Down went Joe Frazier 50 years ago in a loss to George Foreman that altered lives. Philly would rise again.

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When Howard Cosell shouted “Down goes Frazier!” on January 22, 1973, it represented a dark time in Philadelphia sports. Fifty years later, the iconic call still echoes through popular culture.

Fifty years later, Weatta Frazier Collins still remembered. Joe Frazier’s daughter was brought over with her mother to see her father at the hotel in Kingston, Jamaica, later that Monday night, Jan. 22, 1973. He looked like a monster. His eyes were swollen, blotched slits. The sides of his head were lumped up and misshapen.

Smokin’ Joe demanded attention everywhere he went. He was recognized internationally, although he carried a welcoming demeanor to anyone who approached him. “Joe was the light in the darkness of Philadelphia sports back then. He was a scrappy guy who took down Muhammad Ali.”“There was no way I was supposed to win that fight,” said Foreman, 74, whom more millennials may know for the millions he made with the George Foreman Grill than as a Hall of Fame fighter who was the two-time heavyweight champion. “I was afraid of the man. Joe was a giant slayer. I looked into that man’s eyes and I saw a beast.

Cosell did not know what he started, nor how long his simple three words said three times would endure. “Through the Job Corps, I was introduced to boxing,” Foreman said. “I met LBJ once after I won the [1968 Olympic] gold medal and again when he invited me back to a state dinner. “You have the attitude of being the best, ‘the world needs me.’ If you leave that life, depression sets in with these individuals. Tom Brady doesn’t want to go back to what is really normal. My daddy went through some of that. These individuals are special. They’re not normal. My father was in that same boat. Daddy wanted to continue. And then after he lost, he wasn’t.

 

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The late Smokin’ Joe was the last standard bearer of Philadelphia sports back then, when boxing was relevant and most sports fans knew who the heavyweight champion of the world was.

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