Joe Frazier

Diagnoses

Personal

Vocation

Lifestyle

Notable

American boxer and businessman. As an athlete, he won the 1964 Olympics Gold Medal in the Heavyweight division in Tokyo, Japan, and the vacant Heavyweight Championship Title of the World in 1970. Frazier gained national acclaim when he displayed his aggressive boxing style against Muhammad Ali in one of the most exciting boxing matches ever staged at Madison Square Garden on 3/08/1971. He was the son of a South Carolina sharecropper. At 18, he left Beaufort, South Carolina and moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While training at the gym to be a boxer, he earned $105 a week at a job in a slaughterhouse. He developed an aggressive boxing style always on the attack, never backing off. He delivered a mystical left hook considered his money punch by the boxing world. He was placed on the 1964 Tokyo Summer Games where he won the Gold Medal. Back in the U.S. he knocked out Jimmy Ellis in Round 5 to win the vacant Heavyweight Championship Title of the World in 1970. He lost the Heavyweight title to George Foreman on 1/22/1973. Frazier's 25 year marriage to his wife Florence ended in a divorce. He had three sons from the marriage, Marvis and Joe Jr., and adopted son, Murray Frazier. He encouraged his sons in his sport and Marvis Frazier has made a name for himself in the boxing world. His sons work out at the Frazier Gym owned by their dad and where he trains younger fighters. Frazier has developed a strong father-son relationship with his adult sons and mentors the younger generation of fighters at the gym. He owns a 17-room house in the suburb of Lafayette Hills in Philadelphia and a 365-acre plantation in hometown of Beaufort County, South Carolina. In 1977, Frazier retired from the boxing ring. He tried an unsuccessful comeback fight in 1981. He owns not only his gym in North Philadelphia but a thriving limousine service. With the money he earned in the ring, Frazier has accumulated an impressive stock portfolio along with investments. He was diagnosed with liver cancer in October 2011. The disease ended his life on November 7, 2011. His family's announcement said, ""He transitioned from this life as 'One of God's Men,' on the eve of November 7, 2011 at his home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania." Link to Wikipedia biography