Is Joe Frazier Broke?

Legendary boxing great Joe Frazier will enter the ring again on November 30, 2006.  But this time, it is a three-round charity bout held at the Peabody Memphis Hotel in Memphis, TN against 66-year-old Willie W. Herenton, mayor of Memphis.

The charity bout is hardly indicative of Frazier’s current financial and life situation.  He lives alone in an apartment one floor above Joe Frazier’s Gym, where he and others train young fighters in a run-down part of town.  Although he is only 10 pounds heavier than he was in his prime, he is millions of dollars lighter.  Over the years, Frazier has lost a fortune through a combination of failed business opportunities, carousing, his own generosity, and a bitter, deep-seated hatred for his former rival, Muhammad Ali.  Ali, George Foreman, and Larry Holmes, all headliners from Frazier’s heyday, are millionaires.

Born in 1944 in South Carolina, Frazier turned professional in 1965 and won his first 11 bouts by knockouts.  He boasts a career record of 32-4-1 and defeated Muhammad Ali in a 15-round decision at Madison Square Garden in March of 1971.  Frazier and Ali only met in the ring three times and twice Frazier was defeated by Ali, including the Thrilla in Manila bout in 1975.  But his insistence over the years that he won all three bouts has not endeared him to potential sponsors.

Frazier once managed the boxing career of his oldest son, Marvis, and in June of 2001, his daughter Laila Frazier-Lyde fought Ali’s daughter and lost by decision.  Frazier-Lyde is a lawyer and worked in her father’s defense on a lawsuit in which Frazier claims his signature was forged on documents pertaining to 140 acres of land he bought in 1973 in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.  According to Frazier, 5 years later he sold the land for $1.8 million and was receiving the sale money on an annual basis through a trust that originally bought the land from money he earned while in the ring.  When the trust went out of business, the payments stopped.  Frazier sued, but the case was dismissed in 2003.

In recent years, Frazier’s health has suffered.  Due to a car accident years ago in Philadelphia, he has undergone four operations on his neck and back, the most recent three months ago at Pennsylvania Hospital. 

To this day, Frazier is loved by his fans.  “I don’t think I handled it right, because I certainly could have gone out more and done better for myself over the years,” he says.  “But I guess, in a way, I’m rich, too.  I have my family and I have a sound mind and a sound body, and after all of those brutal fights, I’m lucky to still have my eyesight.”