Come Out Smokin' by Phil Pepe Page A

not there to work, there’s no sense bothering with them.”
    Yank Durham and Joe Frazier have been together ever since, through the amateurs, through the early days, right up to Frazier’s ascension to the top of the boxing world. In a sport in which shotgun marriages and early divorces between fighters and managers are commonplace, the longevity of the Frazier-Durham wedding is a tribute to the manager. So is the success of the team.
    If Frazier is to be given credit, with justification, for knocking off everybody in his path, Durham must also be credited with teaching, training, and pacing Joe’s career, calling the shots in the name of Cloverlay.
    For the team to have succeeded for so long, there has to be a rapport, a meeting of the minds and a delineation of authority. Durham did the training and Frazier did the fighting Yank called the shots, but Joe had to believe in him. First there was the matter of style.
    â€œPeople used to come into the gym to see Joe work out and they’d tell me, ‘Why don’t you teach Joe how to box?’ Well, I say this ain’t his way, it ain’t necessary for him to be a boxer. It takes a boxer ten rounds to do what Joe gets done in two or three. A good boxer don’t really hurt you. You just suddenly feel sleepy and that’s it. Now Joe, he destroys a man with power. When Joe gets through with a man, he’s all busted up. To win a fight don’t take him ten rounds, it only takes two or three, so why do I want to make a boxer out of him?
    â€œI figured this way,” Durham continued in typical nonstop fashion. “Joe was a strong boy with great power. Let’s make him go right in. What we had to do was shorten his punches. You don’t want to have a fighter wind up before he punches. He couldn’t be a Hurricane Jackson or a Rocky Marciano. If he was going in, though, he’d have to learn to slip and slide. His offense is his defense and his defense is fighting.”
    The reference to Marciano is interesting, coming from Durham, because many boxing experts have compared Frazier’s style to that of the late, unbeaten heavyweight champ—similar physiques, power emanating from their legs, both willing to take a few punches to get in a few. But Durham gets uptight at the comparison.
    â€œYou never saw Marciano slip punches the way Joe does,” he growls. “Joe is more of a Henry Armstrong type of fighter. No heavyweight ever threw punches as fast as Joe. Fifty-six a minute. He can rack up thirty points a round. That’s welterweight speed. He may not move around the ring so fast, but those hands . . . look out.”
    Naturally, Frazier and Durham have had their tense times, no more and no less, though, than a lot of other people who like and respect each other but must work together on a day-to-day basis. The foundation of their relationship has been an ability to understand each other, to recognize that there are going to be differences of opinion and to keep them to a minimum and not to let them blow up out of proportion.
    â€œI let him ask questions,” Durham says, “I don’t tell him. It’s a good relationship. Joe hasn’t changed any through the years. He’s the type of guy who never talks back. If we get into an argument, he’ll turn and walk away. The only problem I’ve ever had with Joe is that he wants to start training too early and work too hard. Toward the end, he gets evil. I’ll say six rounds and he’ll say eight.”
    For Joe’s part, “Yank is all right. You know Yank, he’s the boss. Whatever he says goes.”
    If a reporter asks Frazier why he worked only four rounds or who his next opponent might be, his inevitable reply is, “Ask Yank. That’s his department.”
    â€œMe and Yank?” says Joe Frazier. “We’re together, man.”
    Sometimes it seems they are together more than as fighter and manager.