Former World Heavyweight champion Smokin' Joe Frazier and William Dettloff, senior writer for The Ring magazine, present a complete guide to the fight game – from the history of the sport to how to throw a crushing uppercut and take a punch without flinching. Drawing from the experiences of one of the masters of the sport, Box Like the Pros is a must–have for anyone pursuing boxing as a hobby or who is interested in training to become a professional boxer. Frazier, with longtime boxing writer William Dettloff, presents a complete introduction to the sport, including the game's history, rules of the ring, how fights are scored, how to spar, the basics of defence and offence, the fighter's workout, a directory of boxing gyms, and much more. Box Like the Pros is an instruction manual, a historical reference tool and an insider's guide to the world's most controversial sport. “Frazier knows prizefighting and breaks it down to its fundamentals in this practical primer.” - Larry Merchant, HBO Sports “ Smokin’ Joe Frazier will take you the distance and teach you how to be a champ. ” - George Foreman Former World Heavyweight champion Smokin' Joe Frazier and William Dettloff, senior writer for The Ring magazine, present a complete guide to the fight game – from the history of the sport to how to throw a crushing uppercut and take a punch without flinching. Drawing from the experiences of one of the masters of the sport, Box Like the Pros is a must–have for anyone pursuing boxing as a hobby or who is interested in training to become a professional boxer. Frazier, with longtime boxing writer William Dettloff, presents a complete introduction to the sport, including the game's history, rules of the ring, how fights are scored, how to spar, the basics of defence and offence, the fighter's workout, a directory of boxing gyms, and much more. Box Like the Pros is an instruction manual, a historical reference tool and an insider's guide to the world's most controversial sport. Smokin' Joe Frazier was an Olympic gold medalist and the world heavyweight champion for three years. His three epic battles with Muhammad Ali -- the last of which was the famed "Thrilla in Manila" -- are legendary. He's a member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame and author of Smokin' Joe: The Autobiography . He currently trains fighters at the world-famous Joe Frazier's Gym in his hometown of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. William Dettloff is the senior writer for The Ring magazine and boxing columnist for HBO.com. He lives in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Box Like the Pros By Joe Frazier HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Copyright © 2005 Joe Frazier All right reserved. ISBN: 0060817739 Chapter One The Fight Game: A History In the Beginning Prizefighting is the oldest sport in the world. Older than baseball, football, basketball, rugby, hockey -- any sport you can name. Fistfighting, as a competition, was practiced during the original Olympic games in ancient Greece, and you can find mentions of it even farther back than that -- in ancient Egypt. There's something about man that he likes to test himself against other men to see who's better at fighting. And people like to watch. That's just the way people are, and they've been that way forever. Even though you can trace fistfighting all the way back to the origins of man, it's really the bareknuckle version that came about in eighteenth-century England that set the table for the fight game as we know it today. Those boys were rough. There was no ring -- a circle of spectators formed the ring -- and the guys wore no gloves, and there were no real rules or rounds or judges. They fought until one guy couldn't fight anymore. They could go at it for hours on end, punching, kicking, gouging, wrestling. They just fought. As rough as it was, the sport took hold. As it's always been, the working class got it started and pretty soon the upper class started following it. Even the kings and queens over there in England got into it, and schools started opening up that taught guys how to fight. Before long they started using actual rings. The first recognized champion was James Figg, who was the best-known fighter around in the 1720s. But it was still a rough sport. Here's an example: something a lot of guys did that was perfectly legal in a fight was "purring" -- kicking a downed fighter with a spiked boot. Those guys were serious. In 1732, John Broughton, Figg's successor, introduced new rules that outlawed things like purring. Broughton's Rules governed the sport until 1838, when the London Prize Ring Rules were established. But even those rules allowed opponents to do so much in the ring that in most countries prizefighting was illegal. Finally, in 1867, John Graham Chambers and his friend Sir John Sholto Douglas, the eighth Marquis of Queensbury, wrote up 12 new rules. They moved the sport forward, closer to how we know it today. The Marquis of Queensbury Rules outlawe
