Burt Watson: Joe Frazier gave me my break
It is not widely known that UFC site coordinator Burt Watson was Joe’s manager, and friend. Watson appeared on MMAjunkie.com…
It is not widely known that UFC site coordinator Burt Watson was Joe’s manager, and friend. Watson appeared on MMAjunkie.com Radio to talk about Frazier passing this week from liver cancer at the age of 67
“I’m still kind of in shock,” Watson related. “He was definitely more than just what the boxing world and the sports world knew of him. He was a person. He was a real man. I spent almost 15 years with Joe.”
“(Decades ago) we started hanging out, and it was one of those things where, hey man, you have got to either hire me or leave me the hell alone,” Watson joked. “He gave me my break. And he gave me my break when he didn’t have to. He gave me a break because he felt it. He trusted me. He trusted me heart. I trusted him, his heart.”
“We would go places just because he wanted to go. And we would walk in, and people would sit and look and would be awed and surprised it was him walking in to wherever we would go. But that’s just the person he was. He didn’t separate himself. He didn’t take himself from the community. He gave more of himself back to people than anything monetarily. I don’t think there’s a person in Philadelphia that met Joe Frazier that didn’t realize how real and genuine he was.
“Joe was one of the few super superstars that never took himself out of reality, took himself away from the people he loved, the people that made him famous. He stayed in the neighborhood. Everyone could touch him. A lot of times superstars, when people become superstars, for certain reasons they have to live that way. Joe never took himself out of that realm.”
“That’s what made history, the trilogy with Muhammad Ali and him. But he also became his own figure. He became Joe Frazier. He became kind of a people’s champion. And there are a lot of people that admire and like Joe Frazier not just because he fought Muhammad Ali, but like him because of his style, the way he fought, the way he got his fame, the way he handled his fame, the toughness, the grittiness, the lunchbox-carrying boy from South Carolina.”
What would Frazier say if he could pass along a pearl of wisdom to the UFC fighters and the boxers of today?
“You work hard, you get it. You work harder, you keep it. And when you get it, you don’t let it go to your head, baby, because it lasts as long as you hold onto it.
“History has a way of making you a part of it without you even asking for it. So you don’t have to do anything crazy to make history. It’ll take care of itself. It’ll do that for you. All you’ve got to do is be you and do what you do best and get the job done, plain and simple.”