Boxer;

 

JOE FRAZIER, who has died aged 67 of liver cancer, was a former world heavyweight and Olympic boxing champion who famously beat Muhammad Ali in the Fight of the Century, battled him nearly to the death in the Thrilla in Manila and then spent the rest of his life trying to fight his way out of Ali’s shadow.

He was a great heavyweight champion and Ali would say as much after Frazier knocked him down in the 15th round en route to becoming the first man to beat the former Cassius Clay at Madison Square Garden in March, 1971.

But he bore the burden of being Ali’s foil, and he paid the price. Bitter for years about the taunts his former nemesis once threw his way, Frazier only in recent times came to terms with what happened in the past and said he had forgiven Ali for everything he said.

They fought three times, twice in the heart of New York City and once in the morning in a sweltering arena in the Philippines. They went 41 rounds together, with neither giving an inch and both giving it their all.

In their last fight in Manila in 1975, they traded punches with a fervour that seemed unimaginable among heavyweights. Frazier gave almost as good as he got for 14 rounds, then had to be held back by trainer Eddie Futch as he tried to go out for the final round, unable to see.

“Closest thing to dying that I know of,” Ali said later.

But anti-establishment Ali was as merciless with Frazier out of the ring as he was inside it. He called him a gorilla and an inarticulate Uncle Tom, a deeply insulting term referring to a black who acts in a humiliatingly subservient way toward whites, and ironic as Frazier came from abject poverty in South Carolina while Ali’s Louisville, Kentucky, background was more comfortable.

For his part, “Smokin’” Joe Frazier insisted on calling his foe Cassius Clay, the birth name that Ali changed in 1964 for a Muslim name.

Though slowed in his later years and his speech slurred by the toll of punches taken in the ring, Frazier was still active on the autograph circuit in the months before he died. In September he went to Las Vegas, where he signed autographs in the lobby of the MGM Grand shortly before Floyd Mayweather Jr’s fight against Victor Ortiz.

Frazier was small for a heavyweight, weighing just 205lb when he won the title by stopping Jimmy Ellis in the fifth round of their 1970 fight at Madison Square Garden. But he fought every minute of every round going forward behind a vicious left hook, and there were few fighters who could withstand his constant pressure.

But his reign as heavyweight champion lasted only four fights including the win over Ali -- before he ran into an even more fearsome slugger than himself. George Foreman responded to Frazier’s constant attack by dropping him three times in the first round and three more in the second before their 1973 fight in Jamaica was halted.

Two fights later, he met Ali in a rematch of their first fight, only this time the outcome was different. Ali won a controversial 12-round decision, and later that year stopped George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle in Zaire.

There had to be a third fight, though, and what a fight it was. With Ali’s heavyweight title at stake, the two met in Manila in a fight that will long be seared in boxing history.

Frazier went after Ali round after round, landing his left hook with regularity as he made Ali back-pedal around the ring. But Ali responded with left jabs and right hands that found their mark again and again. Even the intense heat inside the arena could not stop the two as they fought every minute of every round with neither willing to concede one second of the round.

“They told me Joe Frazier was through,” Ali told Frazier at one point during the fight. “They lied,” Frazier said, before hitting Ali with a left hook.

Finally, though, Frazier simply couldn’t see and Futch would not let him go out for the 15th round. Ali won the fight while on his stool, exhausted and contemplating himself whether to go on.

It was one of the greatest fights ever, but it took a toll. Frazier would fight only two more times, getting knocked out in a rematch with Foreman eight months later before coming back in 1981 for an ill-advised fight with Jumbo Cummings. The punishment Ali took is thought to have contributed significantly to his subsequent health problems.

Frazier amassed a career record of 32 wins, four defeats and one draw. He retired after a second loss to Foreman in 1976, then came out of retirement for a fight in 1981 before ending his career for good. His only losses were to Ali and Foreman.

He was born into abject poverty as the son of a sharecropper in segregated South Carolina. The youngest of 12, he married at 15. He took up boxing early and moving to Philadelphia he became a top amateur. His habit of training in the slaughterhouse where he worked by beating sides of frozen beef later helped to inspire Sylvester Stallone in his portrayal of Rocky in the hit movie of the same name.

He became the only American fighter to win a gold medal in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo -- despite breaking his thumb -- by outpointing the German Hans Hubner 3-2. After turning pro in 1965, Frazier quickly became known for his punching power, stopping his first 11 opponents. Within three years he was fighting world-class opposition and, in 1970, beat Ellis to win the heavyweight title he would hold for more than two years.

It was his fights with Ali, though, that would define Frazier.

Their first epic clash pitted anti-establishment, pro-Ali, supporters against conservatives supporting Frazier, who always stressed his dislike of such labelling and was enraged by Ali’s pre-fight jibes.

Ali became a beloved sports legend but Frazier was never embraced in the same way. He also lost almost all of his money and lived alone in an apartment above the gym where he trained young fighters in a run-down section of Philadelphia.

After a trembling Ali lit the Olympic torch in 1996 in Atlanta, Frazier was asked by a reporter what he thought about it. “They should have thrown him in,” Frazier responded.

He mellowed, though, in recent years, preferring to remember the good from his fights with Ali rather than the bad. Just before the 40th anniversary of his win over Ali earlier this year -- a day Frazier celebrated with parties in New York -- he said he no longer felt any bitterness toward Ali.

“I forgive him,” Frazier said. “He’s in a bad way.”

He was a popular figure on the after-dinner speaking circuit, which included appearances across the UK, and was inducted into boxing’s International Hall of Fame in 1990. Joe Frazier, whose marriage was dissolved, is survived by eight children.