Anger, frustration stalk Joe Frazier

Originally published March 1, 1982.
 
Marvis Frazier has not fought in months. Marvis Frazier no longer trains at Joe Frazier's gym on Broad Street. Or anywhere else. Will Marvis ever fight again?

"He's engaged," Joe Frazier said grimly. "He's probably with his lady. He is doin' his own thing."

Struck down by Cupid's arrow. It is better than getting poked in the eye with a sharp stick. Or a fist. That's what some people thought when Marvis backed out of a Madison Square Garden fight. That he'd been poked in the eye and needed corrective surgery.

"Not that I know," Joe said.

What kind of answer is that? The two men were closer than grits for years. Marvis cut his teeth on the ring apron, worked Joe's corner as a teenager, turned pro, even sparred with his old man when Joe tried to come back against Jumbo Cummings in December.

AND NOW? AND now Joe isn't sure his son has had eye surgery? And nobody in the gym is sure, either? Guys who laughed and cried and shot craps and ate ribs with Frazier through the years are afraid to ask him what's become of Marvis.

They fear a raging tantrum for an answer. The tantrums have increased in volume, in frequency lately. Frazier keeps narrowing his circle of friends, until he can fit them all in the back seat of one of his limousines.

He stalks his gym like a brooding Othello, sensing Iagos in every corner. He calls anyone who disagrees with him a "snake" and vows to get rid of them. So he raises the gym dues to spa dimensions and talks about a $200 annual fee for trainers. He forgets that a man chasing phantom snakes can beat the meadows down to parched stubble.

Frazier nurtured some splendid amateurs and then lost them to other managers when they turned pro. Now his legal adviser, Sharon Hatch, draws up thick documents for the kids to sign that look more like personal service deals than fight contracts.

Things have gone sour and he doesn't know who to blame. He refuses to look in the mirror because the image it casts back is fat, frustrated, 40-ish. He went 10 clumsy rounds with Cummings and the reviews of that sad charade were harsh.

"Sad, my ass," Frazier muttered. "Tell those mothers to do what I did. Can they do it, at 32, at 33? What's sad is, those mothers can't get in shape themselves. Half of 'em can't do what I do.

"WHAT'S SAD IS, guys get to be 36, 35, 34, and consider themselves old. I did a fine job against Jumbo. Six weeks and I'd be ready for Larry Holmes.

"I called Don King. Nothin' happened. Those guys have a way of getting out of things. They'll say, 'He done beat up one old man (Ali) already. 'I say, 'Let him try to beat up another old man.'

"I'll fight anybody from 1-to-10. They say, 'Let's go,' they got me. Dokes, Page, anybody from 1-to-10. No problem. I'm 38 and don't feel it. Larry Holmes would be easier for me than Jumbo Cummings.

"Larry sticks out that left jab, he exposes himself for the right hand. That's how Clay got hurt, sticking out that jab, exposing himself. Cummings fought me safe.

"If I were Holmes I wouldn't give me a shot either. He's got that big fight with Gerry Cooney. Why blow it? Cooney, he's not even a developed heavyweight, like Clay, like myself, George Foreman.

"Cooney looks puny. He don't even look like a full-flushed heavyweight."

Frazier still calls Muhammad Ali "Clay" after all these years. Some wounds heal slower than others. But last week he traveled to New York to present Ali with a humanitarian award. Said he was giving it to "the champ."

Ali and Frazier, they both had trouble coming down from the mountain. Frazier seemed to have a better chance at making the adjustment because his entourage was smaller, his pace slower, his lifestyle less regal. And he had Marvis, a chip off the old stump, treading his same rugged path.

BUT JIMMY CARTER derailed the Olympic dream with his boycott. And then James Broad left Marvis sprawled helplessly on the canvas in an amateur bout. Surgery patched a neck problem, but Marvis' pro progress was slow and carefully choreographed.

He always seemed misplaced in boxing. Too bright, too polite, too honest. Maybe not vicious enough. And now he apparently has abandoned boxing before the real tests could come.

Marvis' defection may have added an angrier edge to Joe's gym personality, but it has not altered his dedication. He appears in the gym every afternoon, Othello in cut-down rubberized pants, working with young boxers he calls "his boys."

The "boys" include a big, handsome heavyweight named Frazier. This one is Rodney, Joe's nephew. He is 23. Walked away from Howard University because the coaches had warped football into a job. He knew there were other jobs that paid better and were more fun.

Rather than return to the swampy quiet of Beaufort, S.C., he came north. He has had six amateur fights and two weeks ago he crunched an East German heavyweight in Syracuse.

"I knocked him out in the first round," Rodney said. "It was like a dream. It seemed like every even-numbered fight, the Germans would get the decision.

"Mine was the 12th bout. I wanted to destroy him, knock him out. He had 210 fights, won an Olympic gold medal in the super-heavyweights."

"HE CAN HIT," Joe said proudly. "His heart's good. He's much more meaner than the other guys. He listens good, he works good, he trains good, he lives good.

"That's the key to being a fighter, listen and learn. He don't want to go out and chase ladies all night long. All he wants is to be good at what he's doing."

Rodney is poised, articulate, sensitive, loyal. Asked about Joe's performance against Cummings, he said, "Of the three comebacks, Ali, Ken Norton, and his, he looked the best."

Nor has Rodney noticed any change in Joe's temperament in the last year.

"Not from day one," Rodney said. "From before he started fighting, from that day 'til now, Uncle Billy, that's what we called him, hasn't changed.

"When he had no money, he was still the same person. He's always been free-spirited, free-hearted."

To others, outside the family, he seems very different. And if Marvis has quit fighting, the jolt will hurt worse than anything Ali hit him with.

"He's over 21," Joe said. "He's free to do what he wants to do. I never tell my kids what they've gotta do. I haven't even talked to Marvis about it."

If that's true, it is the saddest part of the story.