Celebrity Autographs And Celebrity Addresses

OVER 250 city boxing fans recently enjoyed a dinner date with one of their heroes.
Smokin' Joe Frazier, the heavyweight legend from Philadelphia, was the main attraction at Kevin Sanders' latest sporting dinner at the East Of England Showground.

Frazier, a rare visitor to these shores, gave a short talk about his career and then took part in a question and answer session with his son Marvis, who was also a successful heavyweight fighter.

Then at the end of the evening he spent an hour posing for photographs and signing autographs.

Frazier, now 60, was the first man to defeat Muhammad Ali as a professional in 1971 and the guests watched a recording of that bout on the big screen along with many of his earlier contests.

Frazier made 10 successful defences of the title and ended up fighting Ali three times – the last occasion being the famous Thriller in Manila.

Frazier spoke at length about Ali.

"He was a great guy. He gave plenty to the fight game and it's a pity the fight game isn't giving him anything back," said Frazier.

"Ali was irresistible – that's why I fought him three times.

"And I tell you what, he was afraid of me. It was because I was such a little guy. He didn't like little guys. He wasn't afraid of George Foreman or Sonny Liston, but I scared him.

"He was okay was Ali. But one thing really disappointed me about him. It was after we first fought. If I whupped him he promised to crawl across the ring and say I was The Greatest.

"Well, I whupped him but he never went through with his promise. I think he was too busy making his way to the hospital after all those body punches I threw at him."

But Ali didn't figure on Frazier's list of all-time greats. That honour went to Joe Louis closely followed by Rocky Marciano, Primo Carnera and George Foreman.

And when asked who he thought was the best boxer to come out of Britain, Smokin' Joe paused for a while and said: ''I can't think of one."

Frazier also said he felt Lennox Lewis had retired far too early – ''at 38 he's just a baby,'' he said – and he believed there was still time for Mike Tyson to ''start all over again".

Frazier spoke a lot about his childhood and recalled how he used to help his father, who was a bootlegger.

"And it was my father who made me a champion fighter. One day he and his mates were drunk and told me when I was small that I was going to be a champion. So I grew up that way. I believed them. I knew where I was going.''

Marvis Frazier, who fought Larry Holmes and Tyson, explained why he quit boxing.
He said: ''My dad always said to me, it was time to quit when it felt like you were doing it as a job. It felt like that, so I quit and now I'm a preacher trying to keep kids off the street."

A minute's silence was held during the evening for Andy Smith, the St Ives-based trainer of Dave 'Boy' Green and Joe Bugner who died last week after a long illness.