Amateur career
During Joe Frazier's amateur career,
he won Golden Gloves heavyweight championships in 1962, 1963, and
1964. His only loss in three years as an amateur was to Buster Mathis.
Mathis would prove to be Joe's biggest obstacle to making the 1964
US Olympic boxing team. They met in the final of the Olympic trials
at the New York World's Fair in the summer of 1964. Their fight was
scheduled for three rounds and they fought with 10 oz gloves and with
headgear, but the boxers who made it to Tokyo would wear no headgear
and would wear 8 oz gloves. Frazier was eager to get back at Mathis
for his only amateur loss and knocked out two opponents to get to
the finals. However, once again when the dust settled, the judges
called it for Mathis, undeservedly Joe thought. "All that fat boy
had done was run like a thief, hit me with a peck and backpedal like
crazy," he would remark.
Mathis had worn his trunks very high
so that when Frazier hit Mathis with legitimate body shots, the referee
took a dim view of them. In the second round, the referee had gone
so far as to penalize Joe two points for hitting below the belt. "In
a three round bout a man can't afford a points deduction like that"
Frazier said. He then returned to Philadelphia and felt as low as
he had ever been end even thought of giving up boxing. Duke Dugent
and his trainer, Yank Durham, were able to talk him out of his doldrums
and even suggested that Frazier make the trip to Tokyo as an alternate
in case something happened to Mathis. Frazier agreed and was a workhorse
there, sparring with any of the Olympic boxers who wanted some action.
"Middleweight, light heavyweight, it didn't matter to me, I got in
there and boxed all comers," he said. In contrast, Mathis was slacking
off. In the morning, when the Olympic team would do their roadwork,
Mathis would run a mile and start walking and say, "Go ahead, big
Joe. I'll catch up."
1964 Summer Olympics
In 1964, heavyweight
representative Buster Mathis qualified but was injured, and so Frazier
was sent as a replacement. At the heavyweight boxing event, Frazier
knocked out George Oywello of Uganda in the first round, then knocked
out Athol McQueen of Australia 40 seconds into the third round. He
was then into the semifinal, as the only American boxer left, facing
the 6' 2", 214 lb Vadim Yemelyanov of the Soviet Union.
"My left
hook was a heat seeking missile, careening off his face and body time
and again. Twice in the second round I knocked him to the canvas.
But as I pounded away, I felt a jolt of pain shoot through my left
arm. "Oh damn, the thumb," Frazier said. He knew immediately the thumb
of his left hand was damaged, but he was unsure as to the extent.
"In the midst of the fight, with your adrenaline pumping, it's hard
to gauge such things. My mind was on more important matters. Like
how I was going to deal with Yemelyanov for the rest of the fight."
The match ended when the Soviet's handlers threw in the towel at 1:49
in the second round, and the referee raised Frazier's injured hand
in victory.
Now that Frazier was into the final, he mentioned
his broken thumb to no one. He went back to his room and soaked his
thumb in hot water and Epsom salts. "Pain or not, Joe Frazier of Beaufort,
South Carolina, was going for gold," he proclaimed. He went on to
fight German Hans Huber, eight years his senior. Frazier was now used
to fighting bigger guys, but not with a damaged left hand. When the
opening bell sounded on fight night, Joe came out, started swinging
punches, and threw his right hand more than usual that night. Every
so often, he would use his left hook, but nothing landed with the
kind of impact that he had managed in previous bouts. He won a 3-2
decision.