Joe Frazier Wins One Final Time
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By DERON SNYDER
Muhammad Ali was there, his body frail and trembling in the throes of Parkinson’s disease. Fellow boxers Bernard Hopkins, Larry Holmes and Michael Spinks were there, too, among others, including promoter Don King, paying their respects to Joe Frazier at Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church in Philadelphia.
The tributes poured out last week immediately following Frazier’s death from liver cancer at age 67. And they continued at his funeral, with videotaped messages from Mike Tyson, Donald Trump and Mickey Rourke.
But the most stirring came from the Rev. Jesse Jackson, delivering the eulogy and comparing Frazier’s legend to that of Sylvester Stallone’s Philadelphia-based movie character, Rocky, who has a statue at the base of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Jackson wondered why city leaders embraced Rocky so much, but not Frazier.
