Looking Back At Ali-Frazier II, and the Studio Brawl

Published

11 years ago

January 28, 2014

It was January 17th 1974, which incidentally was Muhammad Ali’s 32nd birthday. Joe Frazier had turned 30 five days earlier. The show actually aired on January 24th, four days before their rematch on the 28th. Eleven days before they met for a second time, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier were guests on the Dick Cavett show, which aired on ABC. The show opened with Cavett going to Ali’s training camp in Deer Lake, PA and watching him train for his upcoming rematch with Joe Frazier.

During the filming that Cavett aired, Ali excoriates Frazier in every demeaning way possible. You know the Ali routine – he goes into how Joe has no style, he’s dumb and can’t talk, how Joe has nothing but a hard head and a left-hook. Ali comes off as very being very dismissive and even funny, as long as you’re not Joe Frazier.

After 10-12 minutes of B-roll footage with Ali, they switch to Frazier’s training camp in Philadelphia, PA. Mike Parkinson, a popular BBC host, is covering Frazier. What can be said about Joe other than he’s a true fighter and is only interested in getting the job done, which is beating Ali again. Frazier is not dismissive of Ali and promises that the rematch will be nothing more than a repeat of the first fight, except it might not go the distance. Incidentally, the Frazier B-roll footage is no more than six minutes.

When the footage of both fighters training concludes, Cavett and Parkinson discuss their experiences at both fighters camps and compare and contrast both men as to their approach to fighting and training. Then Cavett says the last time my next two guest met this is what happened, and highlights of the first clash between Joe and Muhammad appears on the screen. When the highlight ends Cavett introduces Ali and then Frazier as they walk down to the stage from different entrances. Ali and Frazier slap each other five and then sit with Ali on the far left, with Cavett next to him and Parkinson next to Frazier, who is seated on the far right. Cavett moderates most of the discussion with Parkinson occasionally adding his thoughts and asking each fighter pointed questions about the other. The topics covered vary and range from, would you allow your son to box and what does each fighter do to try and conserve energy being that the country is right in the midst of the energy crisis of the early to mid 1970s. At this time George Foreman is the undefeated and undisputed heavyweight champion of the world and both fighters confirm that their rematch is just a stepping stone in order for them to get a shot at Foreman and the title.

During the hour that Muhammad and Joe are the focal point of the show, Ali goes out of his way to demean Frazier and all that he’s accomplished as a man and professional fighter. He belittles everything Joe says and aggressively and passive aggressively goes out of his way to get a reaction from Joe. Frazier is very measured in his response and basically says that he’ll do his talking in the ring on the 28th of January. However, it doesn’t take much to see that Frazier is seething inside and would’ve been happy to settle the dispute right there.

When the filming of the show concluded Frazier left in a haste and vowed that he would not interact with Ali until they were at center ring on the night of the fight, a vow that Joe had to break because they were obligated to sit with Howard Cosell on the Wide World of Sports the Saturday afternoon before the fight to watch a replay of their first fight on March 8th, 1971. This was an appearance that Frazier was hellbent on getting out of because he didn’t want to be subjected to Ali’s words and antics again before the fight. When all was said and done, Joe capitulated to Cosell. What happened was Cosell promised Frazier that he would sit between he and Ali and that he wouldn’t let Ali talk about race, religion, politics or whatever else wandered into Ali’s mind. Cosell was adamant to Frazier that he could keep the discussion on boxing and what happened during their first fight and what will happen this coming Monday night. Frazier gave in and agreed to sit on the same platform as Ali one more time due to him trusting Cosell to keep the conversation on boxing.

Heading into the Wide World of Sports show Frazier was looking to get at Ali this time and didn’t really trust Cosell. Joe was certain that Howard favored Ali and would lose control once Ali started his expected routine. So on January 26th Ali and Frazier appeared on ABC’s Wide World of Sports to review the tape of their first fight, which was being aired for the very first time on home TV. Before the show started Joe’s hostility towards Ali and Cosell escalated because Howard had already broken his first promise – that being he would sit between both fighters. As it turned out, Ali was seated on the far left with Joe being sandwiched in the middle between Ali and Cosell, who sat on the far right. For the first nine and a half rounds of the broadcast, it was Frazier who took a few more shots at Ali instead of the expected opposite. As most boxing fans know Ali went to the hospital immediately after the first fight to get his jaw x-rayed, and then was released when they came back negative. Conversely, on Tuesday, March 16, 1971 Joe Frazier was admitted to St. Luke’s Children Medical Center in Philadelphia. Frazier had been feeling weak, and his blood pressure had escalated. Also, Joe was experiencing ‘flu-like’ symptoms. Eight days later Frazier was released and given a clean bill of health.

During the viewing of the 10th round Frazier brought up the fact that it was he, Ali, who went to the hospital after the fight, a comment that set Ali back and he retaliated saying basically that he was in and out of the hospital in 10 minutes for x-rays. He then continued, saying it was you, Joe, who was in and out of intensive care for two weeks. Ali then says to Cosell can you believe he’s even gonna bring up who went to the hospital, that just shows how dumb and “ignorant” he is. To which Frazier says, “Why you say I’m ignorant?” And with that Frazier took off his head set and got up, saying to Ali, “Why you think I’m Ignorant”?

As Frazier stood over Ali asking why he thought he was ignorant, Ali said sit down Joe in a somewhat diversionary manner. At this time Ali’s younger brother Rahman walked towards Frazier and Joe asked if he was in this too. With that Ali yelled “Quick Joe” and jumped up and grabbed him around the neck as he pulled him down to the floor. The fighters were quickly pulled apart with Frazier leaving the studio, saying I’ll see you Monday night with Ali retorting, “You be there.”

It’s funny because of all the sh*t Ali talked, especially to Frazier, it was Joe who actually drew the first blood when he said Ali went to the hospital after their first fight. And that was because of the treatment Frazier was subjected to by Ali during the taping of the Dick Cavett show. Yes, it was Frazier who went into the Wide World of Sports broadcast looking for the confrontation with Ali which was actually a roll reversal on the part of both fighters.

Ali stayed and finished the broadcast with Cosell but it wasn’t the same without Frazier there even though Cosell did his best to speak on behalf of Joe. The next day both Ali and Frazier were fined $5000.00 dollars apiece for their conduct by the New York state athletic commission.

Two days later Ali won a very quick paced fight via a 12-round unanimous decision (6-5-1) (8-4) (7-4-1). For the rematch Ali weighed 212, three pounds lighter than he was for their first fight and Frazier was four pounds heavier at 209.

The fight is the least regarded of the three epic meetings between Ali and Frazier, although today a heavyweight bout contested at that pace would be deemed an instant classic the next day.

Today, 40 years later Ali-Frazier II is best remembered by some for the studio brawl that erupted two days before the bout. Some suggested at the time that the studio brawl was a hoax and just a ploy to hype the fight. To those who felt that way then or think that way now, you couldn’t be more wrong. Joe Frazier was no actor. He was sick and tired of Ali’s mouth leading up to and after their first bout. Frazier felt that Ali’s personality and bravado robbed him out of his just due for kicking his butt the first time they met. Ali had convinced everyone in the two and a half years after their 1971 fight, that it was he, not Frazier, who actually won, something that couldn’t be further from the truth. Joe knew that he conclusively beat Ali in their only fight to date at that time and never received his due props.

When he went to the ABC studio on January 26th 1974, Frazier was looking to confront Ali in a big way. And when Muhammad called him ignorant, that was all he needed. The studio brawl between Ali and Frazier in January 1974 was real on Frazier’s part. Ali just did what he always does, he took chicken sh*t and made it chicken stew.

Lotierzo can be contacted at GlovedFist@comcast.com

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Frank Lotierzo

With Olympic Boxing on the Ropes, Three Elite U.S. Amateurs Shine in Colorado

Published

2 hours ago

November 5, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Three USA boxers won gold medals at the recently concluded World Boxing U19 tournament in Pueblo, Colorado. The tournament, restricted to boxers aged 17 and 18, attracted contestants from 30 nations and a contingent from French Polynesia.

The U.S. team, represented by eight male and six female boxers, secured 11 medals in all, an impressive haul.

The three U.S. gold medalists appear to have very bright futures if they choose to remain in the sport. They are:

Light heavyweight (80 kg) ELIJAH LUGO (Marrietta, GA)

Lugo has purportedly scored 42 stoppages in his amateur career, the most since USA Boxing began keeping track. The record was previously held by his older brother Nathan Lugo who is currently 2-0 (2 KOs) at the professional level. The Lugo brothers are represented by David McWater (Split-T Management). One of boxing’s most influential facilitators, McWater’s clients include Teofino Lopez.

Middleweight (75 kg) JOSEPH AWININGYA JR (Joliet, IL)

The son of a Ghanaian immigrant who had a brief career as a professional boxer, competing as a cruiserweight, the precocious Awiningya, mature for his age, is a college student majoring in marketing who once aspired to become a nurse like his mother.

Flyweight (50 kg) LORENZO PATRICIO (Waianae, Hawai)

One of eight children. Patricio (our poster boy for this story) comes from a boxing family. Two of his sisters are involved in the sport.

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In addition to the three gold medalists, the U.S. men’s team garnered two silver and three bronze. The U.S. women managed only three bronze, somewhat of a disappointment. Lightweight Shamiracle Hardaway (Lagrange, GA), considered one of the favorites, fell to England’s Ella Lonsdale in the semifinals. Ms. Lonsdale has a wonderful surname for a British boxer.

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The best showing was by fast-rising India which had 17 medal winners including three golds. Although boxer Mery Kom (aka Mary Kom) is one of the most popular sports personalities in India, the South Asian nation, the world’s most populous country, has never had a large presence in boxing, amateur or pro. Ten of the 17 Indian medalists, including two of three gold medal winners, were female.

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Tournament organizers noted that the Pueblo event was the first major tournament in the next Olympic cycle. Left unsaid was that boxing as an Olympic sport is on the ropes (pardon the pun). As it now stands, boxing, one of the original Olympic sports, is not on the docket for the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles.

The International Olympic Committee de-frocked the International Boxing Association, the governing body of amateur boxing, in 2023. The decision was upheld in April by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, an agency headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland.

A new body, World Boxing, emerged from the fallout. The Pueblo tournament bore the imprint of the new organization.

The chairman of World Boxing’s “Olympic Commission” is Gennadiy Golovkin who is also the president of Kazakhstan’s National Olympic Committee. A former Olympic silver medalist whose primary residence is in the Los Angeles area, “GGG” is reportedly fluent in four languages. He is tasked with repairing the rent between boxing and the International Olympic Committee so that boxing can continue to be an Olympic sport. A decision is expected next year.

If successful, it is possible that things may revert to the days when professional boxers were ineligible to compete for Olympic medals.

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Floyd Schofield Wins a Banger and Gabriela Fundora Wins by KO

Published

3 days ago

November 3, 2024

David A. Avila

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Floyd Schofield Wins a Banger and Gabriela Fundora Wins by KO

LAS VEGAS-Shades of Henry Armstrong and Baby Arizmendi. If you don’t know those names, look them up.

Floyd Schofield battled his way past Mexico’s super tough Rene Tellez Giron who walked through every blow the Texan could fire but lost by decision on Saturday.

It was a severe test and perfect matchmaking for Schofield who yearns for the big bouts against the lightweight giants roaming the world.

Schofield (18-0, 12 KOs) remains undefeated and won the war over thick-necked Mexican Tellez Giron (20-4, 13 KOs) who has never been knocked out and proved to be immune to big punches.

In the opening rounds, the Texas fighter came out firing rapid combinations from the southpaw and orthodox stances. Meanwhile the shorter Tellez Giron studied and fired back an occasional counter for two rounds.

Tellez Giron had seen enough and took his stand in the third stanza. Both unleashed blazing bombs with Schofield turning his back to the Mexican. At that moment referee Tom Taylor could have waved the fight over.

You never turn your back.

The fight resumed and Schofield was damaged. He tried to open up with even more deadly fire but was rebuked by the strong chin of Tellez Giron who fired back in the mad frenzy.

For the remainder of the fight Schofield tried every trick in his arsenal to inflict damage on the thick-necked Mexican. He could not be wobbled. In the 11^th round both opened up with serious swing-from-the-heels combinations and suddenly Schofield was looking up. He beat the count easily and the two remained slugging it out.

“He hit me with a good shot,” Schofield said of the knockdown. “I just had to get up. I’m not going to quit.”

In the final round Schofield moved around looking for the proper moment to engage. The Mexican looked like a cat ready to pounce and the two fired furious blows. Neither was hit with the big bombs in the last seconds.

There was Tellez Giron standing defiantly like Baby Arizmendi must have stood in those five ferocious meetings against the incomparable Henry Armstrong. Three of their wars took place in Los Angeles, two at the Olympic Auditorium in the late 1930s as the U.S. was emerging from the Great Depression.

In this fight, Schofield took the win by unanimous decision by scores 118-109 twice and 116-111. It was well-deserved.

“I tried to bang it out,” said Schofield. “Today I learned you can’t always get the knockout.”

Fundora

IBF flyweight titlist Gabriela Fundora needed seven rounds to figure out the darting style of Argentina’s Gabriela Alaniz before firing a laser left cross down the middle to end the battle and become the undisputed flyweight world champion.

Fundora now holds all four titles including the WBO, WBA and WBC titles that Alaniz brought in the ring.

Fundora knocked down Alaniz midway through the seventh round. She complained it was due to a tangle of the legs. Several seconds later Fundora blasted the Argentine to the floor again with a single left blast. This time there was no doubt. Her corner wisely waved a white towel to stop the fight at 1:40 of the seventh round.

No one argued the stoppage.

Other Bouts

Bektemir Melikuziev (15-1, 10 KOs) didn’t make weight in a title bout but managed to out-fight David Stevens (14-2, 10 KOs) in a super middleweight fight held at 12 rounds.

Melikuziev used his movement and southpaw stance to keep Pennsylvania’s Stevens from being able to connect with combinations. But Stevens did show he could handle “The Bully’s” punching power over the 12-round fight.

After 12 rounds one judge favored Stevens 116-112, while two others saw Melikuziev the winner by split decision 118-110 and 117-111.

Super middleweight WBA titlist Darius Fulghum (13-0, 11 KOs) pummeled his way to a technical knockout win over southpaw veteran Chris Pearson (17-5-1, 12 KOs) who attempted the rope-a-dope strategy to no avail.

Fulghum floored Pearson in the first round with a four-punch combination and after that just belted Pearson who covered up and fired an occasional blow. Referee Mike Perez stopped the fight at 1:02 of the third round when Pearson did not fire back after a blazing combination.

Young welterweight prospect Joel Iriarte (5-0, 5 KOs) blasted away at the three-inch shorter Xavier Madrid (5-6, 2 KOs) who hung tough for as long as possible. At 2:50 of the first round a one-two delivered Madrid to the floor and referee Thomas Taylor called off the beating.

Iriarte, from Bakersfield, Calif., could not miss with left uppercuts and short rights as New Mexico’s Madrid absorbed every blow but would not quit. It was just too much firepower from Iriarte that forced the stoppage.

Photos credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy

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Results and Recaps from Turning Stone where O’Shaquie Foster Nipped Robson Conceicao

Published

3 days ago

November 2, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Top Rank was at the Turning Stone casino-resort in Verona, New York, tonight with an 8-bout card topped by a rematch between Robson Conceicao and O’Shaquie Foster with the victor retaining or recapturing his IBF world junior lightweight title. When the smoke cleared, the operative word was “recapturing” as Foster became a two-time title-holder, avenging his controversial setback to the Brazilian in Newark on July 6.

This was a somewhat better fight than their initial encounter and once again the verdict was split. Foster prevailed by 115-113 on two of the cards with the dissenting judge favoring Conceicao by the same margin. Conceicao seemingly had the edge after nine frames, but Foster, a 4/1 favorite, landed the harder shots in the championship rounds.

It was the thirteenth victory in the last 14 starts for Foster who fights out of Houston. A two-time Olympian and 2016 gold medalist, the 36-year-old Conceicao is 19-3-1 overall and 1-3-1 in world title fights.

Semi-wind-up

SoCal lightweight Raymond Muratalla (22-0, 17 KOs) made a big jump in public esteem and moved one step closer to a world title fight with a second-round blast-out of Jose Antonio Perez who was on the canvas twice but on his feet when the fight was stopped at the 1:24 mark of round two. Muratalla, a product of Robert Garcia’s boxing academy, is ranked #2 by the WBC and WBO. A Tijuana native, Perez (25-6) earned this assignment with an upset of former Olympian and former 130-pound world titlist Jojo Diaz,

Other Bouts

Syracuse junior welterweight Bryce Mills, a high-pressure fighter with a strong local following, stopped scrawny Mike O’Han Jr whose trainer Mark DeLuca pulled him out after five one-sided rounds. Mills improved to 17-1 (6 KOs). It was another rough day at the office for Massachusetts house painting contractor O’’Han (19-4) who had the misfortune of meeting Abdullah Mason in his previous bout.

In a junior lightweight fight that didn’t heat up until late in the final round, Albany’s Abraham Nova (23-3-1) and Tijuana native Humberto Galindo (14-3-3) fought to a 10-round draw. It was another close-but-no- cigar for the likeable Nova who at least stemmed a two-fight losing streak. The judges had it 97-93 (Galindo), 96-94 (Nova) and 95-95.

Twenty-one-year-old Long Island middleweight Jahi Tucker advanced to 13-1-1 (6 KOs) with an eighth-round stoppage of Stockton’s teak-tough but outclassed Quilisto Madera (14-6). Madera was on a short leash after five rounds, but almost took it to the final bell with the referee intervening with barely a minute remaining in the contest. Madera was on his feet when the match was halted. Earlier in the round, Tucker had a point deducted for hitting on the break.

Danbury, Connecticut heavyweight Ali Feliz, one of two fighting sons of journeyman heavyweight Fernely Feliz, improved to 4-0 (3) with a second-round stoppage of beefy Rashad Coulter (5-5). Feliz had Coulter pinned against the ropes and was flailing away when the bout was halted at the 1:34 mark. The 42-year-old Coulter, a competitor in all manner of combat sports, hadn’t previously been stopped when competing as a boxer.

Featherweight Yan Santana dominated and stopped Mexico’s Eduardo Baez who was rescued by referee Charlie Fitch at the 1:57 mark of round four. It was the 12^th knockout in 13 starts for Santana, a 24-year-old Dominican father of three A former world title challenger, Mexicali’s Baez declines to 23-7-2 but has lost six of his last eight.

In his most impressive showing to date, Damian Knyba, a six-foot-seven Pole, knocked out paunchy Richard Lartey at the 2:10 mark of round three. A right-left combination knocked Lartey into dreamland, but it was the right did the damage and this was of the nature of a one-punch knockout. Referee Ricky Gonzalez waived the fight off without starting a count.

Knyba, 28, improved to 14-0 (8 KOs). A native of Ghana coming off his career-best win, a fourth-round stoppage of Polish veteran Andrzej Wawrzyk, Lartey declined to 16-7 with his sixth loss inside the distance.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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