LOT Old Heritage Auctions  /  2006 October Signature Sports Auction #705  / 

19292

Joe Frazier's WBC Championship Boxing Belt

Currency:USD Category:Sports - Cards & Fan Shop Start Price:22,000.00 USD Estimated At:50,000.00 - 75,000.00 USD
Joe Frazier's WBC Championship Boxing Belt
<B>WBC World Heavyweight Championship Boxing Belt Awarded to Joe Frazier.</B></I> Arguably the ultimate prize in the field of athletic endeavor is the Heavyweight Championship belt. Hand to hand combat, after all, is athletic competition at its rawest, most fundamental level, and it's based purely on individual skills and determination--no team to fall back upon. And so it is with no small amount of fanfare that we present the belt awarded to one of the sport's greatest Champions, from an age when the Heavyweight ranks were populated with legends like Ali and Foreman and Norton. This is the one and only WBC Championship belt presented to the man they called "Smokin' Joe."<BR><BR> Only the battles between Godzilla and King Kong could match the drama and brutality of the three Frazier vs. Ali fights, linking the pair forever in the annals of boxing history. While Frazier was technically the reigning Champ at the time of their first meeting, having knocked out Jimmy Ellis in 1970 to assume the vacant title stripped from Ali, it was Frazier's fifteen-round decision over the Greatest at Madison Square Garden in 1971 that convinced the boxing world that he deserved this belt.<BR><BR> The majestic award offered here was presented to Frazier some time in the late 1970's or early 1980's, after his retirement from the fight game. But make no mistake--this is Frazier's one and only Championship belt. He was never awarded another. He makes this assertion with a black sharpie inscription (9/10) on the reverse, reading, "This is my Belt, Smokin' Joe Frazier." It is unmistakably the very one draped over his left shoulder in his most recognizable promotional photo, a signed example of which we include in this lot.<BR><BR> The design is appropriately regal for the King of the Heavyweights, with enameled flags of the world's nations surrounding a gloved boxer and the text "World Champion WBC." World Boxing Council legends Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali appear on individual plaques on either side of the central plate. The green leather of the belt itself shows just the slightest degree of edge wear from its travels with Smokin' Joe, but nothing that diminishes display value in the slightest.<BR><BR> Very few Heavyweight Championship belts have ever made their way into the collecting hobby, and we needn't expound further upon the importance of this one in particular, dating from what is arguably the most competitive era in the history of the weight class. Ownership of this piece will elevate the collector into an elite realm, and make him the curator of a piece that is sure to be treasured and revered for ages to come. <I>LOA from PSA/DNA.</B></I>
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