Where was boxer Joe Frazier born? Biography. Professional crossfit training

Joe Frazier - world boxing legend. American heavyweight boxer who won Olympic gold 1964 in Tokyo, became the world champion in the WBA and WBC boxing versions. Joe entered the ring and fought with legendary boxers of all times - Muhammad Ali, George Foreman. In the boxing world, Frazier has become " "Smokin" Joe, his punches were so strong that smoke came from his gloves, hence his nickname.

In November of the same year a battle took place between undisputed heavyweight champion Joe Frazier, and the absolute light heavyweight champion weight category Bob Foster (). The meeting ended very quickly; in the 2nd round, “Smoking” Joe knocked out Foster.

In the summer of 1970 from the previous invincible legendary champion Muhammad Ali the disqualification is lifted, and therefore the question of their possible meeting arose outside the public eye. The viewer was interested in who is the true world champion?

March 8, 1971, enters the ring Muhammad Ali vs Joe Frazier. It was a historic fight (), for the first time in the history of the heavyweight division championship fight two boxing legends met, two “unbeaten” champions- one is former, the other is current. In a 15-round fight, Joe knocks down Muhammad. Ali suffers his first professional career fiasco. All the referees gave their preference to Joe Frazier, and the fight itself received the title of “fight of the year” according to the famous magazine “Ring”.

In 1972, Joe knocked out Terry Daniels in the fourth round, and in May of the same year he defeated Ron Stendler.

January 3, 1973, Jamaica. Fraser faces the undefeated and extremely dangerous George Foreman. It seemed that that evening everything was against Joe, 6 knockdowns and this was only in the first 2 rounds... Fraser suffered a crushing defeat and lost his championship belts.

1974 - second fight Joe Frazier vs Muhammad Ali. This fight also ends with a loss on points for Fraser. Later he won, but he was never able to overcome the two Foreman-Ali walls.

In September 1975, the third meeting between Frazier and Muhammad Ali took place, known to everyone as the "Thrilla in Manila". It was a difficult, unbearable and rather unpredictable battle in its intensity. Both boxing legends radiated inhuman aggression, this was not a fight, this was a war. The fight received the title "Battle of the Century" and was recognized best fight of the year.

The number 4 became somehow fatal for the boxer. He defended his title four times and lost four times, all four defeats (two from each) to Frazier were inflicted by Foreman and Ali. In June 1976, fight number two took place between Frazier and Foreman. Joe lost by knockout in the fifth round. After this fight, no attempts to regain the title brought any results. desired results and he ended his sports career.

For 5 years, Fraser did not enter the ring. Later, on December 3, 1981, he made another attempt to return to boxing, he met in the ring against Floyd Cummings. At the end of ten rounds, the referees gave the boxers a controversial draw. Joseph Fraser's attempt again ended in failure for him and now he has finished his performances forever. A boxing legend is gone, but he will always be remembered.

Fraser did not move away from boxing; he began training young boxers in his own gym. Joe Fraser began to live in a new way, he relaxes, travels the world, acts in films (in 1994 he got one of the main roles in Nick Stagliano’s film “Residence of Angels”). Joe is passionate about music, as a result of which the world was able to hear several songs performed by him. Fraser treats his musical activities with great responsibility, seriousness and love, despite the evil tongues of American critics. Of course, he doesn’t forget about boxing, how can you forget the love of your life?! He attends fights between boxing stars of today.

The last years of his life he lived in a tiny, ramshackle apartment next to the railroad tracks in suburban Philadelphia. It was in this apartment that “his life was shortened.” He lost a lot of weight and even became shorter. Legendary boxer, American heavyweight Joe Frazier, died at the age of 67 from liver cancer on November 7, 2011. This terrible diagnosis took away from us a great boxer, a wonderful person. In his person the world lost an entire era...

Joe Frazier entered the ring against Muhammad Ali three times, and once he managed to achieve victory. Photo by AFP

Just recently it was announced that he was suffering from liver cancer. “Trud”, together with the famous former boxer Evgeny Gorstkov, recalls the career of an American who was at the pinnacle of world fame for more than ten years.

Stallone "drew" Rocky from Fraser

As is typical for many American champion boxers of past generations, at the beginning of his adult life Joe Frazier did not avoid connections with crime. He grew up in a relatively wealthy black family in the southern United States - his father made his living by producing alcohol illegally. Then Joe went to work in New York. He lived with relatives, who introduced the boy to car theft. Then Joe moved to Philadelphia, also to live with relatives, but more respectable ones. His relatives provided him with housing and food, and the young, strong guy subordinated his entire routine to training. By the way, many attributes and everyday details from Fraser’s life in those years were later used by Sylvester Stallone when filming his first film from the Rocky series.

The young boxer's affairs quickly went uphill, he defeated all his rivals with an overwhelming advantage, until at the beginning of 1964 he met the huge, powerful Buster Mathis in the ring, who weighed more than 120 kg - against Joe's 82. Mathis won that fight and won the right to represent the United States at the Tokyo Olympics. But Joe himself volunteered to work as Mathis’s sparring partner in the pre-Olympic camp. As a result, the leadership of the US team either considered Mathis’ injury to be quite serious, or Frazier was considered a much more diligent and promising athlete... But in the end, Joe went to Tokyo, and there he won all his fights very confidently. (And later, by the way, he defeated Mathis in the pros.)

Having turned professional, Fraser continued his victorious march there. Having won 26 victories, he became the world champion - first according to the WBA version, and then won the WBC belt.

Joe showed nobility in and out of the ring.

In 1971, Joe showed nobility: he personally petitioned the US President to rehabilitate the previously invincible Muhammad Ali (aka Cassius Clay). If this issue is resolved positively, Fraser risked a lot of all his championship titles. His fight against Ali in March 1971 turned out to be very stubborn. Fraser won on points.

The best Russian and Soviet heavyweight of the 1970s, Evgeniy Gorstkov, shared his memories with a Trud correspondent:

— Before that fight, we - me and my teammates from the USSR national team - of course, were rooting for Muhammad Ali. For us, he was the personification of civic courage because he refused to participate in the imperialist war in Vietnam and was punished for it. So he had a reputation not only as a great champion, but also as a fighter for truth and even a martyr. That fight was pretty even. And yet, the power of Fraser's blows - relatively small even by the standards of those years (height 1.82 m and weight just over 80 kg) - could not be ignored immediately. But then we, Soviet boxers, were isolated from professional boxing. And therefore, they knew negligibly little about Frazier and Ali, not only as people, but also as athletes. I remember that even the Polish “Box” was somehow obtained and with great difficulty translated articles from it. And our Soviet media presented professional boxing not as a sport, but as some kind of farce. And Muhammad Ali, we must give him his due, reinforced this feeling with his behavior. Now I understand that he did not behave very nicely. Then he entered the ring wearing a crown and some kind of robe like a royal one. Before the fight he insulted Fraser, and undeservedly. But he, being in the status of an absolute world champion, essentially helped Muhammad Ali return to the professional ring and thus provided himself with the most dangerous opponent at that time.

I fell but didn't give up

In his 32nd fight, which took place in January 1973, Joe Frazier suffered his first defeat in professional ring. Moreover, the defeat is very serious. In two incomplete rounds, he fell into the ring six (!) times from the strongest blows of young George Foreman, but each time he was in a hurry to get up and continue the clearly unequal fight. That fight, nicknamed the “Jamaica Beatdown,” surprised everyone. sports world the power of Foreman and the incredible courage of Fraser.

But even after this fight, Joe continued to perform in the professional ring, and also entered title fights. And he lost only to the same Muhammad Ali (twice - first on points, and then TKO), and later again to George Foreman, by knockout. Fraser was not afraid of anyone or anything.

— The great generation of great champions of the 1960-1970s raised professional boxing to new heights,” Evgeny Gorstkov continues to comment on Fraser’s career. - And if we talk about that era in our sport, then the names of three fighters stand out in it - Ali, Frazier and Foreman. Each of them was an outstanding personality both in and outside the ring. It is these people who make the field of activity they are involved in popular and attractive to young people around the world. I was lucky enough to meet Joe Fraser in person, but to call that meeting our personal communication would be an exaggeration. At the end of the 1970s, we came to the USA for one of the boxing team matches between the USSR national team and the US amateur team - these meetings were traditional then. And then the great champions of past years came to greet us - Floyd Patterson and Joe Frazier. But we would hardly have known by sight if the organizers had not introduced us to each other. We heard a lot about their victories in the ring, but in “civilian” clothes we would hardly be able to distinguish them among passers-by on the street. Joe Frazier greeted us politely, some with a handshake, some with a nod. He barely knew his own American lovers then, and even more so, our overseas lovers. But the further the era of his triumph moves away from us, the more vivid his achievements seem. I greatly respect the current heavyweight champions - the Klitschko brothers - for their unbeaten performances against the strongest boxers in the world. But the bright, spectacular boxing of the big guys probably ended with Mike Tyson. Well, maybe on Lennox Lewis. And, as they say, I don’t even see such desperate uncompromising fighters and at the same time magnificent boxers in all the technical and tactical subtleties of skill, as Joe Frazier was. And judging by the memories of people who knew him closely, he was also a very good, very decent person. Happy memory to the great champion!

— Evgeniy Nikolaevich, the cause of Fraser’s disease is called liver cancer. Could this illness be the result of many blows received in the ring?

— Grand Champion lived 71 years. And this, for example, in Russia is not possible for a very large number of men of our generation. As my colleagues say in such cases, the shells are falling closer and closer. In addition, most boxers my age or older died from various causes, and the liver was rarely mentioned as a cause. In general, drunk vodka and even fatty food harm the liver much more than boxing. Yes, our brother gets hit in the liver in the ring, and quite hard. But they hit once, they hit again: you involuntarily covered this place with your elbow. And it’s quite possible to endure it further. And in this case, the death of a great champion should in no way be considered a contraindication for boxing. It would be wrong and unfair.

Numbers

• Joe Frazier had 37 fights in the professional ring.
• The American won 32 victories
• 27 victories were achieved by knockout
• Fraser suffered 4 defeats
• 1 match Joe ended in a draw

Trud dossier

Joe Fraser boxer

Achievements: Olympic champion. He performed in the professional ring from 1965 to 1981. He became world champion for the first time in 1969. A year later he became the absolute world champion. In total, he spent four years as a champion, and then was knocked out by George Foreman.

Joe's eldest son, Marvis, also performed successfully.

Joe Frazier is an American professional boxer who competed in the heavy weight category. Olympic champion in 1964, world champion in the heavy weight category. He received the nickname "Smoking Joe".

Joe Frazier was born in 1944 in Beaufort, South Carolina. His debut took place in 1965. A year later, by a split decision, he was declared the winner of the fight with Oscar Bonavena, despite the fact that the enemy knocked Fraser down twice.

In 1967 he knocked out George Chuvalo.

In 1968, he again met Oscar Bonavena in the ring. This time the judges unanimously gave the victory to Fraser.

In 1969, he defeated Jerry Kvari by technical knockout in the 7th round. This meeting was named “fight of the year” according to Ring magazine.

In 1970, he met in the ring with WBA world heavyweight champion Jimmy Ellis. Frazier knocked out the champion in the 5th round.

In the same year, he met with the absolute world heavyweight and light heavyweight champion Bob Foster. Frazier knocked out his opponent in the 2nd round.

In March 1971, a legendary fight took place with world heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali. For the first time in the history of the heavyweight division, two opponents who had never lost a fight met in the ring in a championship fight. In the 15th round, Joe knocked Ali down with a beautiful left hook and won the fight. Ali could not forget the defeat by Joe for the rest of his career. The fight received the status of “fight of the year” according to Ring magazine.

In January 1972 he knocked out Terry Daniels. In May he knocked out Ron Standler.

In 1973, another fight between two undefeated boxers took place. Joe met George Foreman in the ring. Frazier was knocked down 6 times during the meeting, 3 times in the first round and three in the second. Foreman won by technical knockout in the 2nd round, Frazier lost for the first time.

In July 1973, Frazier won on points over Joe Bugner.

In 1974, Frazier met Muhammad Ali again. Ali won the fight on points.

In 1975, the third and most brutal fight Frazier and Ali. The battle took place in 30 degrees Celsius heat. Until the very end, the outcome of the battle was unclear; the battle was extremely aggressive. From the first to the fifth round, Ali had the advantage, from the sixth to the 11th - Frazier. After the next round, Ali said, “I think I’m dying.” After the 14th round, the referee stopped the fight - Frazier, being blind in his left eye, practically could not see in his right (the coach showed three fingers and asked to count them, Frazier answered “one”).

In his corner, Ali asked to take off his gloves (“I’m very tired, take off my gloves”) and, according to his doctor, could not go out for the 15th round. After the end of the fight, Mohammed walked into the middle of the ring and fell unconscious.

The fight was stopped by Fraser's trainer. Ali was given the victory. After this fight, Ali called Frazier the best boxer after him. The fight was called “Thriller in Manila” and the status of “fight of the year” according to Ring magazine.

In 1976, Fraser met again with George Foreman. Joe lost by knockout in the 5th round and after this fight did not enter the ring for 5 years.

By the mid-70s, Fraser had serious vision problems, he was almost blind in one eye and could not maintain his optimal weight.

Joe Frazier made his last return to boxing in 1981. He met with little-known boxer Floyd Cummings. The fight ended in a controversial draw. After the meeting, Frazier announced his retirement from professional boxing.

After this meeting, Cummings, who had previously had one defeat, suffered five defeats in a row and ended his career.

Fraser returned to coaching and promoting. His son Marvis made his debut in the professional ring, and throughout his career he suffered defeats just like his father - from two outstanding boxers.

Based on materials from ru.wikipedia.org

Photo - fightnews.ru, limonada-net.livejournal.com, haberdukkani.com, pdxretro.com

Name: Mat Fraser

Age: 27

Height/Weight: 167 cm/83kg.

Gym: Champlain Valley CrossFit

Country: USA

Biography

After rehab, Mat wanted to return to weightlifting, for this he went to the nearest gym, which turned out to be a CrossFit box. As a result, having realized his prospects in this sport, Fraser retrained as a crossfitter.

Debuted on professional level in 2013, he took twentieth place at the open, and fifth at the regional selection.

In 2014, he pushed Jason Calipa onto the podium, losing only to the most famous (and strongest) CrossFitter, becoming second. In 2015, he again remained in second place, losing only to Ben Smith. In 2016, he finally achieved the main CrossFitter award - the fittest person on earth. I think it's well deserved.

Career achievements

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Joseph William "Joe" Fraser was considered one of the best body punchers in the history of boxing, as well as the owner of the fastest and hardest left swing. His style is based on continuous pressure on his opponent; he seems to stick to his opponent, relentlessly following him throughout the entire space. He threw a lot of punches, fighting with the Brazilian slogan “you will hit me a lot, and I will hit you even more and more painfully.” The name of Joe Frazier opens the history of World Boxing Association (WBA) champions. Smoking Joe became the first WBC champion, still the most prestigious version of the heavyweight division. Fraser is the first absolute “alphabetical” world champion, uniting the WBC and WBA titles in one hand (IBF and WBO had not yet emerged at that time). It is with Fraser that the line of absolute “alphabetical” champions begins, which ended in 1978 and was revived in a new lineup nine years later.

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Achievements: Olympic champion 1964. World Champion in heavyweight champion(WBC version, 1970-1973; WBA version, 1970-1973).

Fraser is two years younger Cassius Clay(Mohammed Ali), he became Olympic champion in the next Olympics after the Roman one, where Clay took the top step of the podium. Joe got to the Tokyo Games thanks to a lucky chance. He lost the national selection to a huge Buster Mattis-the elder, who, unlike short Joe, was ideal for performing among amateurs.

However, at the very last moment, Matthies was injured and was successfully replaced by Fraser. Frazier made his professional debut in 1965, three months after Clay renamed himself Muhammad Ali and forced Sunny Liston feign a knockout in the first round in their rematch.

And three months earlier, the newly founded World Boxing Association, which did not agree with the idea of ​​a Liston-Ali rematch, organized a fight for the vacant title of its organization between Ernie Terrell And Eddie Machen, thereby defining the first heavyweight champion.

Joe debuted at about the same weight as he will in the future David Tua, that is, from 92 kg, but unlike the Samoan, Fraser's weight changed little during the best part of his career. Tua gained 10 kg weight in the first three years. When Frazier's career first began, he was not considered a short man, being only a couple of centimeters shorter in height than the average elite heavyweight of his time. As for weight, his debut came at the very beginning of Ali’s championship, who, furiously preparing for the confrontation with Liston, was intensively gaining muscle mass and in two or three years, before Fraser’s eyes, he gained weight to 96 kg and continued to “get fat” in the future.

Having taken Liston’s place on the throne, Ali now became for all other boxers who competed in the heavyweight division a standard, a yardstick to follow, thereby stipulating the continuation of the “arms race.” In the person of first Liston, and now Ali, for the first time since the 50s, a tall man became a world champion, with a fairly wide “frame” and, what is important, with a very long arms. All this provided him with a comfortable advantage over the entire division. Frazier was a representative of a dying era, dominated by such relatively small heavyweights by today's standards as Rocky Marciano And Floyd Patterson.

On February 16, 1970, for the first time in the history of the heavyweight division, a match took place with the WBA and the newly organized World Boxing Council (WBC) titles at stake. Frazier knocked out Jimmy Ellis in the fifth round to become the first-ever undisputed version champion.

The fact that Fraser had nothing to catch in new conditions became obvious a year later when he began performing in the professional ring. After being knocked down, Joe won by split decision Oscar Bonavena, who was even smaller than him. A year and a half later, he not without difficulty defeats his old opponent Mattis Sr., at the time of the technical knockout he had a draw on the card of one of the judges. In the next match, he again and now unanimously defeats Bonavena. Frazier could have become Mohammed Ali's rival after defeating Matthysse, but Ali had already been excommunicated from boxing for a year due to conscription into the army.

Since Ali was stripped of the WBA belt, which he had taken from Terrell, in 1968 this title was played between Ellis, who had already defeated Bonavena, and Jerry Quarry. Ellis became the new champion, who would make his only successful defense against Patterson. Fraser became the official challenger in September 1969, after he defeated Quarry, who was prone to cutting, by technical knockout in the seventh round of a difficult fight.

On February 16, 1970, for the first time in the history of the heavyweight division, a match took place with the WBA and the newly organized World Boxing Council (WBC) titles at stake. Fraser knocked out Jimmy Ellis in the fifth round and became the first ever absolute version champion. However, Frazier could not be the universally recognized champion as long as Muhammad Ali remained undefeated. Their meeting took place in March 1975. For the first time in history heavy weight two undefeated men fought in the championship fight absolute champion- one champion is “untitled”, the other is “alphabetic”. Ali had a three-year layoff, which he tried to compensate for with two warm-up fights against Frazier's opponents yesterday. Perhaps for this reason, or perhaps because Smoking Joe was at the peak of his career, Ali lost a unanimous decision.

In addition, Ali was always especially vulnerable to left blows, and Frazier just had the most deadly left hook, with which he knocked down Mohammed in the final, 15th round. Fraser became the winner of the next “fight of the year” according to Ring magazine. It was 27-year-old Joe's finest hour. He then made two successful defenses against mediocre boxers. After which, if he hung up his gloves, he could gain recognition as the second Marciano. Fraser's only minus was that he had two less championship defenses than Rocky.

Marciano never had the chance to step into the ring against an opponent like Big George. Foreman was five years younger than Fraser and became the champion of the Olympics, the next one in which Joe triumphed. Probably, first of all, according to this logic, in January 1973, having no defeats George Foreman inflicted his first defeat on Fraser. However, as their re-fight would show in the future, Joe had nothing to oppose Foreman. He easily swallowed Frazier's ferocious left hooks and swings, but the counter bombardment literally blew Joe out of the ring. Frazier was on the canvas three times in each of the two starting three-minute periods. After which he was unable to continue the fight.

This ended Joe's brilliant career. By the mid-70s, Fraser had serious vision problems, he was almost blind in one eye, and could not maintain optimal weight. Immediately after the defeat from Foreman, he fought against a boxer with similar dimensions to Big George, that is, an unimpacted Australian-Hungarian Joe Bugner, defeating him with a slight advantage on points. In the second half of the 70s, Smoking Joe would score only one victory. And then over a fighter who, by today’s standards, is a cruiser. He faced Ali twice more and faced Foreman once more, but in neither fight did he resemble his early 70s self. Perhaps the most brutal and bloody fight in Frazier’s career was the third meeting with Ali, which took place in September 1975. The match took place under the open tropical sky, and after the 14th round Fraser’s corner was forced to refuse to continue the beating.

32-year-old Frazier left the ring because he suffered two early defeats in a row and had eye problems. overweight and lack of spirit to fight. Despite his young age by heavyweight standards, Joe did not have significant prospects because he did not have large dimensions. With a loss of speed and dullness of reflexes, he became an easier prey for many elite heavyweights every month. IN last time Frazier defeated an opponent heavier than 91.1 kg on July 2, 1973. In the second half of the 70s and at the turn of the 80s, there were fewer and fewer such puny elite weights; they died out like mammoths on the eve of the revolution in the use of deadlifts in the general physical training of boxers.

Fraser was diagnosed with advanced liver cancer last month, and after discovering the disease, doctors gave Joe very little time to live.

In December 1981, Joe Frazier returned to the ring to fight the athletic knockout artist Floyd Cummings, the same age as Foreman. Frazier was probably aiming for a third match with Foreman, hoping that he could beat him at least once out of three. However, the judges did not reveal the winner. Let us note an interesting fact: after the meeting with Fraser, Cummings, who had previously only had one defeat, will suffer five defeats in a row and end his career. Fraser returned to coaching and promotional work. A year earlier, his son Marvis made his debut in the professional ring, who throughout his career would suffer defeats just like his father, only from two outstanding boxers.

The last years of his life, even despite a serious illness, Fraser led active image life: was a frequent guest of various sporting events(mostly hockey matches with the participation of the favorite NHL club “Philadelphia Flyers”), TV shows, meetings with boxing fans. Fraser was diagnosed with advanced liver cancer last month, and after discovering the disease, doctors gave Joe very little time to live. Fraser spent his last days in a hospice in Philadelphia. On Monday, November 7, the legendary fighter passed away. Muhammad Ali (Frazier became the first to defeat The Greatest in 1971) expressed his condolences on Frazier's death. “The world has lost a great champion. I will always remember Joe with respect and admiration. I express my condolences to Fraser's family and friends,” Ali said.