Joe Frazier, Champion and Competitor

Once a Fighter, Always a Fighter
Heavyweight champion Joe Frazier was born in Beaufort, S.C., on Jan. 12, 1944. When he was young, he fashioned a heavy bag out of a grain sack and rags and hung it from a tree, using it nearly every day to practice his blows. At the age of 15, he hitchhiked to Charleston and caught a bus to Philadelphia, where he worked as a butcher and trained as a boxer. Here, Frazier poses for a photographer in February 1968 before his fight with Buster Mathis at Madison Square Garden.

• Joe Frazier, Former Heavyweight Boxing Champ, Dies at 67