As told to George Willis

When I found out last week that Joe Frazier was sick, I wanted to go see him, but I was told that wasn’t necessary. And knowing Joe, he wouldn’t want people to see him like that. He was a proud man.

We have been friends since 1973-74, when I worked as his sparring partner, preparing him for his second fight against Muhammad Ali. We’ve stayed in touch since then.

We were friends, real friends. He came over to my house. I visited his. He came to a lot of my parties and would always show up when I asked him to attend one of my charity events. We did those things for each other.

In his later years, he was finally getting some of the respect he didn’t get because of Ali. Ali tried to make him look bad, calling him things like ignorant and an Uncle Tom. As fighters, we do some of that. But enough is enough. You don’t want to continue to do that to a guy.

What people needed to realize was there couldn’t have been an Ali if it weren’t for Joe Frazier. If Joe couldn’t fight, we wouldn’t know how great Ali was. You don’t become great without somebody making you great.

Joe was always overshadowed because Ali had Howard Cosell to help make him famous. Joe had nobody. Joe used to always say when Ali got sick (with Parkinson’s disease), “He did all that talking and look at him now. He can’t say nothing.”

But Joe was the kind of guy who didn’t have any animosity unless you disrespected him or his family. That’s why he didn’t like Ali.

Ali tried to do the same thing to me when we fought. He called me names and things, but I paid him no mind.

They’re both friends of mine. I sparred with Ali from 1970 to 1975. I sparred with Joe in 1973. Ali gave me a black eye. Joe broke one of my ribs.

The world lost a boxing hero. I lost my friend.