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EPISODE: Episode 2
Joe Frazer, aka Smokin’ Joe, enjoyed an illustrious and competitive career as a professional boxer from 1965 to 1981, after winning the gold medal at the 1964 Olympics. Frazier was the first boxer to beat Muhammed Ali and was the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world from 1970 to 1973, until losing the title to George Foreman. He fought Ali again and lost, which set up their highly-anticipated “rubber match” fight for the heavyweight title, billed as The Thrilla in Manila, which Frazier lost. He retired the following year after another loss to Foreman, but returned to the ring once again in 1981 to fight Jumbo Cummings and retired after, for good. Frazier’s overall record was 32 wins, 4 losses, and 1 draw, with 27 wins by knockout. He won 73% of his fights by knockout, compared to 60% for Ali and 84% for Foreman. He was a member of the International Boxing Hall Of Fame. Frazier was diagnosed with liver cancer and passed away in 2011.
Beyond The Glory – a documentary about Joe Frazier:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Frazier for more information on his career.
#talkinfight #happytomeet #JoeFrazier
Transcribed:
Welcome to another episode of happy to meet.
My name is craig, and in this episode we are remembering joe frazier smoking, joe frazier 1964 summer olympics gold medal heavyweight champion in tokyo, japan far far away from his hometown of beaufort south carolina according to frazier himself.
It was his first trainer yank jurum uh that actually gave him his nickname smoke and joe you see.
The name came about from the refrain that yank would always blurt out in the dressing rooms before any of the fights just to get smoking riled up.
I want you to throw as many punches as you can.
I want to see smoke coming out of them gloves.
I want to see smoke coming from those gloves, joe and from that was born.
The nickname, smoking joe frazier smoking.
Joe interestingly, was the first boxer to ever beat muhammad ali.
That triumph came on march, 8th of 1971 dubbed the fight of the century at madison square garden in new york city.
It took 15 rounds before joe frazier landed, his mighty left hook and that’s all it took ali was out, and so was his previously unbeaten record.
Although it is fair to note that ali did return to beat joe frazier twice once by unanimous, albeit controversial decision in 1974 and then a year later in 1975, at the highly anticipated thriller in manila, a brutally vicious match, uh that was watched by a record-breaking 1 Billion viewers – let’s just think about that for a moment – 1970 long before the days of internet 1 billion viewers, it was a record-breaking viewership for a live televised event and that, thanks to the vision, if not the greed of mega boxing promoter at the time, the highly Controversial don king, but let’s not forget about frasier here, revered for his dangerous left hook.
Smoking joe was actually known to be quite a formidable boxer, even before his victory over ali in 1967 and again in 1970 uh smoke and joe frazier was named fighter of the year by ring magazine at the time a well-known uh magazine in the boxing world uh.
He was again named fighter of the year in 1975, this time by boxing writers, association of america.
His birthday would have been coming up in less than uh about well a little while ago, uh november, 7th would have been his birthday.
He would have been 77.
uh.
Unfortunately, we lost smoking joe frazier on november 7th 2011 passing from convocations of liver cancer by the way in frasier’s 37 professional fight, career rivals, george thornton george foreman and muhammad ali were the only two boxers to ever beat smoke and joe frazier.
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I look forward to meeting with you again down the road on the next episode of happy to meet.
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