It was 39 Years Ago This Month When Ali and Frazier First Met
By Evan Weiner
March 9, 2010
http://www.doverdowns.com/mylinkfiles/Entertainment/It%20was%2039%20Years%20Ago%20This%20Month%20When%20Ali%20and%20Frazier%20First%20Met.pdf
The late Don Dunphy was the voice of boxing for more than 40 years doing all sorts of fights on radio and TV. He was the blow-by-blow announcer for what may have been boxing’s biggest night ever, March 8, 1971 when Muhammad Ali took on Joe Frazier at Madison Square Garden in New York in “The Fight of the Century.”
Dunphy, years later, did not think the Ali-Frazier fight was “The Fight of the Century” and in fact it probably was not even in the top 5 fights he ever called on radio and TV. But the long time boxing announcer felt that it probably was the most spectacular boxing event ever held.
The Ali-Frazier contest had one of the most massive publicity campaigns ever surrounding a fight. Ali was the villain to some while Frazier was a hero and it all had to do with the Vietnam War. Ali refused to be inducted into the military in 1967 because he objected to the war while Frazier might have served if asked. Ali lost his boxing license and the ability to fight because of his legal problems in refusing to serve and while he was away from the ring Frazier was dismantling his opponents.
Ali had won all of his 31 fights prior to the Frazier bout. Smokin’ Joe Frazier was victorious in all 26 of his fights. Both fighters were guaranteed a big payday as each man was given $2.5 million, a record purse, for just showing up.
Ali and Frazier were not the only two in attendance that night. It was more than a fight; it was a gala for celebrities as the biggest names in show biz flocked to the Garden. Burt Lancaster was the analyst with Dunphy on the closed circuit presentation of the fight which was shown in movie theaters across the United States even though the actor had never done any sports or boxing commentary in his life.
Woody Allen, who was getting his acting and movie career into the fast lane, was there. Diana Ross, without the Supremes as she had just separated from the group. and Dustin Hoffman were watching. The world was watching as well.
“I did an awful lot of fights, some were more important than others and some were better fights than others. But if you make me pick one, I have to pick the first Ali-Frazier fight in 1971 at the Garden,” said Dunphy. “Not the greatest fight of all time. A good fight but not great. But it was the most memorable evening that I ever remember.
“I think it was the greatest sports event of all time up to that time anyway. Bigger than the World Series, bigger than the Super Bowl or what. I just think that night….we had two undefeated champions, both of them great fighters Ali and Frazier and that to me stands out.”
Dunphy had a seat to history and probably had the biggest audience listening to him in his career but in many ways, the Ali-Frazier fight to him was just another bout.
“I always said to myself, I am not going to see any punches that I haven’t seen before and that was my attitude from the beginning,” said the long time boxing announcer. “The first big fight I ever did was Joe Louis and Billy Conn in 1941, 30 years earlier but I said to myself, keep calm you are not going to see anything you never saw before and that has always been my attitude. It doesn’t matter, if you are broadcasting to one or nobody or several million, it is the same show.
“I always recall up in the ring after the Ali-Frazier fight, I went up to get an interview with Joe Frazier, who had won the fight, and I went to one of the commissioners who had been in the ring and I said what do you think? He said, off-the-record. I said, off-the-record, there are 250 million people watching, you can’t be off the record.
“That was about the audience for that fight.”
Dunphy quickly came up with better fights than Ali-Frazier on March 8, 1971.
“It was a real good fight, no I had seen better,” he said. “(Tony) Zale-(Rocky) Graziano was better, the third Ali-Frazier fight was better than that one, the Thrilla in Manila, the (Carmen) Basillio-(Sugar Ray) Robinson, Robinson-(Jake) LaMotta; they were all from the fight standpoint but to me that was no evening that could touch that one for glamour.
“Everybody was at the Garden. Frank Sinatra got in because he was taking pictures for Life magazine. Oh it was a wonderful night.”
The fight itself took a lot out of both Ali and Frazier. Ali won the early rounds and began to fade in the middle. Frazier knocked down Ali in both the 11th and 15th rounds and won a unanimous decision. Ali went to the hospital after the bout to get x-rays on his jaw and Frazier spent some time in the hospital a month after the bout. But Frazier was the undisputed World Heavyweight Champion.
Ali-Frazier would meet again in 1974 and in 1975. The public clamor in 1974 was not as rabid as in 1971 but the fights were highly anticipated. Things had changed though for both men. Frazier was no longer the champions having lost to George Foreman in 1973 and for this fight, the build up started in an ABC-TV studio when the two reviewed the 1971 bout and Ali started talking and Frazier took exception and the two men came to blow, not unlike professional wrestling scripted tactics. After all, Ali watched Gorgeous George and Freddie Blassie as a kid and liked their bad guy wrestling persona. Ali won the rematch at the Garden in 12 rounds.
The Thrilla in Manila was another brutal fight; Ali was the champion having disposed of Foreman in Zaire in 1974 and won a 14 round fight after Frazier’s trainer Eddie Futch threw in the towel. It was the final fight between Ali and Frazier and ended Frazier’s relationship with Futch. Frazier fought Foreman again in 1976 and lost. It was the end of the road for Frazier. Ali won a few more bouts and lost to Leon Spinks in February 1978. He regained a title, the WBA version, by beating Spinks in October of that year. He retired in June 1979 but attempted an ill-fated comeback against former sparring partner and now champions Larry Holmes in October 1980 and lost. Ali’s final fight was in 1981 against Trevor Berbick and ended in a loss.
Frazier attempted a brief comeback in 1981, fighting to a draw with Jumbo Cummings. The era was over; both Ali and Frazier were shadows of their former selves. Neither would fight again.
Evan Weiner is a radio-TV commentator, columnist, and lecturer on “The Business and Politics of Sports.” He can be reach at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Showing posts with label Dover Downs Muhammad Ali. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dover Downs Muhammad Ali. Show all posts
Monday, March 15, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Rebuilding the Boxing Franchise From the Local Level Up
Rebuilding the Boxing Franchise From the Local Level Up
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m2d17-Rebuilding-the-Boxing-Franchise-from-the-local-level-up
By Evan Weiner
February17, 2010
(New York, N. Y.) -- About 10 years ago, my agent called me and asked if I wanted to do a television program for the History Channel. The show was going to be produced by Susan Michaels, the sister of the then-ABC sports announcer Al Michaels and was going to have among the other guests, Al Michaels, the noted sports commentator (and fellow client) Frank Deford and would be hosted by the “Scud Stud” Arthur Kent and the premise was that this program would cover the entire history of sports from say 773 B. C. when the first Olympic Games took place until say 1999 in two two-hour blocs minus commercial time as part of the “Histories Mysteries” franchise.
The TV show’s mission was an impossible task and today the show is probably floating around in pieces in some YouTube type setting.
The show was utterly forgettable except for one observation by the esteemed writer Frank Deford. The segment was about popularity of sports in the United States and how as Deford pointed out that in 1950, America’s most popular sports were baseball, boxing and horse racing and within a space of 15 years television had changed sports popularity with football taking the lead, baseball hanging in there but other sports sapped baseball’s popularity. Boxing was a well watched TV franchise in the 1950s but in the 1960s, the lure of big money was the hook behind taking championship boxing off commercial television and subsequent live showings of big time bouts on closed circuit in movie theaters, most championship boxing matches disappeared from prime time nor weekend TV.
It didn’t help boxing that Muhammad Ali refused induction into the United States Army based on his religious beliefs and his opposition to the Vietnam War in 1967.
Horse racing and boxing, except for Ali’s 1970s battles with Joe Frazier, George Foreman and Ken Norton, became afterthoughts. Boxing has never recovered from Ali’s retirement in 1981 although people had interest in Mike Tyson but the curiosity was not necessarily because of his ability in the ring.
At one time, boxing’s heavyweight champion was respected and held in high acclaim, that is no longer true. George Foreman is probably the most visible of the people who have been champion but that is because he reinvented himself into a highly successful, almost cuddly TV pitchman, which is 180 degrees different from his original incarnation. Muhammad Ali frightened people in the 1960s but over the decades has become an icon. There are no Foremans, Alis, Joe Fraziers, Rocky Marcianos or even the celluloid Rocky Balboa out there to capture the imagination in the United States right now, but there are some people in Delaware who would like to rebuild the sport.
Gloria Hammelef is the promoter at Dover Downs in Delaware and on February 26, she is putting together a card that she hopes will be the first that will energize the sport at least in an area between New York City and Norfolk, Virginia with Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D. C. within the market.
There are no familiar names on the card except for local Delaware fighters like Michael “No Joke” Stewart who will take on Brandon Baue in the main event, an eight round welterweight bout, but Hammelef is building a promotion that she hopes will get stronger and will eventually feature major bout but for now, at least for the February and June events, it is getting a foundation build and getting people interested in boxing.
“International boxing is doing okay,” said Hammeldef. “Boxing has lost a lot of luster but in this area, the interest is strong in terms of competition and there are a lot of gems, for a lot of these people, it is a family business and we are dedicated to do the best we can to give these young boxers a showcase they may not have, there is a lot of (boxing) talent in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, D.C. down to Tidewater (Virginia). Initially (the February 26th and June 4th cards), we want to showcase the talent and by September, have a title fight but we will maintain the undercut with the young talent.”
Dover Downs could become a major player in rebuilding the boxing brand. Dover Downs already has horse racing, two NASCAR events, casino gambling, sports betting and will have table games by summer and boxing could a nice fit with the other activities.
“Right now, there are several things we are looking to accomplish because we are a business and with the advent of table games we are looking for entertainment and events to attract the right demographic which are males 35 (years of age) plus. We are going to make every effort to revive boxing. There is an enormous amount of value in boxing and there is a lot of talent coming up. That kind of dedication needs to be rewarded to make the sport thrive,” said Hammelef.
Boxing has been a sport that has been dismissed by many in the sporting industry and yet in the 1990s, the sport generated a pile of cash from pay-per-view events and remains a mainstay in the casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Dover Downs has nearly sold out for the February 26th card which a number of local fighters which might be an indicator that boxing still has traction and again capture the imagination of boxing fans.
Boxing probably will never be mentioned in the same breathe as baseball in popularity as was the case in 1950 but that does not mean the sport cannot carve out a niche presence or better but it has to start from the ground up. Boxing used to have slogans like the people’s champion or the fan favorite or crowd pleasing or even tomato can.
Boxing needs a people’s champion; the ever-popular fan favorite or even the lovable tomato can like Chuck Wepner, the inspiration for film’s Rocky Balboa. The sport also needs to be nurtured in a crowded entertainment field.
Boxers were once celebrities for boxing and their personalities. Rocky Graziano has a whole other career after his boxing days because of his epic fights with Tony Zale and was immortalized in the 1956 movie, Somebody Up There Likes Me which starred Paul Newman as Graziano. Robert DeNiro starred in the 1980 movie Raging Bull which was the story of the middleweight boxer Jake Lamotta. There are many boxing movies but the producers don’t make many movies anymore about boxers with the exception of Ron Howard’s 2005 Cinderella Man about James J. Braddock who might have been the original Rocky Balboa and won the heavyweight title over Max Baer in 1935.
That is what boxing is missing and that is what Gloria Hammelef would like to bring back starting in Dover, Delaware.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m2d17-Rebuilding-the-Boxing-Franchise-from-the-local-level-up
By Evan Weiner
February17, 2010
(New York, N. Y.) -- About 10 years ago, my agent called me and asked if I wanted to do a television program for the History Channel. The show was going to be produced by Susan Michaels, the sister of the then-ABC sports announcer Al Michaels and was going to have among the other guests, Al Michaels, the noted sports commentator (and fellow client) Frank Deford and would be hosted by the “Scud Stud” Arthur Kent and the premise was that this program would cover the entire history of sports from say 773 B. C. when the first Olympic Games took place until say 1999 in two two-hour blocs minus commercial time as part of the “Histories Mysteries” franchise.
The TV show’s mission was an impossible task and today the show is probably floating around in pieces in some YouTube type setting.
The show was utterly forgettable except for one observation by the esteemed writer Frank Deford. The segment was about popularity of sports in the United States and how as Deford pointed out that in 1950, America’s most popular sports were baseball, boxing and horse racing and within a space of 15 years television had changed sports popularity with football taking the lead, baseball hanging in there but other sports sapped baseball’s popularity. Boxing was a well watched TV franchise in the 1950s but in the 1960s, the lure of big money was the hook behind taking championship boxing off commercial television and subsequent live showings of big time bouts on closed circuit in movie theaters, most championship boxing matches disappeared from prime time nor weekend TV.
It didn’t help boxing that Muhammad Ali refused induction into the United States Army based on his religious beliefs and his opposition to the Vietnam War in 1967.
Horse racing and boxing, except for Ali’s 1970s battles with Joe Frazier, George Foreman and Ken Norton, became afterthoughts. Boxing has never recovered from Ali’s retirement in 1981 although people had interest in Mike Tyson but the curiosity was not necessarily because of his ability in the ring.
At one time, boxing’s heavyweight champion was respected and held in high acclaim, that is no longer true. George Foreman is probably the most visible of the people who have been champion but that is because he reinvented himself into a highly successful, almost cuddly TV pitchman, which is 180 degrees different from his original incarnation. Muhammad Ali frightened people in the 1960s but over the decades has become an icon. There are no Foremans, Alis, Joe Fraziers, Rocky Marcianos or even the celluloid Rocky Balboa out there to capture the imagination in the United States right now, but there are some people in Delaware who would like to rebuild the sport.
Gloria Hammelef is the promoter at Dover Downs in Delaware and on February 26, she is putting together a card that she hopes will be the first that will energize the sport at least in an area between New York City and Norfolk, Virginia with Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D. C. within the market.
There are no familiar names on the card except for local Delaware fighters like Michael “No Joke” Stewart who will take on Brandon Baue in the main event, an eight round welterweight bout, but Hammelef is building a promotion that she hopes will get stronger and will eventually feature major bout but for now, at least for the February and June events, it is getting a foundation build and getting people interested in boxing.
“International boxing is doing okay,” said Hammeldef. “Boxing has lost a lot of luster but in this area, the interest is strong in terms of competition and there are a lot of gems, for a lot of these people, it is a family business and we are dedicated to do the best we can to give these young boxers a showcase they may not have, there is a lot of (boxing) talent in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, D.C. down to Tidewater (Virginia). Initially (the February 26th and June 4th cards), we want to showcase the talent and by September, have a title fight but we will maintain the undercut with the young talent.”
Dover Downs could become a major player in rebuilding the boxing brand. Dover Downs already has horse racing, two NASCAR events, casino gambling, sports betting and will have table games by summer and boxing could a nice fit with the other activities.
“Right now, there are several things we are looking to accomplish because we are a business and with the advent of table games we are looking for entertainment and events to attract the right demographic which are males 35 (years of age) plus. We are going to make every effort to revive boxing. There is an enormous amount of value in boxing and there is a lot of talent coming up. That kind of dedication needs to be rewarded to make the sport thrive,” said Hammelef.
Boxing has been a sport that has been dismissed by many in the sporting industry and yet in the 1990s, the sport generated a pile of cash from pay-per-view events and remains a mainstay in the casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Dover Downs has nearly sold out for the February 26th card which a number of local fighters which might be an indicator that boxing still has traction and again capture the imagination of boxing fans.
Boxing probably will never be mentioned in the same breathe as baseball in popularity as was the case in 1950 but that does not mean the sport cannot carve out a niche presence or better but it has to start from the ground up. Boxing used to have slogans like the people’s champion or the fan favorite or crowd pleasing or even tomato can.
Boxing needs a people’s champion; the ever-popular fan favorite or even the lovable tomato can like Chuck Wepner, the inspiration for film’s Rocky Balboa. The sport also needs to be nurtured in a crowded entertainment field.
Boxers were once celebrities for boxing and their personalities. Rocky Graziano has a whole other career after his boxing days because of his epic fights with Tony Zale and was immortalized in the 1956 movie, Somebody Up There Likes Me which starred Paul Newman as Graziano. Robert DeNiro starred in the 1980 movie Raging Bull which was the story of the middleweight boxer Jake Lamotta. There are many boxing movies but the producers don’t make many movies anymore about boxers with the exception of Ron Howard’s 2005 Cinderella Man about James J. Braddock who might have been the original Rocky Balboa and won the heavyweight title over Max Baer in 1935.
That is what boxing is missing and that is what Gloria Hammelef would like to bring back starting in Dover, Delaware.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
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