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wasn’t the best, but he was a good draw in New York and he had those two decisions over Frazier in the amateurs.
    Joe and Buster were friends. They had spent a great deal of time together during the Olympics and had gotten to know each other, but they remained fierce ring rivals. Frazier, in particular, felt the spur. He could not forget the two defeats he suffered to Mathis in the amateurs, defeats he believed were completely unwarranted. He felt he had won those fights. He still believed it, and he watched them on film over and over as if to remind himself that he had a score to settle. In fifty-nine fights as an amateur and pro, those two defeats to Mathis were the only marks on an otherwise perfect record—it rankled.
    In the customary prefight bravado, Mathis confidently stated that he had beaten Frazier twice before and would do it again.
    â€œThat was a long time ago,” Frazier insisted. “Fighting in the amateurs compared to the pros is like two different worlds.” Frazier had little respect for Mathis’ record as a professional and the odds makers concurred, tabbing Joe a 2 to 1 favorite. “Mathis?” Frazier would say. “Oh, yeah, he’s the one who fights those guys that get carried in on crutches.”
    The patter continued throughout their training periods. As a gimmick, Frazier sent Mathis a wooden figurine in the shape of a devil and added a tiny placard that told Mathis where he could go.
    â€œJoe, he have a simple sense of humor,” Mathis countered. “Imagine him giving me this thing. He’s liable to get me mad. But you can tell him this for me. I got a nice gift for him.” Mathis raised his right hand and balled it into a clenched fist.
    â€œBuster say that?” Frazier said. “Shoot. He don’t know no better. All this talk, you can be sure of only one thing. Once the bell ring, he gonna run like a thief.”
    When Mathis announced that he would be married a month after his fight with Frazier, Joe sent the following telegram: “
Congratulations, Buster. Couldn’t happen to a nicer fellow, but suggest you advance the wedding to March 5 because you’ll sure need a nurse after I get through with you on the night before
.”
    All the talk helped the Garden do brisk business at the box office. Five other states—Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maine, Texas, and Massachusetts—threw in with New York and announced they would recognize the Mathis-Frazier winner as champion. But the British Boxing Board of Control, while it could not sanction the winner of the WBA’s tournament, turned thumbs down on the Garden fight. It recognized Muhammad Ali as champion and would continue to do so unless he should be committed to prison. “We are behind the claims of Frazier as number one contender,” said board secretary Teddy Waltham, “but we do not consider Mathis a suitable contender for the title.”
    Meanwhile, militant black groups planned to picket the fight, to protest the deposing of Ali as champion. Black poet LeRoi Jones said, “Even though Buster Mathis and Joe Frazier might tell white people that they are the heavyweight champion after this fight, they will never come in the black community claiming they are the heavyweight champion. They know that little kids would laugh them out of the streets.”
    As he wound up his training at the Concord Hotel in Lake Kiamesha, New York, Joe Frazier was getting irritable. It was a good sign, a sign he was ready to rumble. The pattern is always the same in Frazier’s training camp. His stays there usually last about seven weeks. In the first five weeks, the atmosphere is serene, relaxed. He wakes up each morning at five, runs two or three miles, returns to his room and naps until noon. Then he has breakfast, takes a walk and relaxes until it’s time to go into the gym in the early afternoon.
    He works out for about an hour, doing calisthenics, hitting the