Smokin' Joe Frazier
And a sad, short addendum to today: Joe Frazier has been diagnosed with late terminal liver cancer and has only weeks to live.
Not just the third-best boxer of his generation, Frazier will be remembered as the hardest-headed fighter in history. Joe was all courage - never tall enough to threaten the beasts that grew in the 1970s: George Foreman, et al, Smokin' Joe would never give up, and possessed a left hook capable of putting any fighter on the floor any time and was one half of the bout recognised as the greatest fight in history, the Thriller in Manila, a 15-round gladiatorial war between two of the greatest fighters to tie on gloves.
Au revoir, Joe, they were the greatest of days in a sport which is now more WWE than Ali.
Copyright © Alan Charman