“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>In its most recent edition, “font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Belles Lettres, published by the Center for the Humanities at Washington University, published a long essay about boxing great Joe Frazier by center director Gerald Early. The American is reprinting that essay in the 2012 Black History Month section, in three parts,w ith permission.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>—Robert E. Lee (1862)
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>1. Boxing as War “font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Norman Mailer, in his 1971 Life magazine article on “The Fight of the Century” (the championship boxing match between the then undefeated, Olympic gold medalist Muhammad Ali and the then undefeated, Olympic gold medalist Joe Frazier), called him the War Machine. He was short, with stumpy, muscular arms, a stocky body, thick legs – all the signs of someone who had been a fat kid who at first had been bullied and then became a tough guy himself.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>As Frazier wrote in his autobiography, “Fact is by the time I was ten, eleven years old, adults in Laurel Bay [South Carolina] would steer their kids clear of me.” There was nothing of the ideal heavyweight about him. But his dream, from watching Friday Night Fights as a boy (his family was the first in Laurel Bay to own a television), was to be another Joe Louis: “Boxing fit with the rough-and-tumble character I was.”
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>His nemesis, Ali, had the Greek-god proportions, the proper dimensions of the modern heavyweight of the 1960s and 1970s, the looks of the boy next door all combined with the patina of political relevance and the fervent innocence of the true believer. Joe Frazier was actually small for the division, a truck built more to be a football running back than a heavyweight.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>But he was fierce, relentless, always bobbing and weaving, his head in constant motion, pressing forward, looking for an opening with his deadly, stomach-smashing, liver-paralyzing left hook. (I cringed the first time I saw Frazier hit somebody during the 1964 Olympics. The blow was both so immaculately merciless and bone-breakingly hard. “I wore a son of a bitch out with that hook,” Frazier said. I was twelve and felt utter fear when I saw it. When Ali hit someone, I was dazzled, not fearful.)
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Frazier sometimes left his feet to throw a punch. Shorter fighters occasionally do that. Mike Tyson did, during his halcyon days. If Ali made you think, for at least a certain portion of his career, that boxing was some form of ballet or modern dance, or a form of comic theater threaded with moments of melodrama, Frazier told you simply that boxing was war. Nothing more. Nothing less.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Frazier was honest in that way; you either learned to grow fond of the sport’s brutality and savage objectives, its terrific terribleness, or you walked away from it, horrified or outraged or bored or all three combined. I never quite learned to grow too fond of it, never learned to love the war in the ring, but I learned to respect it immensely.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>I never liked Joe Frazier as I encountered him during my adolescence or young manhood, but I learned to respect him a great deal, even more so his scorched-earth brand of masculinity. Frazier reassured me in my doubt, rescued me from my own immature instincts, prevented me from growing too fond of war.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>To be continued next week.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Gerald Early is Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters and director of the Center for the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis.
