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"Smokin" Joe Frazier gravely ill.....


GMan

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In a Philadelphia Hospice Care center. The ex-champ is suffering from liver cancer and is not expected to live much longer. This is terribly sad. I remember I loved both Joe and Mohammed Ali and I couldn't decide who I wanted to win when they first fought on March 8,1971. Joe won a unanimous 15 round decision. He dropped Ali in the 15th round with one of the most classic left hooks I have ever seen. It was a classic fight. I actually got to see "Smokin" Joe fight live. It was in June of '68 at Madison Square Garden. I was 13 years old and my older cousin Louie took me to see the fight. Joe fought Manuel Ramos, the Mexican Heavyweight Champ. Ramos towered over Joe and within 2 rounds Joe knocked out Ramos...with what else?..a booming left hook. My prayers are with you Joe, one of the great heavyweights of all time. crying

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Giro - I also saw Joe live around '70 or '71, but under odd circumstances. I was working that summer in downtown DC, at the Speakeasy, a dive bar and sandwich shop on the corner of 14th & H Streets (a bad neighborhood, which got cleaned up during the Reagan years, allegedly at Nancy's insistence after the first couple rode through it the first time in their limo.) Anyway, I was at the counter one Saturday night, when a well-built, very well-dressed gentleman, sporting about $50 grand in diamonds (4 rings), came in and started talking to me and my friend Bob. Both of us got a good look at him - it was Joe Frazier!! He was there, asking us how to get into the club upstairs (Casino Royale) - he and his band The Knockouts were doing a show there later that night. We went and got the club manager, who unlocked the gate to the stairs/entrance. To make a long story short, we got invited to his show that night. . . . awful singer, and it was hard trying to figure out what he was saying between songs, but he was a nice guy, and gave us autographed 8 x 10 photos. Lucky for him he had another career in boxing!

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I was a student of Frazier's style, and learned , from watching his fights, something I used to great effect in mine. Double left hook. get inside, use the right hand to clinch around the opponents neck, with head on his right shoulder dig the hook at the liver, immediately come back upstair to the head.If you were a good hook thrower [i was], it's devestating. Hang in there Joe.

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Giro - I also saw Joe live around '70 or '71, but under odd circumstances. I was working that summer in downtown DC, at the Speakeasy, a dive bar and sandwich shop on the corner of 14th & H Streets (a bad neighborhood, which got cleaned up during the Reagan years, allegedly at Nancy's insistence after the first couple rode through it the first time in their limo.) Anyway, I was at the counter one Saturday night, when a well-built, very well-dressed gentleman, sporting about $50 grand in diamonds (4 rings), came in and started talking to me and my friend Bob. Both of us got a good look at him - it was Joe Frazier!! He was there, asking us how to get into the club upstairs (Casino Royale) - he and his band The Knockouts were doing a show there later that night. We went and got the club manager, who unlocked the gate to the stairs/entrance. To make a long story short, we got invited to his show that night. . . . awful singer, and it was hard trying to figure out what he was saying between songs, but he was a nice guy, and gave us autographed 8 x 10 photos. Lucky for him he had another career in boxing!

Great story, John! Hey...would you want to be the guy to tell Joe he couldn't sing?? I remember seeing him on the Mike Douglas Show many times. Mike's show was out of Philly so Joe was always on. And you are right...he couldn't sing! lol

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When I saw this I posted it for prayers on my FB page. SO very sad. A true champ, in every sense of the word. Like Ali, who I think has Alzheimers, doesn't he? True champions, although I always hated and feared boxing and wrestling. Could never stand to watch either.

Praying for a miracle for Joe.

:(--Dar

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I never met Joe. But, I was lucky to see a few of is fights when I was little on closed-circuit T.V. That's where people would go to a big theater, and watch it live. Joe is part of the great history of boxing. I think he even sang the National Anthem once at a boxing match.

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Tia Dar - Ali has Parkinson's. I often wonder if it could have been brought about by all of the punches he took.

The Net went crazy last night around 9 pm pst. People were reporting that Joe had died. He is in my prayers not because he is a champion boxer, but because he is a decent human being.

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That famous phrase, Kirk, that Howard Cossell, a boxing broadcaster said during one of Frazier's fights.

He was a humble man, with all his talent. I had heard on the radio, sunday night, that he was nearing the end of his life.

I was fortunate when Ali came to my school, when I was a teenager. I was only about five feet away from him, as I stood facing him. Ali would take a bus, for fun, around town, and joke with all of the surprised riders. He got everyone laughing.

Ali was quiet and humble when I met him. And I sensed a great power around him. Beyond himself. An aura of greatness. I asked my friend there. He said he felt it, too.

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