Originally published March 28, 1985.
Joe Frazier is having trouble understanding what it is that everyone wants to protect him from.
And he's more than slightly suspicious about all the outpourings of concern that followed last week's surprising announcement that he is going to fight again.
He keeps hearing the talk show callers who think they know better than he does what's best for him. He's heard his motives examined by strangers who speculate that he can't do without the limelight or that he is broke or that he might have taken one punch too many already.
And he's starting to develop his own theories about some of their motives.
"I can't give an account for how other people see it," said Frazier. "I don't know what they're so worried about. I'm just having fun.
". . . A lot of those people who say they're so concerned about my health don't give a damn about Joe Frazier. A lot of them just can't stand it because I can still make money in the ring.
"They really don't want to see me make the money. They want to know why this guy can still do this and get paid and be 41 years old.
"They just expect me to go sit down somewhere because that's what they think I should be doing. But I know what I'm doing. "
What he's doing is engaging in another fight, this one with a 47-year-old doorman named Robert Cleroux, who once was the Canadian heavyweight champion. The fight will take place on June 23rd in Montreal if they can get around the determined opposition of the Montreal Athletic Commission. If not, it will be in a Montreal suburb called Laval.
Even moving it outside Montreal won't save it if a set of safety regulations now pending before authorities in the province of Quebec are passed before then.
If it is held at all, it will be Frazier's first fight since Dec. 3, 1981. That was the day he ended a five-year retirement and wheezed his way through 10 agonizing rounds with Floyd "Jumbo" Cummings . An obviously overweight Frazier barely earned a draw with Cummings that day in Chicago. Even for the fans who cherished the memory of Frazier's heroic battles with Muhammad Ali, the 1981 comeback was understandable, if ill-advised. Most people chalked it up as a kind of natural rekindling of the championship spirit that made Frazier such an indomitable force.
But this time it's considered utter folly. This time some of the most prominent names in boxing circles are shaking a collective finger in his face.
''It's no good for boxing," said Jean Guy Prescott, a member of the Montreal Athletic Commission who also sits on the World Boxing Council's executive board. Prescott has vowed to keep the fight out of Montreal.
"My first impression would be to fight them," said former light- heavyweight champion and New York State Athletic Commission chairman Jose Torres, when a wire service reporter asked what he would do if promoters asked him to sanction the fight in New York.
Even his announcement that he was going to donate part of his $150,000 purse to help finance the establishment of a sickle-cell anemia diagnosis and treatment center in Philadelphia did little to assuage the concerns of his critics.
"I believe there are some people out there who don't want to see me do something for my people," he said. "If that's it, I hope they get sickle- cell anemia.
". . . It's not like I'm going to be fighting George Foreman or Muhammad Ali. If I was, they'd have something to talk about.
"But this guy is 47 years old. I know I can go eight (two-minute) rounds. I run with my boys and work out here in the gym every day. Maybe they're worried about him. "
Indeed, that is part of the worry. Cleroux, whose biggest claim to fame is that he won the Canadian title from George Chuvalo in 1968, hasn't fought in 16 years.
The 6-3 Cleroux is a doorman at the Montreal steakhouse owned by restauranteur and promoter Regis Levesque. Levesque is the man who bankrolled this old-timers' match.
"He's been begging me to fight for him for five years," Frazier said. "I just didn't do it because the boys needed me here in the gym to work with them.
"But they all have about a month off while I'll be training, so they gave me their blessings. I wouldn't be doing it if they didn't think it was OK. "
"They ought to check with us if they don't think he can still do it," said Ted White, a Philadelphia policeman who is learning to be a trainer under Frazier's tutelage. "We're the ones who work with him. We know what he can do. "
Frazier said he reluctantly agreed to fight two-minute rounds rather than the three-minute rounds seen in professional matches. But in every other way, he said, it will be a serious professional fight.
"I figure I'll need about three weeks of boxing to get ready," Frazier said. "I'll spar with the boys, Marvis (his oldest son and a developing heavyweight himself) and Rodney (a nephew who also is a heavyweight) will spar with me.
"I'm up around 238 pounds right now but I want to lose about 20 pounds. I'm going to close the gym down at night while I work on my timing and all. I'll be ready.
"It's not like I've been away from boxing. I'm in this gym every day working with these boys. I ran about a mile and a half today. I felt good. "
He says he is not on the verge of a comeback and claims that the worst that could happen from this is that he might start a trend of retired fighters coming back to fight exhibitions.
"I'd pay to see something like that," Frazier said. "Not just to see the guys beat each other up. But to see if they can still remember what they learned in all those years. "
It sounds more like spectacle than sport and a potentially dangerous spectacle at that. But without an expert medical opinion that there is a serious health risk involved, who is to say Joe Frazier shouldn't get another payday, or as many as the market will bear.
"I love my people and I love the chance to do something for sickle-cell and to have some fun at the same time," Frazier said. "But I wouldn't endanger myself for anybody.
"I'm not expecting to make any comeback. The boys gave me their blessing for this one; I'm not going to press my luck."