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FIFTY ONE YEARS AGO TO THIS DAY, JOE FRAZIER DEFEATED JOE BUGNER
And then Heavyweight Champion George Foreman , who had taken the title from Frazier earlier that year, declared he was ready to fight “Joe.”
Fifty one years ago to this day, I went to the Manhattan Academy of Music to watch Joe Frazier fight Joe Bugner. Frazier was declared champion while Ali was wrongly prevented from boxing because of an unconstitutional conviction for draft resistance, and then defeated Ali in 1971 in a close decision. In January, 1973, young George Foreman shocked the world by knocking Frazier out in the second round. Foreman was then accused of ducking a rematch with Frazier.
In the meantime, Frazier fought Bugner, a competent and respected fighter who fought as British, and held the British and the Commonwealth Heavyweight Championships, though he held Hungarian and Australian citizenship as well. He’d won eight in a row going into the Frazier fight, which he lost by decision. It was to his credit that he wasn’t knocked out by Frazier, which is what usually happened to his opponents, other than Ali. I mean, Joe Bugner was a decent boxer, for sure, but he just wasn’t in the same class as Joe Frazier, the man who had beaten Ali, the greatest of all time. (Ali would regain his title and show the world why he was the greatest, in the famous “Thrilla in Manila.”)
