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July 2001
Each month we bring you a selection of articles from the current and past issues of BOXING MONTHLY. To buy the magazine, see our subscription or back issues pages, or use our world distribution map to find a news-stand copy. Why not use our Interactive Forum to express your own boxing comments and opinions!
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WHATEVER YOU WANT You could take what you liked from the much-hyped Laila Ali vs Jacquie Frazier-Lyde 'event', but the fight itself wasn't that bad. STEVE FARHOOD reports from New York |
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Ali had the skill but Frazier-Lyde showed impressive determination
- Get Big Pic Even on Bash Boulevard, where Don King specialises in trickeration and Bob Arum may or may not be telling the truth, most things are what they seem to be. But the hype-till-it's-ripe match-up of Laila Ali-Jacquie Frazier, which was available on 8 June for $24.95 on pay-per-view, was whatever you wanted it to be. That was the attraction, if not the lure. If you wanted, the eight-round women's match-up was Ali-Frazier IV, an after-the-plug-has-been-pulled continuation of the greatest rivalry in sports history. Never mind that Laila wasn't yet born when Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier stripped each other to their souls in Manila. She was still the flesh and blood of "The Greatest" and picture-prize Veronica, and Jacquie still belonged to "Smokin' Joe" and his filly (Philly?) Flo. Lesson learned: Genealogy, spiced with trash-talk, sells. This shouldn't have come as a surprise. The first in-your-face insult in history was family-oriented: "Your mother!" If you wanted, Laila-Jacquie had as much to do with Ali-Frazier as an adolescent Ivana Trump building sand castles on the beach had to do with The Donald adding to the New York City skyline. If you wanted, Laila-Jacquie was an insult to women boxers who were doing it the right way, a maddening match-up of novices that wouldn't qualify as an opening act on a Golden Gloves card in the basement of an inner-city high school. After all, Laila, 23, had built a record of 9-0 (8 KOs) by thrashing waitresses and 48-year-old former prostitutes. Worse yet, Jacquie, a 39-year-old attorney, had vanquished seven victims who had registered a combined two wins. Compared to these two, Mia St. John has been tackling Xena the Warrior Princess. If you wanted, Laila-Jacquie was something different on a Friday night. (How many Tom Hanks videos can one family rent?). If you wanted, it was a harmless promotion that was never sold as something it was not. "There's nothing wrong with gimmick," said former cruiserweight Johnny McClain, Laila's husband and the bout's co-promoter (with Jacquie's husband, Peter Lyde). "It's a marketing tool to make people watch what you're doing." If you wanted, you could ignore it altogether. "I wouldn't spend 15 cents to see it," the veteran Home Box Office analyst Larry Merchant told USA Today. "More importantly, I wouldn't waste 15 minutes of my time. To me, it's like a stupid pet trick." Maybe so, but if you wanted, wouldn't you pay $24.95 to watch an elephant make 10 consecutive free throws? Unlike, say, Christy Martin and Lucia Rijker, Laila Ali and Jacquie Frazier are not accomplished fighters. But they are self-assured, attractive, and verbally adept, which made their inevitable showdown all the easier to market. Oh, yeah, and their last names helped, too. Bad girl Laila was raised by her mother. (Ali and Veronica were divorced when Laila was eight.) Busted for shoplifting in 1995, she was an upper-class girl seeking the dark side. "Everyone else was trying to get out of the ghetto," she said. "I was trying to get in." She ended up opening a nail salon in the affluent Los Angeles suburb of Marina Del Rey, California. Laila was attracted to boxing after watching Martin fight on TV, and took up the sport to lose weight. She spent a year in the gym before turning pro in October 1999. At first, she resisted the idea of battling Jacquie. "We're not addressing it until Jacquie Frazier is a professional fighter," Laila said in December Ô99. "Let her get in the ring and become a professional. Then we'll deal with it." Good girl Jacquie was president of her high school class. She attended college on a basketball scholarship and received her law degree from Villanova University. Despite the location of her office (on the second floor of Papa Joe's famed Philadelphia gym), she never considered putting on a pair of Everlasts. Then boxing writer Bernard Fernandez phoned her for a reaction to Laila's pro debut. After declaring that a showdown would "establish Laila financially, and then I would establish her horizontally," she found herself in too deep to withdraw. (Blame it on that famous Frazier family pride.) She trained for about three months before turning pro in February 2000. From the start, her singular goal was a match-up with Laila. Before their eight-round battle at the Turning Stone Casino in Verona, New York, I had seen Ali live on two occasions, and Frazier only on tape. Comfortable with the rhythms of the ring, Ali looked the part of a professional fighter. But she was exposed while scoring a six-round decision over a woman with a losing record, Kendra Lenhart, on the Tyson-Golota undercard last October. Her problem was a common one: She was pretty as a butterfly when flying free, but didn't know what to do when her opponent punched back. For her part, Frazier didn't seem to have a clue. She pushed her punches, led with her face, and boxed with the balance of sailor on a four-day bender. You never would have guessed she was once an accomplished athlete. In one sense, the exposure Laila and Jacquie received was good not just for women's boxing, but boxing as a whole. Their limitations re-emphasised just how difficult a discipline boxing is to master. As the fight grew near, the women reversed the roles their fathers had relished. Laila withdrew as if the prospect of a do-it-for-the-dough duel with Jacquie cheapened the purity of her mission. Jacquie cheerfully led the promotional push (The Today Show, the cover of TV Guide and Jet), shamelessly invoking the names of the fathers at every turn. "This is a celebration of the legacy of Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali," Jacquie said. It's about respect." And don't forget the money. Laila and Jacquie reportedly earned $100, 000 guarantees, plus a percentage of the PPV take. Adding to the surrealism of the scene, Laila-Jacquie took place during the International Boxing Hall of Fame's induction weekend in nearby Canastota, New York. All-time greats were lined from ring post to ring post. Smokin' Joe arrived during the undercard (Ali had a commitment at a NASCAR event), and Angelo Dundee, Eddie Futch, and Arthur Mercante, all partly defined by the Ali-Frazier trilogy, were in the house as well. No, Frank Sinatra did not shoot the fight for Life magazine. Dean Stone, and not Johnny Addie, was the ring announcer. And so many others who were associated with 8 March 1971 (Ali-Frazier I), including Bundini Brown, Yank Durham, John Condon, Jack Kent Cook, and Don Dunphy, were watching from high above the rafters Ñ assuming they're wired for PPV up there. In the first 10 seconds of the first two-minute round, the terms of the struggle were established. Intending to emphasise the relative sophistication of her skills, the 5ft 10ins Laila, 1603/4lbs (11st 63/4lbs), craved space. Conversely, the 5ft 9ins Jacquie, 164lbs, sought to uphold the family tradition by smothering Laila in phone booth warfare. If a boxing ring were the size of a football field, all Fraziers would push their respective opponents to the 50-yard-line and introduce blocking and tackling drills. So close was Jacquie that in the first round, Laila suffered from Smoke inhalation. Laila responded by hitting on the break and grabbing Jacquie behind the neck. The latter tactic, of course, was Muhammad Ali's most frequent response to Papa Joe's pressure in their second fight. In the second round, the crowd of 6,500 began chanting "Ali! Ali! Ali!" Jacquie scored with a pair of hooks, but given reasonable distance, Laila bested her by firing straight blows. The exchanges illustrated one of Jacquie's basic flaws: In ring-centre, she stands straight up, with none of the head or upper-body movement that characterised her father's style. Moreover, Jacquie, who had never boxed past four rounds, was breathing heavily by the bell. For all the technical flaws, the pace never slowed. Jacquie opened the third with a flurry, but Laila responded with a left-right-right that snapped back her opponent's head. In the fourth, Frazier squared up, maximising Laila's target. The bout became messy, with Jacquie mauling and brawling and Laila looking uncomfortable. Referee Robert Fenocchi did a good job of keeping order. At the halfway mark, Laila led by 3-1 in rounds. The late rounds were more difficult to score. With Jacquie flailing and missing, Laila carried the fifth. She landed her best blow to date, a crisp hook to the chin, and at one point dropped her left hand and posed. The Ali Shuffle, however, was missing throughout. By the sixth, both women were void of power. Far more effective with hooks than one-twos or chopping rights, Jacquie moved Laila to the ropes. Laila tried to respond, but fought on the inside like a manicurist. Whether chest to chest or boxing from a distance, neither fighter was adept at keeping a high guard. Stamina be damned; the seventh was good stuff, with a hard trade of punches early and a cat-and-mouse chase late. The energy exerted by Laila and Jacquie was absorbed by the fans, who were not only out of their chairs in the eighth, but jumping and furiously waving their arms. Jacquie took the last round, pinning Laila and moving her hands throughout. It was an impressive finish for a woman who had previously fought a total of 15 total rounds. "There's no doubt in my mind that you have your daddy in you," Smokin' Joe told Jacquie afterwards. All in all, it was a battle of high determination, albeit a sloppy one. Then again, what were you expecting, Leonard-Benitez? The majority decision went to Laila, with Frank Adams scoring 79-73, Don Ackerman 77-75, and Tommy Hicks 76-76. Boxing Monthly scored for Laila by 77-75. "She was tougher than I thought she'd be," said Laila. "The problem was I started fighting her fight." "I thought the decision could have gone either way," said Jacquie. "I'd love to do it again." Ultimately, what harm was done? Laila and Jacquie certainly didn't elevate the sport, but expectations being what they were, they didn't embarrass themselves either. Hard-core fans who were insulted by the pairing tuned in to a viable option, the Eric Morel-Jose Lopez flyweight title fight on ESPN2's Friday Night Fights. As for the curious who warily shelled out the $24.95, hell, Monte Barrett's undercard victory over Tim Witherspoon was worth the price alone. Okay, so I'm kidding on that one. "I think it was a great night for women's boxing," said Laila. "I think women's boxing was a winner tonight," said Jacquie. Apparently, Ali-Frazier IV was whatever Laila and Jacquie wanted it to be, too. |
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