Joe Frazier - Record, Muhammad Ali & Life

(1944-2011)

Who Was Joe Frazier?

Joe Frazier was the world heavyweight-boxing champion from February 16, 1970, until January 22, 1973, when boxing great George Foreman beat him. Frazier is perhaps best remembered for his grueling 14-round match against Muhammad Ali in the Philippines, known as the Thrilla in Manila, which Ali won by TKO. Frazier died of liver cancer in 2011.

Early Years

The youngest of 12 children, boxer Billy Joe Frazier was born on January 12, 1944, in Beaufort, South Carolina. His parents, Rubin and Dolly Frazier, were sharecroppers, so the family never had much money. By the age of 15, Frazier, who'd quit school two years before, was on his own. He moved to New York City to live with an older brother and find work. Employment, however, was hard to come by, and to put cash in his pocket he started stealing cars and selling them to a junkyard in Brooklyn.

But Frazier harbored dreams of doing something with his life. Many of those dreams were built around boxing. As a younger kid, back in South Carolina, he had dreamed of becoming the next Joe Louis, airing out punches at burlap bags he'd filled with leaves and moss.

Up north Frazier's love for boxing didn't subside. After moving to Philadelphia, Frazier found work at a slaughterhouse, where he routinely punched sides of beef stored in a refrigerated room. That scene later inspired Sylvester Stallone for his 1976 film, Rocky.

It wasn't until 1961, though, that Frazier entered the ring and actually began to box. He was rough and undisciplined, but his unpolished talent caught the eye of trainer Yank Durham.