be training, but I’d have a girl in the gym with me and I was thinking more about going off with the girl afterward than I was about training.”
The crusher came one day when he was working in a Philadelphia gym, sparring a few rounds with a fellow named Ellis Stewart. “The ring broke,” Yank says. “I fell and cracked a rib. The doctor told me to forget about fighting.”
He could forget about it as a fighter, but he couldn’t abandon the game entirely. He began working with fighters, amateurs at first. Then he managed little-known, unsuccessful professionals whose names would be nothing more than that even to the most avid boxing fans. That was in 1952 and he had to wait more than ten years before a Joe Frazier came into his life, quite accidentally.
Durham has settled down considerably since his early carefree and wild days. Now somebody else does the training and he goes home to his wife and four young children, Nancy, Yancey, Mark, and Chandler Marcellus.
The name Marcellus has no significance, Yank says. “I didn’t know that was Cassius Clay’s middle name at the time my boy was born.”
Marriage was the first good thing that happened to Yank Durham. The second came in 1962, only Yank didn’t know at the time how good it was. He was working with some of his fighters in the Twenty-third PAL gym the day Duke Dugent brought him over to look at the roly-poly kid who came in off the streets because he wanted to lose weight.
“He came into the gym weighing between two hundred and thirty-five and two hundred and forty pounds. And all I saw was that he was a strong boy who needed to get that weight off,” Yank recalls. “I didn’t pay too much attention to him at first because these kids come into the gym all the time, then they quit when they find out how much work it is.
“His punching power was tremendous, so I told him to come back and we might make something out of him. You tell a lot of kids that. Most of them get discouraged. Joe kept coming. This fellow liked to work. He’d get up at three or four in the morning to run, then he’d come to the gym. He was powerful, he was determined, and he didn’t mind working. If they’re not there to work, there’s no sense bothering with them.”
Yank Durham and Joe Frazier have been together ever since, through the amateurs, through the early days, right up to Frazier’s ascension to the top of the boxing world. In a sport in which shotgun marriages and early divorces between fighters and managers are commonplace, the longevity of the Frazier-Durham wedding is a tribute to the manager. So is the success of the team.
If Frazier is to be given credit, with justification, for knocking off everybody in his path, Durham must also be credited with teaching, training, and pacing Joe’s career, calling the shots in the name of Cloverlay.
For the team to have succeeded for so long, there has to be a rapport, a meeting of the minds and a delineation of authority. Durham did the training and Frazier did the fighting Yank called the shots, but Joe had to believe in him. First there was the matter of style.
“People used to come into the gym to see Joe work out and they’d tell me, ‘Why don’t you teach Joe how to box?’ Well, I say this ain’t his way, it ain’t necessary for him to be a boxer. It takes a boxer ten rounds to do what Joe gets done in two or three. A good boxer don’t really hurt you. You just suddenly feel sleepy and that’s it. Now Joe, he destroys a man with power. When Joe gets through with a man, he’s all busted up. To win a fight don’t take him ten rounds, it only takes two or three, so why do I want to make a boxer out of him?
“I figured this way,” Durham continued in typical nonstop fashion. “Joe was a strong boy with great power. Let’s make him go right in. What we had to do was shorten his punches. You don’t want to have a fighter wind up before he punches. He couldn’t be a Hurricane Jackson or a Rocky Marciano. If he was going in, though, he’d have to learn to slip and slide. His offense is his defense and his defense is fighting.”
The reference to Marciano is interesting, coming from Durham, because many boxing experts have compared Frazier’s style to that of the late, unbeaten heavyweight champ—similar physiques, power emanating from their legs, both willing to take a few punches to get in a few. But Durham gets uptight at the comparison.
“You never saw Marciano slip punches the way Joe does,” he growls. “Joe is more of a Henry Armstrong type of fighter. No heavyweight ever threw punches as fast as Joe. Fifty-six a minute. He can rack up thirty points a round. That’s welterweight speed. He may not move around the ring so fast, but those hands . . . look out.”
Naturally, Frazier and Durham have had their tense times, no more and no less, though, than a lot of other people who like and respect each other but must work together on a day-to-day basis. The foundation of their relationship has been an ability to understand each other, to recognize that there are going to be differences of opinion and to keep them to a minimum and not to let them blow up out of proportion.
“I let him ask questions,” Durham says, “I don’t tell him. It’s a good relationship. Joe hasn’t changed any through the years. He’s the type of guy who never talks back. If we get into an argument, he’ll turn and walk away. The only problem I’ve ever had with Joe is that he wants to start training too early and work too hard. Towar
d the end, he gets evil. I’ll say six rounds and he’ll say eight.”
For Joe’s part, “Yank is all right. You know Yank, he’s the boss. Whatever he says goes.”
If a reporter asks Frazier why he worked only four rounds or who his next opponent might be, his inevitable reply is, “Ask Yank. That’s his department.”
“Me and Yank?” says Joe Frazier. “We’re together, man.”
Sometimes it seems they are together more than as fighter and manager. Sometimes it seems Yank Durham is both fighter and manager, an impression Durham creates by his habit of referring to his fighter in the first person. “I boxed six rounds today” or “I knocked that guy out in three” or “I’m fighting Jerry Quarry in New York next month.” It sounds pompous, as if Durham and Frazier were one and the same, or as if Durham were the more important of the two, but it’s not meant that way. It’s just Yank’s style and Frazier usually listens to such talk with an amused smile. Usually.
It wasn’t until the purses started getting substantial that Yank finally gave up his job as a welder for the Pennsylvania Railroad. Now he looks forward to retirement, or at least semiretirement. He anticipates not working so hard. He’s been at it all his life and now that it has finally paid off, he would like to enjoy life a little more, to spend more time with his young family.
“I’m not sure I want to go on beating my brains out,” he says. “Who wants to be away from home so much? Who wants to have no private life? When does it become time for a man to live his own life?”
In the future Yank would like to do something in radio. He talks wistfully about a career in announcing. One thing Yank Durham likes almost as much as boxing is talking. “But,” he emphasizes, “none of that play-a-record, talk-a-little for me. I want to be a regular announcer.”
It would be easy for Yank to keep riding the gravy train, one fight a year for a big purse for, say, five, six more years. But he wants out as much for his fighter as for himself.
“It’s in writing,” he says. “When I tell Joe to quit, he quits. No one will ever say I let him stay around and become a shot fighter. You’ll see.”
When retirement is mentioned to Frazier, he replies as he does to all questions concerning his boxing future. “It’s up to Yank.”
Yank Durham is a hulk of a man who is perpetually on a diet and perpetually looking as if he needed to go on one. He has a full head of snow-white hair and a trim little mustache, but easily the most impressive thing about him is his voice. It’s a deep, resonant voice that comes from deep in his bowels and inspired famed sports columnist Red Smith to dub him “the black Everett Dirksen.”
It’s his smooth purr of a voice that embellishes Yank’s reputation as a slick operator. Boxing promoters have found him to be a stubborn, hardheaded business man . . . stubborn and hardheaded, but fair. When the biggest money of all was about to come in, it was Yank who made the catch, serving in the unique position of negotiator for both fighters, Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali.
It had been agreed by both sides that Frazier and Ali would get equal shares when they fought. Durham had a pretty good idea how much it would take to make the match. He sat back and let the offers come in, screening them to find the valid ones. There were dozens. But when it came time to put up the money, only Jerry Perenchio came through. The price was right, the money was certified by a bank and only then did Durham decide the Perenchio group was the one to get the promotion. He made his recommendation to Ali’s people; they approved; and the fight was made, owing to the groundwork done by Yank Durham.
When it comes to business, Yank Durham has no friends. Money talks. “If somebody came with an offer,” Yank says, “I’d tell them to let me see the money. When this man [Perenchio] came up with the money, he got the fight.”
The turning point in Frazier’s career came on November 21, 1966, and it came because of a chance Yank Durham was willing to take. He sensed that Frazier was ready for a veteran pro like Eddie Machen and his hunch paid off.
Now, Yank Durham was about to take his second gamble. He thumbed his nose at the World Boxing Association.
Buster
The suspension of Muhammad Ali and the accompanying stripping of his title and three-and-a-half-year exile were a black mark on the face of boxing. Many praised the action on political grounds, but even Ali’s staunchest critics deplored it as bad for the sport. For all his mouthing off, for all his controversial political and religious views, Muhammad Ali was good for boxing. He fought often, putting his title on the line nine times in three years, creating interest in the game and keeping his division active. Without him, there would be a huge void. Undoubtedly, his successor, whoever he might be, would suffer by comparison, would be deemed unworthy of wearing the crown that had been yanked from Ali’s head.
Only in retrospect can it be said that Muhammad’s absence proved a boon. It created opportunity. It developed new faces. Ali had slowly depleted the heavyweight ranks of its best talent, knocking challengers off in rapid succession and creating the legend that Muhammad was unbeatable. At the time of his suspension, there were no legitimate challengers ready to take a meaningful crack at the title.
What Ali’s absence meant to Joe Frazier is incalculable. It is almost a certainty that Joe would have been led to the slaughter and tossed in against Ali long before he was ready. Eventually, ready or not, the public would have demanded that Frazier take his turn at trying to shut up “Big Mouth.” And Joe would have taken that shot prematurely. The result might have been disastrous.
The WBA tournament was on—without its No. 1 contender, Joe Frazier. Yank Durham stuck to his guns. It didn’t mean that Frazier had to rust from inactivity, though. Not for long, anyway. He signed to fight in Madison Square Garden on March 4, 1968, against his old opponent from amateur days, Buster Mathis.
The match had been made as part of a doubleheader card that would inaugurate the newest Madison Square Garden, the fourth Garden. It was to be a gala evening. Construction of the new Garden had been completed just weeks before and this would be the first boxing event in the new building, which would carry on its tradition as the world’s boxing mecca. The Garden name and boxing had long been synonymous. In fact, John L. Sullivan, the first heavyweight champion in boxing’s modern era, fought in the first Garden on July 17, 1882.
The new building was a beautiful structure, designed in the modern cantilever fashion. Unlike its three predecessors, the fourth Garden was round, permitting it to be constructed without pillars or posts. Befitting the gala occasion, the Garden signed Emile Griffith to defend his middleweight championship against Nino Benvenuti in the third of their interesting series of title fights. Their bout would be followed by Mathis-Frazier. But something was missing, and somebody got the idea to turn the Mathis-Frazier contest into a championship fight. The proposal was submitted to the New York State Athletic Commission. On the theory that everybody must have a heavyweight champion, New York State, not governed by the World Boxing Association, decided to sanction the fight as a title bout, the winner to be recognized in New York as heavyweight champion of the world. Durham had scored again. Instead of getting Frazier involved in a long-drawn-out and crowded elimination tournament, he could snatch a share of the vacant championship with a single fight.
It was a logical match. Joe Frazier was the No. 1 heavyweight in the world, even in the judgment of the WBA. Mathis was a colorful and popular fighter, not ranked quite so high, but easily a salable heavyweight.
Frazier was a favorite in New York. He had scored two of his most important victories there, beating Oscar Bonavena and stopping the unstoppable George Chuvalo. Mathis was unbeaten in twenty-three fights as a pro and had scored three of his victories in the Garden. Admittedly, Buster’s competition wasn’t the best, but he was a good draw in New York and he had those two decisions over Frazier in the amateurs.
Joe and Buster were friends. Th
ey had spent a great deal of time together during the Olympics and had gotten to know each other, but they remained fierce ring rivals. Frazier, in particular, felt the spur. He could not forget the two defeats he suffered to Mathis in the amateurs, defeats he believed were completely unwarranted. He felt he had won those fights. He still believed it, and he watched them on film over and over as if to remind himself that he had a score to settle. In fifty-nine fights as an amateur and pro, those two defeats to Mathis were the only marks on an otherwise perfect record—it rankled.
In the customary prefight bravado, Mathis confidently stated that he had beaten Frazier twice before and would do it again.
“That was a long time ago,” Frazier insisted. “Fighting in the amateurs compared to the pros is like two different worlds.” Frazier had little respect for Mathis’ record as a professional and the odds makers concurred, tabbing Joe a 2 to 1 favorite. “Mathis?” Frazier would say. “Oh, yeah, he’s the one who fights those guys that get carried in on crutches.”
The patter continued throughout their training periods. As a gimmick, Frazier sent Mathis a wooden figurine in the shape of a devil and added a tiny placard that told Mathis where he could go.
“Joe, he have a simple sense of humor,” Mathis countered. “Imagine him giving me this thing. He’s liable to get me mad. But you can tell him this for me. I got a nice gift for him.” Mathis raised his right hand and balled it into a clenched fist.
“Buster say that?” Frazier said. “Shoot. He don’t know no better. All this talk, you can be sure of only one thing. Once the bell ring, he gonna run like a thief.”
When Mathis announced that he would be married a month after his fight with Frazier, Joe sent the following telegram: “Congratulations, Buster. Couldn’t happen to a nicer fellow, but suggest you advance the wedding to March 5 because you’ll sure need a nurse after I get through with you on the night before.”