Joseph William "Joe" Frazier, known as "Smokin" Joe, is a former Olympic and World Heavyweight boxing champion, whose professional career lasted from 1965 to 1976, with a brief comeback in 1981.

It was Frazier’s uncle who first planted the seed of what would grow into a Hall-of-Fame career. Looking at the eight-year-old Joe, stockier than most boys of his age on account of the sheer ...