Smokin' Joe’s Toughest Fight is Over

I'm pretty happy being born when I was and covering just about every sporting event of any significance for the past 20 years, but if there's one small era of sport I missed by a decade or so then it was the golden era of heavyweight boxing during the 1970's.

Oh how I wish I could have been present at the court of King Ali when "The Greatest" won his "Rumble in the Jungle" adopting his rope-a-dope tactics that did for George Foreman.

That, and the "Thrilla in Manila" are arguably the two most famous heavyweight fights of all time and the latter involved not only Ali but Smokin' Joe Frazier who, I am sad to report, died overnight after a mercifully short battle with liver cancer.

Was Frazier the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time? No, although he wasn't too far off the top. Was he the bravest? Quite possibly. If you have never seen the epic trio of Ali v Frazier fights then I urge you to do so, fight fan or not, because you will never see such gladiatorial, to the death action as in these three bouts.

Ali got the better of Frazier by two fights to one, although you could barely put a cigarette paper between them after the second in New York while at the third in the Philippines Ali won by virtue of holding back from quitting at the end of the 14th longer than Frazier by a matter of seconds, before both got carted off to hospital - again.

Naturally Frazier, whose eye had totally closed up, wanted to carry on but his respected cornerman, Eddie Futch, ended it with the famous words: “No one will forget what you did tonight.”

The two boxers were never friends. Ali's close to the knuckle taunting of Frazier made sure of that. But they respected each other like nobody else in the ring, and that is why Ali, riddled with Parkinson's Disease, yesterday issued a statement in which he said he was praying for his old foe.

It wasn’t enough to save Smokin' Joe. As it was in the ring, Joe Frazier needed to be hauled out horizontally before he gave up the fight.

I interviewed Larry Holmes once, a man with an incredible record as heavyweight champ himself. Yet Holmes will tell you, he came a poor second behind Ali, Frazier and George Foreman.

The final bell has tolled for Joe. And with it the passing of a man whose mark in boxing and indeed in sport will be indelible.