Joe Frazier is smaller than Chris Byrd and Eddie Chambers in all aspect's. His average prime weight was 205lbs, he had a reach of 73″ and was barely 5'11"! At 215lbs he looked badly out of shape:
Even the 216lb, former CW Jean Marc Mormeck wore the weight well:
How would he fare against the Klitschko's? Disregard (for now) the fact that he would be unable to fight today on medical grounds due to being blind in his left eye throughout his entire career and give me your thoughts on a Klitschko vs. Frazier showdown!
I know size is not neccessarily an indicator of outcome but with margin's like that they have to factor in surely! Especially considering Joe unlike i.e 215lb Chris Byrd wasn't the slickest or most agile of fighters!
Personally i think George Foreman put Frazier there where he objectively belongs. When Joe Frazier met the only heavyweight comparable to Klitschko i.e Foreman (And even then foreman is a much smaller HW than wlad!) he was violently schooled!
His reputation as a puncher and for punch-resistance is based on fighting cruiserweights and he would be a very good cruiserweight if he was around today. However, it's not merely the fact that he lost to George Foreman that is significant but the margin and manner of the defeat. Thanks to his incompetent cornermen and the equally useless referee, Joe Frazier was lucky to leave Jamaica alive in 1973. Given his slow starting and the regularity with which he took punches, he'd be in desperate trouble against any decent sized, big punching genuine heavyweight of today (See Bonavena and Bugner fights! Not a good sign...)
I am a frazier fan and he will be missed, He had the heart to keep fighting and never give up no matter what but in truth Klitschko vs. Ali's arch nemesis would be a missmatch..
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