A Boxing Memory: ‘Smokin’ Joe Frazier’s Road To Greatness

A Boxing Memory: ‘Smokin’ Joe Frazier’s Road to Greatness

By Ben Lonsdale

Smokin’ Joe Frazier may be best remembered for being the greatest rival of Muhammed Ali after they battled it out on three occasions making it one of the biggest trilogies the sport has ever seen, but there was much more to the life of ‘Smokin’ Joe than just that rivalry.

Growing up being one of twelve siblings, Frazier’s family were raised in the rural community of Laurel Bay, South Carolina. Frazier’s parents found it hard to support twelve children and the family endured poverty, this led to Frazier having to drop out of school at fourteen and start working on a farm full-time with his father. Frazier quickly learned that working on farms had many risks back then. He had an incident once where he was being chased by a hawk and while running away from the hawk, he tripped over a rock and fell, leading to his arm breaking. Due to his parent’s financial situation, they couldn’t afford a doctor, so his arm never ever healed. Frazier couldn’t fully straighten his left arm ever again. Frazier’s father had an arm amputated the year he was born, so on the farm, there were many jobs the pair struggled with, one of them being when the pair had to pull a two-man saw. Due to his father only having one hand, Frazier had to pull it on his own with his crooked left arm, but this only built-up Frazier’s left arm to be even stronger than it ever was before. After some more time on the farm, Frazier eventually had to leave South Carolina after a run-in with his boss, who threatened to beat him up, this led to him settling with relatives in Philadelphia and getting a job in a meat packing plant.

As a 15-year-old, Frazier set foot in a boxing gym for the first time in 1961, intending to learn how to defend himself and lose a bit of weight. He was far from the biggest or toughest in the gym, but he was the hardest working and no one else in the gym came close to having the work ethic he did. Frazier always had dreams of doing something with himself, many of those dreams being built around Boxing and back as a young kid in South Carolina, he had dreamed of becoming the next Joe Louis. Frazier took his first step in achieving those dreams when he began boxing as an amateur in 1961 where shortly after he caught the eye of trainer Yank Durham. Frazier learned how to add power and technique to his devastating left hook under the tutelage of Durham, helping him to win three straight Middle Atlantic Golden Gloves Championships in a row, all while raising a family. Frazier had hopes of making the 1964 U.S. Olympic team, but first, he had to fight Buster Mathis in the final of the Olympic trials, a fighter with a far superior amateur record. Frazier ended up getting defeated by Mathis. However, this wasn’t the end of the line for Frazier’s Olympic dreams, Mathis had to pull out of the Olympic games after breaking his thumb while training for the games, which meant Frazier got the opportunity to step in as an alternative.

Frazier started the Tokyo Olympic games strongly as he won his two opening bouts by first-round knockout. Frazier made it to the semi-finals without facing any real controversy, however during his semi-final fight against Soviet boxer Vaid Yemelyanov, Frazier ironically ended up breaking his thumb, but this wasn’t to stop “Smokin’ Joe” as he ended up knocking his opponent out in the second round. Heading into the final he knew his hand was in awful condition, but he soaked it in cold water and bravely decided not to get an x-ray. Frazier massively favoured his right hand throughout the final and very rarely threw his notorious left hand and after five rounds Frazier went on to defeat Hans Huber of Germany 3-2 to become the Olympic champion. Frazier said after the fight “I got what I came to Tokyo for” although it was very clear by his attitude that despite being the U.S. Olympics boxing team’s only gold medal, he still had unfinished business. He was asked after the fight could he take Mathis, only to reply “Could I take Mathis? You bet I could. I could take him tonight or tomorrow.” Winning a gold medal didn’t provide the fame and status back then as it would in current times. Frazier arrived back in Philadelphia with his gold medal and his broken thumb just to be greeted by not a single soul and instead of celebrating he had no real choice but to go straight back to working in the slaughterhouse.

After some consideration with his coach, Frazier decided to turn professional in 1965 and as a professional, he was always on the attack with his relentless left hook, as well as utilizing a bob-and-weave style which helped him to compile a ridiculously impressive 11-0 record in just under a year. He went on to be 20-0 when he and his old nemesis Buster Mathis get it on. This fight came about mostly due to Muhammed Ali being stripped of his world heavyweight title, because of his refusal to accept the military draft during the Vietnam war. The New York Athletic commission needed a champion to stand in with Ali absent and said that the winner of this bout would be recognized as the “world champion” This fight meant a lot to Frazier in many ways, he had the chance to be recognized as a world champion but not only because of that. There was always the controversy surrounding him ever since he made the Olympic team due to Mathis’s hand injury. Frazier had critics saying he “had no business winning a gold medal in the 1964 Olympics” before had even turned professional. This was a chance at redemption for Smokin’ Joe. Mathis came into the bout with an impressive 23-0 record, he was a huge heavyweight at the time and during the bout showed a lot of good skills, however, he didn’t have the same level of determination as Frazier did. Frazier stopped Mathis in the 11^th round with a huge left hook. Frazier defeated his next six opponents before becoming Undisputed Champion after defeating Jimmy Ellis (one of Ali’s main sparring partners) in 1970.

After defending his titles once more against Bob Foster, next in line for Frazier was Ali. The fight was labelled as “The fight of the century” and Frazier had been pushing for Ali to be reinstated and even helped Ali with his bills while he was banned from boxing, Frazier really wanted this fight. Ali had been trash-talking Frazier since before the fight had even been announced and made claims that him fighting Frazier would be the equivalent of “a good amateur fighting a real professional.” Frazier, however, took the trash-talking deeply personally, after all, his effort to get Ali back in the ring. Ali claimed he was just promoting the fight however it didn’t need any trash-talking to promote it, it was the first time two undefeated boxers faced off for the heavyweight championship. The bout also had many Americans who didn’t even follow boxing intrigued due to the whole controversy of why Ali was stripped, the media had made Ali a symbol of anti-establishment whereas Frazier had been adopted by the pro-war public. The fight lived up to the title it was given, over 300 million people all around the world tuned in to watch, and what they ended up seeing was one of the greatest heavyweight fights of all time. The pace of the fight was ridiculously high from the start, and with both fighters having a huge contrast in style it was an absolute war from round one. Frazier was one of Ali’s first opponents to not show him any respect inside the ring, pressuring him every minute of every round and rarely taking a back step. The fight had just as many words thrown as it had punches, at one point Ali shouted to Frazier “Don’t you know you’re in here with God tonight?” only for Frazier to reply, “God picked the wrong night.” Frazier had Ali holding several times due to the big right-hand bombs he was throwing throughout the bout, shots that would have knocked out 99% of the heavyweight division. In the final round, Frazier dropped Ali with a huge left hook, helping him get the decision win and handing a 28-year-old Muhammad Ali his first defeat. This victory cemented Frazier as the best heavyweight in the world and put his name in the history books as one of the greatest heavyweights to ever live.