Joe Frazier, 1944–2011

As soon as Joe Frazier became boxing’s undefeated heavyweight champion in 1970, he had to deal with people saying it didn’t really count. He had won the title without ever having to box the undefeated Muhammad Ali, who had been banned from the ring in 1967 for refusing to serve in Vietnam. That was not the only reason the buildup to their 1971 fight at Madison Square Garden was so intense. Ali taunted Frazier as an “Uncle Tom” and a “gorilla”; Frazier seethed, calling Ali a draft dodger and referring to him by his former name, Cassius Clay. Even before the two took the ring, their fierce rivalry had put boxing at the center of public attention.

Frazier was born as the 12th of 13 children of Rubin and Molly Frazier, sharecroppers in segregated Beaufort, S.C., said The Philadelphia Inquirer. “I never had a little-boy life,” he later said. To learn to box, he filled up a burlap sack with “a brick, rags, corncobs, and moss,” hung it from a tree, and hit it for an hour a day for years. After moving to Philadelphia as a teenager, he landed a job at a kosher meatpacking company and sometimes gave sides of beef the same punishment. Frazier soon started training in a local gym, became a Golden Gloves champ, and won a gold medal at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo.

The 1971 “Fight of the Century” between Frazier and Ali “lived up to the billing,” said Time. In the presence of celebrities from Frank Sinatra and Woody Allen to Norman Mailer and Hubert Humphrey, the two went 15 brutal rounds. “Frazier, the body puncher, came out swinging for Ali’s head. Ali, the ring dancer, tried matching Frazier hook-for-hook.” Ali kept taunting Frazier until Frazier shook him up with a pair of left hooks in the 11th round. In the 15th, Frazier floored Ali with a devastating left to the head. Ali got up, but Frazier was unanimously declared the winner.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Frazier lost his title two years later to George Foreman, who “knocked him down six times in the first two rounds,” said The Wall Street Journal. But that hardly ended his rivalry with Ali. Their war of words continued through a “less-dramatic rematch” in 1974, which Ali won in a unanimous decision, and on to their third and final bout in 1975 in Manila. There the two battled to exhaustion, and by the 14th round, Frazier’s eyes were swollen almost shut. “I want him, boss,” he yelled, but his trainer, Eddie Futch, threw in the towel. “It’s all over,” he said. “No one will forget what you did here today.” Ali said that fight was the “closest thing to dying that I know of.”

Ali was the larger physical and cultural presence during their long rivalry, said the New York Daily News. “But you were never surprised how much bigger Frazier fought at his best.” He rarely took a backward step in the ring. “He just kept ducking and moving in, just kept coming.”