{"id":339231,"date":"2025-12-11T23:51:04","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T23:51:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/339231\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T23:51:04","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T23:51:04","slug":"joe-frazier-said-one-man-stood-alone-as-the-greatest-heavyweight-ever-hed-beat-muhammad-ali","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/339231\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Frazier said one man stood alone as the greatest heavyweight ever: “He’d beat Muhammad Ali”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe Frazier<\/a> never needed much encouragement to take a swipe at Muhammad Ali<\/a> during their bitter 1970s rivalry.<\/p>\n

Their trilogy produced three iconic events, culminating in The Thrilla in Manila<\/a> \u2014 a brutal finale that eclipsed the first two encounters due to the extraordinary punishment both men absorbed. Ali won the series 2-1, cementing his status as the standout heavyweight of his era and, to many, \u201cThe Greatest,\u201d echoing his own famous moniker.<\/p>\n

But Frazier \u2014 whose only career defeats came against Ali and George Foreman<\/a> \u2014 insisted his nemesis was neither the self-proclaimed greatest nor the finest heavyweight of all time. The Philadelphia fighter instead chose a champion from a bygone era, a man who remains a popular pick for the division\u2019s crown.<\/p>\n

Speaking in a past interview<\/a>, Frazier said:<\/p>\n

\u201cJoe Louis is the greatest heavyweight champion of all time.<\/p>\n

Rocky Marciano is second only to Louis. Where do I rate Ali? Somewhere below me. I beat him, and if I could beat him, no doubt Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano could have beaten him.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the longest-reigning heavyweight champions in history, Louis was not only a dominant boxer but also a symbol of hope to many \u2014 particularly after his 1938 destruction of Germany\u2019s Max Schmeling at a time when the United States was on a collision course with Adolf Hitler\u2019s regime.<\/p>\n

During his career, Louis defeated an unprecedented six lineal heavyweight champions and stood as one of the most dominant figures of his era<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joe Frazier never needed much encouragement to take a swipe at Muhammad Ali during their bitter 1970s rivalry.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-339231","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}