Fight To Get Joe Frazier Statue Made a 15-Rounder In Its Own Way

Published

10 years ago

September 9, 2015

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the definition of art is “something that is created with imagination and skill that is beautiful or expresses important ideas or feelings.”

The late, great former heavyweight champion “Smokin’” Joe Frazier’s honest-workman approach to boxing wasn’t particularly beautiful in the conventional sense, except maybe in the eyes of beholders who understood that the ultimate Philadelphia fighter’s signature left hook was, in its own way, an expression of important ideas and feelings.

Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. in front of XFINITY Live!, in the South Philly Sports Complex, a 12-foot statue of Frazier will be unveiled as the highlight of Joe Frazier Day. It depicts Smokin’ Joe delivering the most important punch of his Hall of Fame career, the exclamation-point hook that put Muhammad Ali down and nearly out in the 15th and final round of the first of their three classic meetings, on March 8, 1971, in New York’s Madison Square Garden. In what was immodestly but accurately dubbed “The Fight of the Century,” Frazier was awarded a unanimous decision minutes later. The statue is at once exquisite and unadorned, like the flesh-an’-blood human being who was the basis of its inspiration.

“I grew up on the street here and I wanted to capture the vibe of the city,” explained sculptor Stephen Layne, who inherited the $200,000 project after the man first commissioned for the project, Lawrence Nowlan, died at his New Hampshire home on July 30, 2013, less than a month after being awarded the coveted assignment. “That punch made me think of all the people who make pilgrimages to the Rocky statue, which shows a boxer in his glory, his hands upraised in victory.

“But for Joe Frazier, I thought it was better to have him right in the heat of battle, right in the moment. There is an instant of achievement in that pose, in what he just accomplished. He’s into the work of what he’s doing. I was always astonished, watching the tape of that fight over and over, to see Joe land that punch and then turn and just walk away. He doesn’t make a big deal of it. The best way I can put it is he had a sort of blue-collar, I-did-my-job mentality. I found that very, very interesting.”

Born in Beaufort, S.C., one of Rubin and Dolly Frazier’s 13 children, this son of dirt-poor migrant workers arrived in Philadelphia at the age of 15 with an indomitable work ethic and that hook that could demolish brick walls. He became accustomed to winning boxing matches the hard way, but Frazier, who was 67 when he died of liver cancer on Nov. 7, 2011, had no way of knowing that one of the most protracted battles involving him would come after his death and be deal with who, when and how the statue commemorating his life and career would become a reality.

In a city awash in bronzed statuary of its sports heroes, Rich Ashburn, Steve Carlton, Mike Schmidt, Robin Roberts, Bobby Clarke, Gary Doernhofer, Chuck Bednarik, Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Erving and Joey Giardello, among others, have had their images forever preserved for posterity, the delayed arrival of a proper testimonial to Frazier has long been a matter of consternation among his many admirers. It was on what would have been Frazier’s 68th birthday, on Jan. 12, 2012, that Joe Hand Sr. advised Smokin’ Joe’s daughter, Municipal Court Judge Jacquelyn Frazier-Lyde and her husband, Peter Lyde, that it was time for talk to be converted into action.

“My idea was that my family would pay for the whole thing,” said Hand, 79, an original member of Cloverlay, Inc., which financially backed Frazier’s professional boxing career after he came back from winning the heavyweight gold medal at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and remained intact until after he had lost the heavyweight title to George Foreman on Jan. 22, 1973, in Kingston, Jamaica. “I made a deal with the Cordish family (builders of XFINITY Live!) to place the statue front of what I thought was their property. Then I got a call from people with the Planning Commission and Arts Commission. It was explained to me that the Phillies, Eagles, Sixers and Flyers don’t own that ground. They hold, like, 99-year leases from the city. If I wanted to put a statue of Joe at XFINITY Live!, it had to be approved by City Hall.”

Easier said than done. “There was a lot of back-and-forth hassling,” Hand recalled, which became more convoluted when Frazier’s children, there are 11 of them, by several women, wanted input into the process. It was a classic situation of too many cooks possibly spoiling the broth.

But there was a singular purpose among backers of the project, and slowly, surely, the tangled web of red tape began to get untangled. Nowlan’s unexpected death was another setback, but Layne, a 48-year-old graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts who boxed a bit in his early 20s, was brought in and forward momentum began to build again. It helped that one of Frazier’s daughters, Weata Frazier Collins, emerged as the calm, soothing voice of the family Gang of 11.

“A number of the siblings came to my studio several times, and they all had their opinions,” Layne said. “But Weata Collins basically took the reins and was the primary liaison between me and everyone in the family. She would report back on what the siblings might think of this or that and, really, was quite nice to deal with. I’m glad I didn’t have to work with Joe’s relatives individually, not that their ideas of what they wanted would have been wrong, but it really would have slowed down the process.”

Said Collins: “There were a lot of moving parts, from the City of Philadelphia to XFINITY Live! to my family to the death of the original sculptor. We definitely had some bumps in the road, but we got through all that.”

And now?

“The first day I saw (the finished statue), tears were coming down my eyes,” Collins said. “I said, `This is beautiful. It’s perfect. It’s like it was meant to be.’”

Not that the statue, impressive thought it might be, is an end unto itself. Collins notes that, unlike Ali’s hometown of Louisville, Ky., which has constructed the multimillion-dollar Muhammad Ali Center, “there are no schools, no libraries, no streets named after my father. That’s why I started a non-profit organization at the beginning of the year entitled `The Legacy Exists.’ It’s a scholarship fund to honor my father, to make sure the younger generation knows who Joe Frazier was and what he did. My father was a fantastic father. I was a daddy’s girl and in my eyes, he could do no wrong. He will always be a hero to me.”

Smokin’ Joe also is a hero to former middleweight and light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins, who was one of the biggest contributors to the statue fund-raising, along with the Hands, the Cordishes and Jerry Perenchio, who promoted Ali-Frazier I.

“I believe that if you continue to push for what’s right, right will be done,” Hopkins said. “Given this man’s legacy, and what he brought to the sport of boxing and to this city, this statue had to get done. I’m glad it’s finally here. Better late than never.

“My next goal is to use some of my resources to make Joe’s Gym (now a discount furniture store (at North Broad Street) into a community center. That place is a landmark. It’s historic. Everybody should respect who Joe was, and the legacy that he left. We must keep that legacy going.”

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Bernard Fernandez

Avila Perspective, Chap. 322: Super Welter Week in SoCal

Published

14 hours ago

April 18, 2025

David A. Avila

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Two below-the-radar super welterweight stars show off their skills this weekend from different parts of Southern California.

One in particular, Charles Conwell, co-headlines a show in Oceanside against a hard-hitting Mexican while another super welter star Sadriddin Akhmedov faces another Mexican hitter in Commerce.

Take your pick.

The super welterweight division is loaded with talent at the moment. If Terence Crawford remained in the division he would be at the top of the class, but he is moving up several weight divisions.

Conwell (21-0, 16 KOs) faces Jorge Garcia Perez (32-4, 26 KOs) a tall knockout puncher from Los Mochis at the Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, Calif. on Saturday April 19. DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card that also features undisputed flyweight champion Gabriela Fundora. We’ll get to her later.

Conwell might be the best super welterweight out there aside from the big dogs like Vergil Ortiz, Serhii Bohachuk and Sebastian Fundora.

If you are not familiar with Conwell he comes from Cleveland, Ohio and is one of those fighters that other fighters know about. He is good.

He has the James “Lights Out” Toney kind of in-your-face-style where he anchors down and slowly deciphers the opponent’s tools and then takes them away piece by piece. Usually it’s systematic destruction. The kind you see when a skyscraper goes down floor by floor until it’s smoking rubble.

During the Covid days Conwell fought two highly touted undefeated super welters in Wendy Toussaint and Madiyar Ashkeyev. He stopped them both and suddenly was the boogie man of the super welterweight division.

Conwell will be facing Mexico’s taller Garcia who likes to trade blows as most Mexican fighters prefer, especially those from Sinaloa. These guys will be firing H bombs early.

Fundora

Co-headlining the Golden Boy card is Gabriela Fundora (15-0, 7 KOs) the undisputed flyweight champion of the world. She has all the belts and Mexico’s Marilyn Badillo (19-0-1, 3 KOs) wants them.

Gabriela Fundora is the sister of Sebastian Fundora who holds the men’s WBC and WBO super welterweight world titles. Both are tall southpaws with power in each hand to protect the belts they accumulated.

Six months ago, Fundora met Argentina’s Gabriela Alaniz in Las Vegas to determine the undisputed flyweight champion. The much shorter Alaniz tried valiantly to scrap with Fundora and ran into a couple of rocket left hands.

Mexico’s Badillo is an undefeated flyweight from Mexico City who has battled against fellow Mexicans for years. She has fought one world champion in Asley Gonzalez the current super flyweight world titlist. They met years ago with Badillo coming out on top.

Does Badillo have the skill to deal with the taller and hard-hitting Fundora?

When a fighter has a six-inch height advantage like Fundora, it is almost impossible to out-maneuver especially in two-minute rounds. Ask Alaniz who was nearly decapitated when she tried.

This will be Badillo’s first pro fight outside of Mexico.

Commerce Casino

Kazakhstan’s Sadriddin Akhmedov (15-0, 13 KOs) is another dangerous punching super welterweight headlining a 360 Promotions card against Mexico’s Elias Espadas (23-6, 16 KOs) on Saturday at the Commerce Casino.

UFC Fight Pass will stream the 360 Promotions card of about eight bouts.

Akhmedov is another Kazakh puncher similar to the great Gennady “GGG” Golovkin who terrorized the middleweight division for a decade. He doesn’t have the same polish or dexterity but doesn’t lack pure punching power.

It’s another test for the super welterweight who is looking to move up the ladder in the very crowded 154-pound weight division. 360 Promotions already has a top contender in Ukraine’s Serhii Bohachuk who nearly defeated Vergil Ortiz a year ago.

Could Bohachuk and Akhmedov fight each other if nothing else materializes?

That’s a question for another day.

Fights to Watch

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Charles Conwell (21-0, 16 KOs) vs. Jorge Garcia Perez (32-4, 26 KOs); Gabriela Fundora (15-0) vs Marilyn Badillo (19-0-1).

Sat. UFC Fight Pass 6 p.m. Sadriddin Akhmedov (15-0) vs Elias Espadas (23-6).

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TSS Salutes Thomas Hauser and his Bernie Award Cohorts

Published

3 days ago

April 16, 2025

TSS Press

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The Boxing Writers Association of America has announced the winners of its annual Bernie Awards competition. The awards, named in honor of former five-time BWAA president and frequent TSS contributor Bernard Fernandez, recognize outstanding writing in six categories as represented by stories published the previous year.

Over the years, this venerable website has produced a host of Bernie Award winners. In 2024, Thomas Hauser kept the tradition alive. A story by Hauser that appeared in these pages finished first in the category “Boxing News Story.” Titled “Ryan Garcia and the New York State Athletic Commission,” the story was published on June 23. You can read it HERE.

Hauser also finished first in the category of “Investigative Reporting” for “The Death of Ardi Ndembo,” a story that ran in the (London) Guardian. (Note: Hauser has owned this category. This is his 11^th first place finish for “Investigative Reporting”.)

Thomas Hauser, who entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the class of 2019, was honored at last year’s BWAA awards dinner with the A.J. Leibling Award for Outstanding Boxing Writing. The list of previous winners includes such noted authors as W.C. Heinz, Budd Schulberg, Pete Hamill, and George Plimpton, to name just a few.

The Leibling Award is now issued intermittently. The most recent honorees prior to Hauser were Joyce Carol Oates (2015) and Randy Roberts (2019).

Roberts, a Distinguished Professor of History at Purdue University, was tabbed to write the Hauser/Leibling Award story for the glossy magazine for BWAA members published in conjunction with the organization’s annual banquet. Regarding Hauser’s most well-known book, his Muhammad Ali biography, Roberts wrote, “It is nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of the book to our understanding of Ali and his times.” An earlier book by Hauser, “The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing,” garnered this accolade: “Anyone who wants to understand boxing today should begin by reading ‘The Black Lights’.”

A panel of six judges determined the Bernie Award winners for stories published in 2024. The stories they evaluated were stripped of their bylines and other identifying marks including the publication or website for which the story was written.

Other winners:

Boxing Event Coverage: Tris Dixon

Boxing Column: Kieran Mulvaney

Boxing Feature (Over 1,500 Words): Lance Pugmire

Boxing Feature (Under 1,500 Words): Chris Mannix

The Dixon, Mulvaney, and Pugmire stories appeared in Boxing Scene; the Mannix story in Sports Illustrated.

The Bernie Award recipients will be honored at the forthcoming BWAA dinner on April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in the heart of Times Square. (For more information, visit the BWAA website). Two days after the dinner, an historic boxing tripleheader will be held in Times Square, the logistics of which should be quite interesting. Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, and Teofimo Lopez share top billing.

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Mekhrubon Sanginov, whose Heroism Nearly Proved Fatal, Returns on Saturday

Published

4 days ago

April 15, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Mekhrubon-Sanginov-whose-Heroism-Nearly-Proved-Fatal-Returns-on-Saturday

To say that Mekhrubon Sanginov is excited to resume his boxing career would be a great understatement. Sanginov, ranked #9 by the WBA at 154 pounds before his hiatus, last fought on July 8, 2022.

He was in great form before his extended leave, having scored four straight fast knockouts, advancing his record to 13-0-1. Had he remained in Las Vegas, where he had settled after his fifth pro fight, his career may have continued on an upward trajectory, but a trip to his hometown of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, turned everything haywire. A run-in with a knife-wielding bully nearly cost him his life, stalling his career for nearly three full years.

Sanginov was exiting a restaurant in Dushanbe when he saw a man, plainly intoxicated, harassing another man, an innocent bystander. Mekhrubon intervened and was stabbed several times with a long knife. One of the puncture wounds came perilously close to puncturing his heart.

“After he stabbed me, I ran after him and hit him and caught him to hold for the police,” recollects Sanginov. “There was a lot of confusion when the police arrived. At first, the police were not certain what had happened.

“By the time I got to the hospital, I had lost two liters of blood, or so I was told. After I was patched up, one of the surgeons said to me, ‘Give thanks to God because he gave you a second life.’ It is like I was born a second time.”

“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have happened in any city,” he adds. (A story about the incident on another boxing site elicited this comment from a reader: “Good man right there. World would be a better place if more folk were willing to step up when it counts.”)

Sanginov first laced on a pair of gloves at age 10 and was purportedly 105-14 as an amateur. Growing up, the boxer he most admired was Roberto Duran. “Muhammad Ali will always be the greatest and [Marvin] Hagler was great too, but Duran was always my favorite,” he says.

During his absence from the ring, Sanginov married a girl from Tajikistan and became a father. His son Makhmud was born in Las Vegas and has dual citizenship. “Ideally,” he says, “I would like to have three more children. Two more boys and the last one a daughter.”

He also put on a great deal of weight. When he returned to the gym, his trainer Bones Adams was looking at a cruiserweight. But gradually the weight came off – “I had to give up one of my hobbies; I love to eat,” he says – and he will be resuming his career at 154. “Although I am the same weight as before, I feel stronger now. Before I was more of a boy, now I am a full-grown man,” says Sanginov who turned 29 in February.

He has a lot of rust to shed. Because of all those early knockouts, he has answered the bell for only eight rounds in the last four years. Concordantly, his comeback fight on Saturday could be described as a soft re-awakening. Sanginov’s opponent Mahonri Montes, an 18-year pro from Mexico, has a decent record (36-10-2, 25 KOs) but has been relatively inactive and is only 1-3-1 in his last five. Their match at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California, is slated for eight rounds.

On May 10, Ardreal Holmes (17-0) faces Erickson Lubin (26-2) on a ProBox card in Kissimmee, Florida. It’s an IBF super welterweight title eliminator, meaning that the winner (in theory) will proceed directly to a world title fight.

Sanginov will be watching closely. He and Holmes were scheduled to meet in March of 2022 in the main event of a ShoBox card on Showtime. That match fell out when Sanginov suffered an ankle injury in sparring.

If not for a twist of fate, that may have been Mekhrubon Sanginov in that IBF eliminator, rather than Ardreal Holmes. We will never know, but one thing we do know is that Mekhrubon’s world title aspirations were too strong to be ruined by a knife-wielding bully.

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