Joe Frazier Battling Liver Cancer with a Fighter's Determination

After a career spent staring down some of boxing’s most feared heavyweights, Joe Frazier finds himself in a contest with a far more dangerous opponent. The former champion is in a Philadelphia hospice undergoing treatment for liver cancer.

As reported by the Orlando Sentinel, Frazier’s manager isn’t sugar-coating the severity of the 67-year-old’s condition. He said that the former boxer is in a “very painful and serious situation,” but added, “Joe is a fighter. Joe doesn’t give up.”

Frazier was diagnosed with cancer only about a month ago. Until then, he had been enjoying better health in his retirement than many former fighters, standing in particular contrast to archrival Muhammad Ali’s well-documented battle with Parkinson’s Disease.

In the ring, Smokin’ Joe was as powerful a hitter as any heavyweight in history. He took over the heavyweight titles Ali had vacated during his Vietnam War protest, then defended them against Ali himself in the first of their three epic fights (the so-called “Fight of the Century”).

Frazier lost only four career bouts: two to Ali (neither by knockout) and two to George Foreman. Although Frazier’s rivalry with the motor-mouthed Ali was a bitter one—with Ali famously portraying Frazier as an “Uncle Tom”—the two have reconciled their differences in recent years, particularly since Ali’s own health problems have become more apparent.

If this battle with cancer is Frazier’s last—and it seems sadly likely that it will be—he will deservedly be remembered as a courageous fighter, in death as in life.