Joe Frazier 1944 – 2011

Biography

Joe Frazier was the heavyweight champion known as Smokin Joe, a relentless pressure fighter whose left hook was one of boxing’s most feared weapons. Born January 12, 1944, in Beaufort, South Carolina, he won Olympic heavyweight gold in Tokyo in 1964, then took the world title by beating Jimmy Ellis in 1970. His defining night came March 8, 1971, at Madison Square Garden, when he handed Muhammad Ali his first professional defeat in the Fight of the Century. Ali beat him in their 1974 rematch and again in the brutal Thrilla in Manila in 1975, when Frazier’s corner stopped the fight after fourteen rounds. He lost the title to George Foreman in 1973 and retired in 1981, later training fighters in Philadelphia, where he died of liver cancer on November 7, 2011, at age 67.