Joseph "Billy" Frazier, known as Smokin' Joe (born January 12, 1944 in Beaufort, South Carolina), is an Olympic (1964) and World Heavyweight Boxing Champion, active mostly from the later 1960s to the mid 1970s.
Frazier was a popular champion, reprising himself in cameo roles in several Hollywood films, and professionally is perhaps most famous for his trilogy of Heavyweight Championship fights with Muhammad Ali.
Frazier had a bullying fighting st...
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Joseph "Billy" Frazier, known as Smokin' Joe (born January 12, 1944 in Beaufort, South Carolina), is an Olympic (1964) and World Heavyweight Boxing Champion, active mostly from the later 1960s to the mid 1970s.
Frazier was a popular champion, reprising himself in cameo roles in several Hollywood films, and professionally is perhaps most famous for his trilogy of Heavyweight Championship fights with Muhammad Ali.
Frazier had a bullying fighting style, depending on bobbing, weaving and power punching. He is perhaps most famous for his vicious left hooks. Compared to Ali's style, he was close enough to the ideal bruiser that some in the press and media characterized the bouts as the answer to the classic question: "What happens when a boxer meets with a brawler."
According to Joe in the HBO special documenting "The Thrilla in Manilla" fight, he was partially blind in his left eye due to a training accident in 1965. This would indicate that throughout his entire professional career, he...
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