Mad.aboutboxing

🥊 Jimmy Ellis and Smokin Joe Frazier pose for a photograph prior to their February 16th 1970 showdown….Ellis had won the WBA strap while Muhammad Ali had been stripped and exiled from boxing,Frazier had won his part of the titles in 1968 when he knocked out Buster Mathis. Ellis was a childhood friend of Muhammad Ali’s and the two not only came from the same hometown but also shared the same trainer in Angelo Dundee,Ali would use Ellis as his chief sparring partner and when exiled Ellis would reverse the favour and use Ali as his. Frazier would drop Ellis at the end of the fourth round with a monster left hook…under New York State rules the count would continue when a fighter is felled even if the bell rang for the end of the round….struggling to his feet at the count of 9 Ellis’ trainer Angelo Dundee duly pulled his man from the fight. Joe Frazier was the only recognised world champion yet to the people on the street the real champion was the exiled Muhammad Ali…..Frazier would petition to get Ali his license back so the two could meet…leaving no questions asked on who the real champion was….Frazier would defeat Ali after 15rds by way of UD to become undisputed undefeated heavyweight world champion when the two would face eachother in the first of three epic battles.

🥊 Lorna May Smith...the mother of Mike Tyson

“My mother saw them messing with the birds and told me,and I ran out into the street and confronted them. They saw me coming and stopped grabbing the birds,but this guy Gary Flowers still had one of them under his coat. By then,a large crowd gathered around us. “Give me my bird back” I protested. Gary pulled the bird out from under his coat. “You want the bird? You want the fu***ng bird?” he said. Then he just twisted the birds head off and threw it at me,smearing the blood all over my face and shirt. “Fight him,Mike” one of my friends urged. “Don’t be afraid,just fight him.” I had always been too scared to fight anyone before. But there used to be an older guy in the neighbourhood name Wise,who had been a police athletic league boxer. He used to smoke w**d with us,and when he’d get high,he would start shadowboxing. I would watch him and he would say,”come on let’s go” but I would never even slapbox with him. But I remembered his style. So I decided “f**k it”. My friends were shocked. I didn’t know what I was doing,but I threw some wild punches and one connected and Gary went down. Wise would skip while he was shadowboxing,so after I dropped Gary my stupid ass started skipping. It just seemed like the fly thing to do. I had practically the whole block watching my gloryful moment. Everybody started whooping and applauding me. It was an incredible feeling even tho my heart was beating out of my chest. “This N**** is skipping man!”one guy laughed. I was trying to do the Ali shuffle,to no avail. But I felt good about standing up for myself and I liked the rush of everybody applauding me and slapping fives. I guess underneath that shyness,I was always an explosive,entertaining guy.”

....IRON Mike Tyson speaking in his autobiography “Undisputed truth”.

🥊 “I never had a dime to my name before I became a fighter. I never had friends before, or respect. Now when people see me on the street, they turn around and say, “Ain’t that Sonny Liston, the fighter?”

Charles ‘Sonny’ Liston

🥊 Smokin Joe Frazier…sharp as a razor 💨
Words from former friends..and foes who had the pleasure of knowing him aswell as the unpleasant experience of facing him in the ring.

“Joe Frazier Was The Epitome Of A Champion. I Mean, Here Is A Guy Who Was Total Old School, Blue Collar, Who Would Fight Anybody. You Know, He Didn’t Tell You He Was The Best Fighter Pound For Pound.” Sugar Ray Leonard

“I always bring out the best in men I fight, but Joe Frazier, I’ll tell the world right now, brings out the best in me. I’m gonna tell ya, that’s one helluva man, and God bless him.” Muhammad Ali

“You wouldn’t meet a Joe Frazier down today and then up tomorrow, said hello to big shots then ignore someone on the lower level; he was the most consistent human being. What you see is what you get.”
George Foreman

“Joe Frazier was the easiest boxer to work with that I ever trained.”
Eddie Futch

“The roughest and toughest fighter I fought was Joe Frazier” Muhammad Ali

“I respect that you want to protect your niece. You know, I didn’t want my daughter to become a boxer. Neither did Mohammad. But Joe Frazier, on the other hand, he had his baby girl boxing in the crib.”
George Foreman

There’s no ‘smoke’ without fire.

🥊 “Joe Frazier’s life didn’t start with Ali. I was a Golden Gloves champ. Gold medal in Tokyo ‘64. Heavyweight champion of the world long before I fought Ali in the Garden.”

‘Smokin’ Joe Frazier

Check out a piece I wrote for Circus Bazaar Magazine
Any feedback would be appreciated 🥊

The Unrivalled Rivalry — The Thrilla in Manila turns 50 | Circus Bazaar Magazine Defined in the twilight of the Civil Rights era’s divisive racial politics, fifty years on, The Thrilla in Manila remains boxing’s benchmark — pugilistic poetry and a brutal rivalry that still defines the sport today.

🥊 Last Night I Had A Dream.
A poem written by Muhammad Ali

Last night I had a dream, When I got to Africa,
I had one hell of a rumble.
I had to beat Tarzan’s behind first,
For claiming to be King of the Jungle.
For this fight, I’ve wrestled with alligators,
I’ve tussled with a whale.
I done handcuffed lightning
And throw thunder in jail.
You know I’m bad.
just last week, I murdered a rock,
Injured a stone, Hospitalized a brick.
I’m so mean, I make medicine sick.
I’m so fast, man,
I can run through a hurricane and don’t get wet.
When George Foreman meets me,
He’ll pay his debt.
I can drown the drink of water, and kill a dead tree.
Wait till you see Muhammad Ali. 🦋🐝

🥊 “Discipline is doing what you hate to do, but nonetheless doing it like you love it.”

Without discipline you can’t be a champion.

Regardless of your opinion on Mike you can’t knock his dedication, his hustle and discipline to his craft as he rose from the grimiest of gutters to the highest summit of world boxing where he would sit as the most recognised sportsman on the planet.
He lit the boxing world up as he intimidated opponents where he ultimately became the most feared fighter on the planet.
That version of Tyson as he was coming up battering his way through the division was a phenomenon and an absolute terror of the ring.
He was simply, beautifully brutal, a killer.

Mike was an avid student in the art of pugilism and the sweet science of ‘hit and don’t get hit’ he studied fighters from its beginnings, he lived, and loved fighting, more so it’s past fighters.

Tyson could whack, he also possessed speed in abundance but he didn’t just hit for the sake of hitting, swinging wildly…..he threw every punch with the baddest of intentions.
Each one of those punches had killer written all over it.

🥊 “Fighting, to me, seems barbaric. I don't really like it. I enjoy out-thinking another man and out-maneuvering him, but I still don't like to fight.”

Walker Smith Jr AKA Sugar Ray Robinson..

Arguably the greatest p4p fighter of all time pictured here with ‘the brown bomber’ Joe Louis....Robinson would carry the gym bag of Louis as a youngster,both men grew up in Detroit with Louis being an early boxing idol of a young Sugar Ray.

🥊 “Thats where your roadwork shows. If you cheated on that in the dark of the morning,well,your going to get found out now,under the bright lights.”

Smokin Joe Frazier

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