Here's a clip from the February 21, 1973, edition of The Dick Cavett Show. This was one month after Joe Frazier was stunned by George Foreman in Kingston, Jamaica, stopped at 2:26 of the second round after being floored five times.
Oh, and Bill Cosby's there, back when he was funny.
On Foreman: "He didn't switch styles. He just came out and worked. Big, strong fella, and I know one thing. You ask me how well did he fight, I don't know. But I can tell you one thing: He punched good."
On rumors that his manager didn't want him to fight Foreman: "I don't know. Managers and trainers, they're always against something that you get involved in. But sometimes you take a chance at it. As long as I've been fighting, I always had a tendency of pushing my managers a little faster. ... I go pretty fast in the game. I wanted the fight, because I didn't want the reputation of trying to duck anybody. I'm a fighting champion, and I wanted to fight George, and I lost the fight fair and square."
On whether it's embarrassing after a loss: "Not to me. I kinda put myself together for a day like this. ... I prepare myself by being kind and being nice to everybody. I treat everybody like I like to be treated. I wasn't the type of guy to carry a whole flock around with me. ... The next day I went out, and I went to my gym, and they had 'Welcome Home, Champ.' ... I'm not gonna hide from it because I got whupped. I got whupped once. I got whupped a lot of times from my mama."
The definition of a gracious loser in this interview.