Come Out Smokin' by Phil Pepe Page B

Sometimes it seems Yank Durham is both fighter and manager, an impression Durham creates by his habit of referring to his fighter in the first person. “
I
boxed six rounds today” or “
I
knocked that guy out in three” or “
I
’
m
fighting Jerry Quarry in New York next month.” It sounds pompous, as if Durham and Frazier were one and the same, or as if Durham were the more important of the two, but it’s not meant that way. It’s just Yank’s style and Frazier usually listens to such talk with an amused smile. Usually.
    It wasn’t until the purses started getting substantial that Yank finally gave up his job as a welder for the Pennsylvania Railroad. Now he looks forward to retirement, or at least semiretirement. He anticipates not working so hard. He’s been at it all his life and now that it has finally paid off, he would like to enjoy life a little more, to spend more time with his young family.
    â€œI’m not sure I want to go on beating my brains out,” he says. “Who wants to be away from home so much? Who wants to have no private life? When does it become time for a man to live his own life?”
    In the future Yank would like to do something in radio. He talks wistfully about a career in announcing. One thing Yank Durham likes almost as much as boxing is talking. “But,” he emphasizes, “none of that play-a-record, talk-a-little for me. I want to be a regular announcer.”
    It would be easy for Yank to keep riding the gravy train, one fight a year for a big purse for, say, five, six more years. But he wants out as much for his fighter as for himself.
    â€œIt’s in writing,” he says. “When I tell Joe to quit, he quits. No one will ever say I let him stay around and become a shot fighter. You’ll see.”
    When retirement is mentioned to Frazier, he replies as he does to all questions concerning his boxing future. “It’s up to Yank.”
    Yank Durham is a hulk of a man who is perpetually on a diet and perpetually looking as if he needed to go on one. He has a full head of snow-white hair and a trim little mustache, but easily the most impressive thing about him is his voice. It’s a deep, resonant voice that comes from deep in his bowels and inspired famed sports columnist Red Smith to dub him “the black Everett Dirksen.”
    It’s his smooth purr of a voice that embellishes Yank’s reputation as a slick operator. Boxing promoters have found him to be a stubborn, hardheaded business man . . . stubborn and hardheaded, but fair. When the biggest money of all was about to come in, it was Yank who made the catch, serving in the unique position of negotiator for both fighters, Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali.
    It had been agreed by both sides that Frazier and Ali would get equal shares when they fought. Durham had a pretty good idea how much it would take to make the match. He sat back and let the offers come in, screening them to find the valid ones. There were dozens. But when it came time to put up the money, only Jerry Perenchio came through. The price was right, the money was certified by a bank and only then did Durham decide the Perenchio group was the one to get the promotion. He made his recommendation to Ali’s people; they approved; and the fight was made, owing to the groundwork done by Yank Durham.
    When it comes to business, Yank Durham has no friends. Money talks. “If somebody came with an offer,” Yank says, “I’d tell them to let me see the money. When this man [Perenchio] came up with the money, he got the fight.”
    The turning point in Frazier’s career came on November 21, 1966, and it came because of a chance Yank Durham was willing to take. He sensed that Frazier was ready for a veteran pro like Eddie Machen and his hunch paid off.
    Now, Yank Durham was about to take his second gamble. He thumbed his nose at the World Boxing