Frazier wants return bout

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33963, 2 October 1975, Page 26

Frazier wants return bout

(N.Z. Prt«» Awn— Copyright) MANILA, October 1. Battered Joe Frazier wearing dark glasses on his scarred and puffed-up face told reporters after his defeat that the decision not to come out for the fifteenth round had been his manager’s, not his own.

Frazier, who until the twelfth round appeared to be heading for victory, admitted that “two bad rounds” had left him blind in the ring and he could no longer see All’s punches. His manager, Eddie Futch, had told him after seeing he was badly hurt in the fourteenth round “Joe, I must stop this.”

Frazier said he thought It had been “a heck of a fight,” and said he had felt he was ahead on points when the end came. “Sure, 1 was disappointed when they stopped the fight but I never argue with what Eddie does.”

In spite of reports that he would retire after the fight, Frazier said that he hoped to meet All for a fourth time.

Frazier’s trainer said, “Joe was taking a lot of shots — I didn’t think he could win in the condition he was in and I saw no use in risking an injury to him.”

All said of Frazier, “He could have whipped anybody in the world except me.”

“He is great” Ali said. “He is greater than I thought he was. He is the best there is except me.

“My arms are sore, my legs are sore, my sides are sore,” he said. “I am so tired. I want to rest for a

Ali said Frazier shook him up a couple of times with left hooks, but he never felt he was in too much trouble.

“I couldn’t have taken the punches he took,” Ali said.