by Phil Pepe
All the talk helped the Garden do brisk business at the box office. Five other states—Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maine, Texas, and Massachusetts—threw in with New York and announced they would recognize the Mathis-Frazier winner as champion. But the British Boxing Board of Control, while it could not sanction the winner of the WBA’s tournament, turned thumbs down on the Garden fight. It recognized Muhammad Ali as champion and would continue to do so unless he should be committed to prison. “We are behind the claims of Frazier as number one contender,” said board secretary Teddy Waltham, “but we do not consider Mathis a suitable contender for the title.”
Meanwhile, militant black groups planned to picket the fight, to protest the deposing of Ali as champion. Black poet LeRoi Jones said, “Even though Buster Mathis and Joe Frazier might tell white people that they are the heavyweight champion after this fight, they will never come in the black community claiming they are the heavyweight champion. They know that little kids would laugh them out of the streets.”
As he wound up his training at the Concord Hotel in Lake Kiamesha, New York, Joe Frazier was getting irritable. It was a good sign, a sign he was ready to rumble. The pattern is always the same in Frazier’s training camp. His stays there usually last about seven weeks. In the first five weeks, the atmosphere is serene, relaxed. He wakes up each morning at five, runs two or three miles, returns to his room and naps until noon. Then he has breakfast, takes a walk and relaxes until it’s time to go into the gym in the early afternoon.
He works out for about an hour, doing calisthenics, hitting the light and heavy bags, boxing with his sparring partners, Ray Anderson, Billy “Moleman” Williams, Don Warner. After dinner, at five, Joe takes it easy, watching television or joining the crap games that always seem to be in progress in Frazier’s camp.
Unlike many fighters, Frazier does not live apart from his sparring partners. He works and plays with them—spends most of his time with them—although he is the star and they are the hired hands and the difference in their bank balances is several hundreds of thousand dollars. When he is away, Joe calls home several times a day. He always phones in the early evening to be sure to talk to the kids before they go to bed.
In the final ten days, Joe starts snapping at people, particularly reporters who ask the same questions he has already answered several dozen times.
“That’s good,” says Yank Durham. “It means he’s ready. When he gets mean like that, I keep away from him.”
The crowd that filed into the new Madison Square Garden on March 4, 1968, was not unlike the crowd that opened the third Madison Square Garden on December 11, 1925, when Paul Berlenbach met Jack Delaney for the light-heavyweight championship of the world. Instead of arriving in trolleys, carriages and on foot, they came by subway and limousine. But it was a celebrity-studded crowd, the kind always found at heavyweight championship fights. The new Garden was filled almost to capacity, with 18,096 patrons, who paid $658,503, a record indoor gate.
In the early going, Mathis was in control. Surprisingly agile at two hundred and forty-three and a half pounds, giving him a weight advantage of thirty-nine pounds, Buster was boxing superbly and piling up an early lead as he scored with quick left jabs and solid combinations. After four rounds, Mathis was ahead on two of the three official scorecards. Referee Arthur Mercante scored it a shutout for Buster, judge Jack Gordon had Mathis ahead, three rounds to one, while judge Tony Castellano had Frazier in front, three rounds to one.
Both of their amateur fights, won by Mathis, had been over the four-round distance and now, as professionals, the pattern was exactly the same—Buster bouncing, moving, jabbing; Frazier in inexorable pursuit, banging to the body in hopes of slowing his opponent so that he could nail him with crushing hooks. But this fight was for more than four rounds. It was scheduled for fifteen and Mathis had never in his career gone past the seventh round.
All three officials gave Frazier the fifth, but in the sixth Mathis opened up with his best flurry of the fight. He stung Frazier three different times with combination punches. One, in particular, was a beauty. Buster drove a left to the body, a right to the jaw, another left to the belly and then brought up a right uppercut to the jaw.
Frazier flicked the punches off and kept coming. He seemed indestructible. In the seventh, the fight began to turn and Mathis was not to win another round. Buster slowed perceptibly and now Frazier’s body punches, wild in the early rounds, began to drive home into Mathis’ huge carcass—a most inviting target.
As Frazier drove hook after explosive hook into Mathis’ midsection with sickening thuds audible throughout the vast, new arena, Buster’s guard slowly began to drop, exposing his head. It was the opening Frazier was looking for and he altered his attack, moving forward relentlessly and firing smashing left hooks to his opponent’s head. A series of lefts split Mathis’ nose, sending blood gushing, splattering the canvas and Buster’s white nylon trunks until it seemed he was wearing red trunks.
In the early rounds, Buster had been on his feet in his corner, ready to come out before he had used up the full sixty seconds of his rest period. Now, he remained on his stool until the bell sounded and Frazier was standing, waiting to go back to war. Mathis was fading and Joe knew it and he could hardly wait to get on with the carnage. More and more, Mathis was holding Frazier and referee Arthur Mercante pulled him apart and shouted, “Let go.”
“Work, Buster, work,” Frazier chided as he slammed the big fellow with body punches. By the end of the tenth round Frazier had pushed into the lead and it seemed only a matter of time before he would punish Mathis into quitting.
As the eleventh round started, Mathis was a beaten fighter. The bounce had vanished from his legs and he was practically powerless to stop the wave after wave of punches that a tireless Frazier fired from a slight crouch, punches that derived their power all the way from the squat legs, anchored solidly on the canvas. If Buster picked off one punch or slipped another, there were two, three, four, five more that came behind the first one and found their mark.
Late in the eleventh round Frazier moved in for the kill. He shot a short, savage right hand that landed flush on Buster’s chin and then almost instantaneously a left was on its way to Mathis’ right temple and Buster went down. His legs slipped out from under him as if someone had yanked a rug away, and he flopped backward, his head hitting the bottom of the ropes, head and shoulders slithering outside onto the apron of the ring, blood streaming from his battered nose.
Mathis lay there for several seconds, his eyes rolling around in his head, his chest heaving. At the count of four, he began to move. At six, he struggled to get to his feet, but his legs were unwilling and he stumbled into a corner, on his knees as the count reached eight. He stared vacantly at ringside and he tried, once again, to get to his feet. He was up, but swaying, at nine and just as the count reached ten, referee Mercante waved his arms over his head calling a halt and went to Mathis and threw a solicitous arm around the big man’s shoulder.
“The man said ‘Nine, ten,’ and I said, ‘Eleven, twelve . . .,’ ” Frazier quipped later. Officially, it was a TKO in 2:33 of the eleventh round, but there was no doubt as to the outcome. Joe Frazier was heavyweight champion of the world . . . at least he was the heavyweight champion in the states of New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maine, Texas, and Massachusetts.
Later, in the dressing room, they asked Frazier if he felt like the champ. Joe bristled. He’d been annoyed that certain members of the press, particularly those in his hometown of Philadelphia, were reluctant to give him the credit Joe believed he deserved. “Just what did that look like to you out there?” he shot back, his words a Joe Frazier hook to the jaw.
While Joe exulted in his new role, even if his title was recognized in only six states, the WBA’s tournament labored along to its conclusion. On April 27, 1968, fifty-four days after Frazier won his crown and thirteen months after it
started, the tournament came to an end with Jimmy Ellis winning the title in a fifteen-round decision over Jerry Quarry in Oakland, California.
The natural match was between Frazier and Ellis to clear up the muddled heavyweight picture. But efforts to get the two champions into the same ring would be fruitless for almost two years. In that time, Ellis defended his title only once, beating Floyd Patterson in a disputed fifteen-round decision in Stockholm on September 14, 1968.
Yank Durham, on the other hand, kept his champion active. On June 24, 1968, just sixteen weeks after he won his title, Frazier kayoed Mexican champion Manuel Ramos in two rounds with a brutal attack in the Garden. Six months later, Joe handed Oscar Bonavena a terrible fifteen-round beating in Philadelphia. Bonavena’s only consolation was that he had completed twenty-five rounds of boxing against Frazier and never left his feet.
On April 22, 1969, in Houston, Texas, Frazier recorded the second fastest knockout in a heavyweight championship fight when he disposed of Dave Zyglewicz faster than you can say . . . Dave Zyglewicz. The official time was 1:36 of the first round. It was no great triumph. Boxing writers mocked Frazier for the ineptness of his opponent and wondered, in print, when Joe was going to fight a heavyweight of stature. They were satisfied when Frazier was matched with tough Jerry Quarry, the WBA finalist, in Madison Square Garden on June 23,1969.
As if to prove his courage to the doubting New York press, Quarry threw logic out the window and made the mistake of trying to slug it out with a slugger. Somehow, Quarry must have known he’d come out second best in that kind of fight. But he did prove his point. Quarry had courage. Wisdom? That was open to question.
For four rounds, it was one of the most brutal battles in heavyweight history—a war—with neither fighter willing to give ground. They just stood there, toe-to-toe, and exchanged hard shots to the head as defense was abandoned. One magazine writer described it this way: “They were like two Mack trucks meeting in the street. They would smash into each other, then back up and smash into each other again.” Late in the fourth round, Quarry smashed Frazier with a left hook to the jaw, as hard as you can hit a man. But Joe never budged, never backed off. He looked his opponent in the eye and he spit the words out through his mouthpiece.
“You through?” Frazier said. “Because it’s my turn now.”
And it was Joe’s turn. Perhaps discouraged that firing his best shot was like trying to chop at Stone Mountain with a nail file, Jerry Quarry was through. He was through pitching, he wasn’t through catching. Frazier teed off and Quarry proved his courage by taking everything Frazier had to give and remaining on his feet. But when the referee stopped the fight in the seventh, Quarry’s face was a piece of red meat surrounding two razor slits in place of eyes.
Joe Frazier had done his bit to mop up the heavyweight division, defending his title four times in a year. For the first time, he was acclaimed by the critical press, who now were willing to acknowledge him as the best heavyweight in the world, apart from Muhammad Ali.
Now there was only one match, Joe Frazier vs. WBA champion Jimmy Ellis for the undisputed heavyweight championship of the world—undisputed, that is, except for the exiled Ali. Already, the promotion was beginning. Ellis had been a witness to Frazier’s destruction of Quarry and he stood in the back of the interview area while Frazier answered press questions. Finally, Jimmy could be quiet no longer. “When are you going to fight a real man?” he shouted.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Frazier replied.
Jimmy Ellis’ time was, coming.
Free at Last
It was billed, quite naturally, as a “Battle of Champions.” Two men, both claiming the heavyweight championship of the world and both with strong support to back up that claim. The World Boxing Association, the governing body in most of Europe and the United States, threw its support to Jimmy Ellis, the winner of its elimination tournament. New York and those five other states recognized Joe Frazier.
Sometime shortly before midnight on February 16, 1970, that dispute would be settled. It would be resolved in fifteen rounds or less in the Madison Square Garden ring and when it was over, there would be only one champion remaining, regarded by all authorities as boxing’s heavyweight champion of the world, the most honored, prestigious, coveted, and richest title in professional sports.
In many ways, the opponents were alike. Both were children of poverty, both were devoted family men, Ellis the father of six, Frazier the father of five. Music was very much a part of both their lives; they both sang, as youngsters, in the choir of their Baptist church, Ellis in Louisville, Kentucky, Frazier in Beaufort, South Carolina.
Unlike Frazier, though, Ellis, twenty-nine, had matured as a fighter relatively late in life. He had started his professional career back in 1961 and for the first four years he was a run-of-the-mill middleweight. When his tonsils were removed, he began to gain weight and grew into a light heavyweight, then a full-fledged heavyweight. It cannot be an accident that his rise up the fistic ladder coincided with a letter written to the respected, veteran fight trainer and manager, Angelo Dundee. Ellis’ career had reached its lowest ebb with three defeats in four fights in 1964. He was having managerial problems and was on the verge of giving up the game. As a last resort, he sat down and wrote a letter to Dundee, appealing to the little trainer-manager for help. At the bottom of the letter, Ellis wrote in huge letters: “H-E-L-P!”
Dundee sent for Ellis and asked him to come on down to Miami Beach to train. He put Jimmy to work as a sparring partner for Muhammad Ali. For three years, Jimmy worked in the gym with Ali, boxing more than one thousand rounds with the heavyweight champ as he helped him prepare for all his important fights. If Ellis was helping Ali, working with Muhammad helped Ellis immeasurably. He learned a lot in those sessions. He learned moves he never knew existed and he applied them to his own style. Slowly, he made the transition from reckless puncher to smooth, polished, clever boxer.
The work with Ali and the association with Dundee had an electrifying effect on Ellis’ career. Under Angelo’s shrewd training and management, Ellis had twelve fights and won them all, including the three that earned him the WBA’s crown.
Ellis defended his title once, then an injury to his nose put him on the sidelines. Coming into the fight with Frazier, Jimmy had not been in the ring in seventeen months. For two years, Ellis’ people and Frazier’s backers had been steadily hurling threats, insults, and challenges at each other, each charging that the other was “ducking me, he’s afraid to fight me.” But everybody knew the match was inevitable and Madison Square Garden finally put it together.
Frazier, now twenty-six, was an outstanding fighter almost from the time he put on gloves; good enough to win an Olympic championship and get financial backing from a syndicate of wealthy and experienced business men. It had taken Ellis eight years to accomplish what Frazier did in four—win a championship.
In the ring, there was absolutely no similarity between them. In fact, you couldn’t find two fighters with such diametrically different styles. Ellis, adopting much of Ali’s technique, was a stand-up boxer who liked to jab and move and punch in classic combinations. He possessed a good, strong, sneaky right hand, which he had used since Dundee became his manager to knock out six opponents, all in the first round. Despite his punching ability, though, Ellis’ fundamental strategy was right out of the boxing book.
Frazier, on the other hand, was more of a brawler and mauler, devoid of defense and finesse. He came right at you without letup. And once he hit you, you knew you were hit. There was power in those left hooks, explosive power. In Joe’s own words, he wasn’t much for fancy stuff. “I just come out smokin,’ ” he said frequently. And he promised to “come out smokin’ ” against Ellis.
Ellis and Frazier both began their training in Miami Beach, but Joe became restless and unhappy in Florida. It was too hot there and he feared the heat would rob him of h
is strength. So he packed his gear and his entourage and went to his northern retreat at Lake Kiamesha. Joe was much more comfortable in New York and his training camp took on the usual air of good-fellowship. Joe boxed with his sparring partners—Charlie Polite and Ken Norton for heavy work, Ray Anderson and Moleman Williams for speed. Anderson and Williams were lighter men and they copied Ellis’ style in sparring sessions.
At night, there were the inevitable crap games and during the day, the indispensable tape recorder blared the familiar hard rock music that Frazier liked to hear as he trained. Joe was a buddy to his helpers, but often he spent time alone. Frazier liked to be alone. Unlike other ring celebrities, he did not enjoy having dozens of flunkies around, catering to his every whim. He treated his sparring partners as equals, not serfs.
“I’m not a crowd-carrier,” he explained. “I like to do things myself. I like to drive my own automobile. I worked for it. Why should I get a chauffeur and let him drive around in my eleven-thousand-dollar automobile? If I can’t drive it, it don’t make no sense to have it.”
He is self-sufficient, a characteristic that extends to Joe Frazier the fighter, and when reporters came around to inquire how he would fight Ellis, Joe told them. “There ain’t no way he can whip me,” Frazier insisted. “Jimmy Ellis is a nice guy and a good fighter,but when that bell rings, I don’t care who that guy in the other corner is. Even if he’s my brother, he’s gonna get beat. I got something I want—the heavyweight championship of the world—and there ain’t nobody gonna take that away from me. That Ellis, he ain’t fought guys like me. Who’d he ever fight who would come after him right at the bell and keep coming for three minutes of every round for as long as it goes? I have to laugh when people say he has a chance because he’s faster than me and he has a good sneak right. My speed is greater than his. I’ll be moving in and he’ll be backing up. Ain’t no man alive can move faster backwards than he can forward. What’s so sneaky about his right? He carries it where I can see it and when he throws it, I’m gonna be sneaking out of the way.