Come Out Smokin' (3 page)

Duke Dugent was out of the picture, omitted by a police department rule that officers could not manage professional fighters. Yank Durham was alone now, aided by a huge, soft-bellied man named Willie Reddish, who had fought as a professional heavyweight and trained Sonny Liston for his two fights with Cassius Clay. But Yank Durham was in command. There had been many managerial bids for Joe Frazier to turn professional when he came home to Philadelphia carrying his Olympic gold medal. But Yank and Joe decided to wait until the offers, as inevitably they would, grew bigger and better.

The winter passed painfully for Frazier. He couldn't train because of his thumb, and even with his janitor's job, the situation was precarious. Frazier was anxious to get started on his professional boxing career, anxious to begin making the money all his friends said would just “roll in” after the Olympics.

Finally, in the spring of 1965, his thumb healed, Frazier went to the gym to began training for his professional debut, a four-round fight in Philadelphia's Convention Hall on August 16, 1965. Joe was to be paid $500 to fight someone named Don Hobson. Later, Hobson, whoever he was, pulled out and it was announced he would be replaced by an equally unknown heavyweight named Roy Johnson.

By a quirk of fate, on the afternoon of August 16, 1965, in New York City's posh 21 Club, another heavyweight was turning pro. A group of wealthy young men, banding together as Peers Management, announced it was entering the boxing business with a one-man stable that consisted of Frazier's old adversary of the amateurs, Buster Mathis.

The contrast was striking. Mathis turned pro midway between the steak and pie a la mode at one of the world's most celebrated restaurants and before the No. 1 city's press corps. Several hours later and less than 100 miles away, Joe Frazier was in a dingy dressing room in Convention Hall, preparing to make his professional boxing debut before a not-so-ample gathering of Philadelphia boxing fans.

Whatever had happened to disappearing Don Hobson had also happened to Roy Johnson, because when Joe Frazier entered the ring, the guy in the other corner was somebody named Elwood Goss—“The Rose.” It said so clearly on the back of his blue terry cloth robe.

“I know the guy,” said a ringside cynic. “He's a steam-fitter. He came to the fights and they pulled him out of his seat. They needed an opponent for Frazier and this guy has had a few fights, so he was picked.”

“I've seen him fight before,” said another ringsider, “but his name wasn't Elwood Goss.”

When they asked Goss if he would be willing to fight Joe Frazier, he said, “Sure, who knows, I might get lucky.”

Elwood Goss got lucky. He was lucky he came out alive. Frazier hit him a left hook in the first round and The Rose went down in sections. He got up at eight and for the rest of the round there was little more than pushing and shoving and Elwood Goss lying all over Joe Frazier, trying to stay on his feet. Finally, referee Zach Clayton decided he had gone along with the gag long enough. He stopped the fight after 1:42 of the first round.

“If they want a fight,” Clayton said, “let them get somebody who can fight. This guy can't fight at all. One punch will kill him.”

It was hardly what could be called an auspicious debut for an Olympic champion. Only Joe Frazier was really pleased with what went on in the ring. “He's a good fighter,” Frazier said. “Isn't he, Willie?”

“He's a good fighter, Joe,” said Willie Reddish, willingly going along with the charade.

“Sure he's a good fighter,” Frazier continued, as if to convince himself. “He was fighting pro when I was an amateur. Who do you guys think I'm ready for now?”

“How about Buster Mathis?” someone asked. “He beat you twice in the amateurs.”

“He got two decisions over me,” Frazier corrected, “but he didn't beat me. I don't consider I got beat when I lost by one point and he had his trunks up to his chest.”

Now Frazier was ready for managerial offers. All it would take to represent him, Joe said, was $25,000 placed in a trust fund and a salary of $150 a week. Buster Mathis, he was told, was getting $90 a week. “Buster Mathis has only one mouth to feed,” Frazier argued. “I have four.”

After Frazier's debut, Yank Durham had some doubts, but he kept them secret. “I said to myself, ‘This guy needs a lot of work. You got to guide him the right route, because if you don't, with this idea of his that he can lick Clay . . . he can lick Patterson and all those guys, he's headed for trouble.'

“I told him, ‘In due time, you'll be able to beat all these guys and no doubt you'll be fighting for the championship of the world inside of two years. But you've got to listen.' ”

Back to the gym they went. There was work to be done and they wasted no time getting to it. Many boxing experts were of the opinion that Frazier would
never
be a great fighter. He had those short, tree-stump legs and short arms that gave him a reach of only 71 inches, which did not compare favorably with other heavyweights. Muhammad Ali had an 82-inch reach, Sonny Liston's was 94 inches, Joe Louis' 76 inches. Even Ezzard Charles, small by heavyweight standards, had a 74-inch reach.

But there was power there, and if this was what Durham had to work with, he would have to make the best of it. He designed a style of fighting tailored to Frazier's unique physique. Obviously, Frazier was not going to dance and jab like Ali. He was going to have to get inside his man where his short arms could reach his opponent and where his strength could do the most good.

Frazier thought he could get by as a boxer. Durham knew it was foolhardy, that Joe wasn't built for boxing.

“Forget it,” Yank said. “Quite naturally, the boy seen other fellers doing it and he thought it was for him. I told him, ‘Listen, you're too short for a boxer, you're a fighter. You got the power and this is what you got to do with it—you got to keep applying pressure on them other guys. With your power, you can do your thing only one way. That's to keep within hand distance of your opponent all the time. You don't do it no other way . . . in, forward . . . forward . . . punch . . . punch . . . punch all the time. No one will stand up to you. No one.' ”

Telling a fighter what to do is one thing, getting him to do it is another. That was Yank Durham's job and Yank Durham was very good at it. “All we have to do,” he told Joe, “is keep fighting, keep training, keep banging heads and we'll get there.” And Joe Frazier did as Yank advised because “there” is where he wanted to get.

Durham waited a month and four days before sending Joe into the ring again and in that second professional fight, Yank learned something about his fighter, something invaluable. He learned that Joe Frazier could take a punch. He learned that while the arms and legs were small, the heart was mammoth.

In his second pro fight, Frazier got hit on the chin by Mike Bruce and went down, and Yank could see a great career and a lot of money flying right out the window. Now Joe was to undergo his sternest test. Instead of quitting right there on the floor as many young fighters have, Joe climbed off the canvas and flattened Bruce in three rounds.

Eight days later, Frazier bombed out Ray Staples in two, and thirteen days after that he kayoed Abe Davis in one. Four knockouts in four professional fights as 1965 came to an end. Now Durham was ready to make a run at the big money. First, he needed backers. He wanted a group like the one that backed Muhammad Ali and sent him on his way toward the heavyweight championship of the world.

“No Philadelphia sharpies,” Durham warned. “I want respectable businessmen.”

At that very moment, a group was already being put together, a group that would change Joe Frazier's life, that would put him on solid financial footing and on the path to the heavyweight championship of the world.

The twelfth fight of Joe Frazier's professional career was scarcely twelve minutes old when the lights almost went out. Oscar Bonavena, burly and bullish heavyweight from Argentina, blood gushing from an angry cut above his left eye, charged Frazier, fired a smashing right cross to the jaw and deposited Joe on the Madison Square Garden canvas.

There was a gasp around ringside and ashen faces on a group of men whose interest was more than just sporting. And there was the discouraging sound of hearts dropping and Joe Frazier stock plummeting. The group of angels, sought by Yank Durham, had been put together eight months before. It was called Cloverlay, Inc., the name coming from a wedding of words—“cloverleaf” for luck, “overlay” from a betting term that means good odds.

Yank Durham had dictated. The group that backed Joe Frazier would have to be aboveboard. Only respectable businessmen need apply. And that's what he got.

It was Yank himself, who had introduced Joe to the Reverend William H. Gray, pastor of Philadelphia's Bright Hope Baptist Church, and the Reverend Mr. Gray who had given Joe a job as a janitor in his church when Frazier returned injured from Tokyo. The Reverend Mr. Gray knew a man, Dr. F. Bruce Baldwin, who easily fit the Durham-imposed respectability quotient and who had been looking to get involved in some sports project. Dr. Baldwin had been the president of a dairy and had earned his doctorate for the thesis “The Chemistry of Frozen Milk and Cream.” Since leaving the dairy, he had become president of a well-known baking company.

The Reverend Mr. Gray told Dr. Baldwin about Frazier and it was Baldwin who got the ball rolling. He was intrigued by the idea of backing a professional fighter, interested in putting together the kind of group Durham had in mind. Baldwin sought out bankers, industrialists, contractors, lawyers, clergymen, doctors and journalists and soon he had a group of forty interested in backing a fighter and able to withstand the loss, if any. The only restriction was that all members of the group had to be residents of the state of Pennsylvania, which was testimony to the civic-minded nature of the people involved.

Among those in the group, in addition to Dr. Baldwin and the Reverend Mr. Gray, were Bruce R. Wright, an attorney; Thacker Longstreth, president of the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce and onetime Republican candidate for mayor of Philadelphia; Arthur Kaufman, a department store executive; Harold Wessel, partner in the accounting firm of Ernst & Ernst; Milton Clark, president of a building maintenance firm; Jack Kelly, contractor, former Olympic sculler and brother of Princess Grace of Monaco.

Clearly, these men were not in this for the money that might be made by Frazier. They were in it for the sport, for the fun of it, for the chance to be part of an exciting and glamorous business. If it was necessary, the Reverend Mr. Gray was there to act as Joe's spiritual adviser, to make certain that Frazier was in the hands of people “who weren't hungry and wouldn't exploit him.”

Capitalization of Cloverlay started with $22,000 on eighty-eight shares of stock selling for $250 per share. By the time Joe Frazier fought Muhammad Ali six years after Cloverlay was incorporated late in 1965, each share of stock would be valued at $14,000. By then the corporation had expanded to include ownership of several other Philadelphia-based fighters, several apartment houses and the Cloverlay Gym on Broad Street. But in 1965, all Cloverlay had was a piece of property named Joe Frazier, who signed a three-year contract, with the syndicate holding options for two additional three-year periods.

Under the original agreement, Frazier would receive a salary of $100 a week (later it was increased to $173 per week, then to $1,000 per week). He also got 50 percent of his ring earnings, half to be paid in cash in deferred compensations, the other half to be invested. The stockholders got 35 percent, out of which they paid all expenses, and the other 15 percent went to Yank Durham, serving in the capacity of manager-trainer-adviser and calling all the shots without Cloverlay interference.

Given a free hand, Durham showed amazing business acumen as well as a tremendous knowledge of his sport. Serving as manager-adviser, he sensitively guided Frazier's career, bringing him along slowly, carefully selecting opponents so as not to overmatch his fighter while, at the same time, helping him gain improvement in the ring and prestige among his peers.

Under Cloverlay aegis, Joe Frazier's career picked up impetus. He fought seven times for the group in the first seven months of 1966, all with excellent results. With each bout, Frazier took another step up the ladder in the heavyweight division. Durham had Joe do most of his fighting in his hometown of Philadelphia, but Yank also gave him exposure in New York and in Los Angeles. His record for the first half of 1966 was an impressive one:

With the Billy Daniels fight, Frazier concluded his first year of professional fighting, a year in which he had had eleven fights, an average of almost one a month. And his record showed 11 wins and 11 knockouts, in a total of 27 rounds. Only once had an opponent gone past the fifth; only twice had opponents gone past the third. It was an impressive record, but most important, in those twelve months Joe had shown improvements in the ring and had moved up in the ratings thanks to Yank Durham's able handling.

Now Durham was ready to move his young fighter into the big time. Madison Square Garden offered him a fight and drew up a list of possible opponents. Durham scanned it carefully. This was going to be the biggest step in Frazier's career so far, and Yank wanted to be sure Joe was in against the right man.

He chose Oscar Bonavena of Argentina, a rated fighter, a tough, experienced brawler, far more experienced than Frazier. Oscar had a reputation of being easy to hit, but hard to knock down. He also had the reputation of being no puncher himself.

Joe Frazier had everything to gain and little to lose against Bonavena. It was unlikely Oscar would knock Joe out, but if Frazier should kayo Bonavena, it would be a tremendous boost for his career. It was, Yank Durham decided, the perfect match—a chance for Frazier to learn more about boxing and a chance for Durham to learn more about Frazier. He told Madison Square Garden matchmaker, Teddy Brenner, that Bonavena was an acceptable opponent and the contracts were signed.

The members of Cloverlay, Inc., had stressed they weren't in it for money. They were in for the fun, the kicks, the chance to say, over cocktails at the club, “I have a piece of Joe Frazier, the heavyweight champion of the world.” They were in it to be on a first-name basis with Joe Frazier, champion of the world, to introduce him to friends, or, at least, to clasp his hand or throw an arm around his shoulder and have somebody snap a picture to hang proudly on an office wall. They were in it to be part of the excitement when Joe fought in Madison Square Garden, to take a few friends and business associates down to New York in the Metroliner's club car and to sit ringside and watch the fights and say, “That's my fighter.”

But now the members of Cloverlay, Inc., were not having fun. Not on this September 21, 1966. Not with the only asset of Cloverlay, Inc., lying flat on his back on the Madison Square Garden canvas and a menacing and determined Oscar Bonavena standing over him, waiting for him to get up, ready to finish the assault. Now there was only anxiety—they might never have their picture taken with the heavyweight champion of the world.

Slowly, groggily, Frazier got to his feet at the count of five and tried to clear his head as the referee tolled the mandatory count of eight. On rubber legs, he wobbled to the center of the ring again, to be met by a devastating left hook to the head that sent him sprawling to the canvas a second time. It was a shattering blow, one that would have taken the heart out of most fighters. There was doubt that Frazier would recover in time to get to his feet before the minimum ten seconds. And if he managed it, one more knockdown, any kind of a slip or push, and the fight would be over by New York State rules, which dictate that if a man is knocked down three times in a single round, the fight is automatically stopped. One more knockdown and Cloverlay stock would dive and Rubin Frazier's dream that his youngest son would be “the second Joe Louis” would be shattered, at least temporarily.

But Frazier had plenty of heart, more than most fighters, more than many people thought he had. He struggled to his feet again, trying to get his bearings. It was as if he didn't know where he was and it seemed that anything, even a hard miss, would put him down a third and final time.

There was still more than a minute left in the round, plenty of time to put over the climactic knockdown. Bonavena tried; he tried desperately. He did everything. He pushed, pulled, shoved, jostled and winged away with both hands. But in his desperation, he lost his cool. Frazier stood firm and as Bonavena swung wildly, Joe's head cleared. He knew where he was, he knew what he had to do. He held on to his opponent when he could, smothering Oscar's arms and denying him punching room. The sound of the bell was a rhapsody to the ears of the members of Cloverlay. Somehow, Frazier had survived.

He tottered to his corner and plopped down wearily on the stool and Yank Durham went feverishly to work on his physically spent fighter. Durham had a full minute to revive him, to clear his head. Yank labored frantically, using the many tricks of his trade designed to snap a fighter out of his stupor. It is here, in the corner between rounds, that a good trainer earns his keep. He must do his work in one minute, but sixty seconds for a skillful trainer can be enough.

If the fighter has a cut, the trainer will wipe away the blood, squeeze the flesh together to stop the bleeding temporarily, then apply a salve that will, hopefully, coagulate the blood. The salve is usually a mixture of vaseline with liquid adrenalin to constrict the cut, plus a coagulant called thromboplastin powder. The ingredients must conform to commission rules, designed to protect the fighter from permanent injury by the use of certain quick-healing medicines with unfortunate side effects.

If the fighter is not cut but groggy and out on his feet, as Frazier was, the technique is different. Each trainer has his own method: He might sponge the dazed fighter's head with cold water; or massage the muscles in his neck; or slap him on the inside of his thighs; or shout in his ear. In extreme cases, the trainer might break open a small ammonia capsule and hold it under the fighter's nose. This practice is frowned upon by most boxing commissions, but it is not against the rules and it is suggested as a last resort. Yank Durham is a shouter and a slapper, normally, but between the second and third rounds of the Bonavena fight, Durham used every technique on Frazier that time would permit.

In the next round, Frazier stayed away from his opponent, boxing him, tying him up, trapping him against the ropes, never permitting him the opportunity of landing another solid, dizzying punch. At the same time, Frazier was chasing the cobwebs from his head.

By the fourth, he was himself again, pursuing his man relentlessly, opening up with body blows and combinations.

From the fifth round on, it was all Joe Frazier. He whipped Bonavena, pounding him with hammerlike hooks to the body, slowing him up, then switching to the head with a volley of ripping hooks. He could not put Bonavena down, but he sliced him open around the eyes, bloodied his nose and left him looking like he'd been pistol-whipped. The decision was Frazier's and it was clear-cut, a majority vote of the referee and two judges with no dissents from the crowd, heavily laced with South Americans and Central Americans who had made Oscar Bonavena the object of their affection this night.

It had been a close call, but a crucial lesson had been learned. For the first time, Joe Frazier had gone ten rounds. For the first time, he had proved how sound his heart was.

“Now,” Yank Durham asked his fighter when it was all over, “are you ready to listen?”

Joe Frazier was.

And Yank Durham talked to him in that silken purr of a voice that seems to come from his toes. He repeated things he'd said many times before, but this time he found his fighter in a completely receptive mood. It had taken a near-knockout, but Joe Frazier listened and he listened well.

Yank sang the same old song. “Your legs are too big for you to move around a lot,” he said. “Your arms are too short for you to be a jabbing boxer. You don't have the height to give you leverage. You're out there trying to jab, move and be a boxer. You don't have the build for it.You'll wear yourself out. You got to bring your arms in close and put your legs together and go in there punching. You can't pick off punches, you got to move your head, bob and weave, slip punches and keep coming.”

The fighting style that Frazier adopted was as subtle as a punch in the mouth, moving in, inexorable, firing punches in nonstop volleys. And he landed enough punches in the mouth to make the style effective.

The Bonavena fight had been a near-disaster, but instead of waiting, instead of letting Joe dwell on Bonavena, Durham decided to throw him right back in, sink or swim. Frazier's next fight, Yank announced, would be in exactly two months, on November 21 in Los Angeles, and the opponent that had been chosen was the veteran Eddie Machen.

When the match was made, the Philadelphia newspapers let out a collective howl.

“Frazier is being rushed,” wrote one boxing writer. “He's just a kid and they're moving him too fast. They're going to get him knocked off and ruin a promising career. Joe's not ready for a veteran like Eddie Machen.”