Frazier, Joe

January 12, 1944

"Smokin'" Joe Frazier was the World Heavyweight Boxing champion from 1970 to 1973. Born in Beaufort, South Carolina, Frazier grew up in Philadelphia and began boxing at a Police Athletic League gym. After he won Golden Gloves titles in 1962, 1963, and 1964, as well as a gold medal in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, a consortium of investors, incorporated as Cloverlay, Inc., sponsored Frazier's professional career.

Frazier was only 5'11½" tall and 205 pounds, small for a heavyweight. Managed by Yancey Durham, Frazier adopted a crowded and hard-hitting style that compensated for his relative slow-footedness. Beginning with a one-round knockout of Woody Goss in August 1965, Frazier won his first eleven professional bouts by knockout, none of which went beyond six rounds, and he won thirty-one straight fights before George Foreman defeated him in 1973.

After Muhammad Ali gave up his title in 1970, Frazier won the World Heavyweight Championship, defeating Jimmy Ellis in a five-round knockout. Ali, who had been stripped of his title after the U.S. government convicted him of draft evasion (later overturned), also claimed to be the heavyweight champion because he had never retired or been defeated.

On March 8, 1971, in New York City's Madison Square Garden, Frazier defeated Ali after fifteen rounds of

such ferocious boxing that both men entered hospitals after its conclusion; they would later fight twice more, both times with great intensity. After the first fight with Ali, Frazier did not fight a title bout again for ten months. He then defended his championship twice, winning both bouts, but on January 22, 1973, George Foreman knocked him out in the second round of a heavyweight title bout.

Having lost his title to Foreman, Frazier again fought Ali in a nontitle bout in New York City on January 28, 1974, and lost in twelve rounds. Frazier had fights with two lesser boxers, both of whom he knocked out, then faced Ali for the heavyweight title on October 1, 1975, in the Philippines. The fight, dubbed by Ali "The Thrilla in Manila," was a hard-fought contest. Ali knocked Frazier out in the fourteenth round.

On June 15, 1976, Frazier followed the Manila bout with a second fight against Foreman, who knocked him out early in the fight. Frazier then retired from the ring. He made a brief appearance playing himself in the movie Rocky (1976) and tried unsuccessfully to build a singing career with a group called the Knockouts. In 1981 he attempted a comeback but was defeated by Floyd Cummings. Of his thirty-seven career bouts, Frazier won thirty-two, twenty-seven by knockout. He then managed his son Marvis's short boxing career. In 1980 Frazier was elected to the Boxing Hall of Fame.

Frazier published Smokin' Joe: The Autobiography of a Heavyweight Champion of the World, Smokin' Joe Frazier, in 1996.

See also Ali, Muhammad; Boxing; Foreman, George; Robinson, Sugar Ray

Bibliography

Ashe, Arthur R., Jr. A Hard Road to Glory: A History of the African-American Athlete Since 1946. New York: Warner, 1988.

Frazier, Joe, and Phil Berger. Smokin' Joe: The Autobiography of a Heavyweight Champion of the World, Smokin' Joe Frazier. New York: Macmillan, 1996.

greg robinson (1996)
Updated by publisher 2005