He won’t be remembered as the greatest boxer in history, unfortunately, because it could be argued that Muhammad Ali has that title. However, Joe was a great boxer, and his achievements from real poverty in his early years to defending his world title four times define him as a man, and a great one at that.

Boxing is a brutal and unforgiving sport but as Oliver Wendell Holmes once said: “Every calling is great when greatly pursued."

For years, Joe lived in the shadow of Ali, fighting him three times in all. The first fight, which Joe won, was billed at the time as the “Fight of the Century” at Madison Square Gardens. It was sold out months in advance, and Frank Sinatra took photographs for Life Magazine in order to gain a ringside seat.

The most famous encounter between the two boxers, however, was the “Thrilla in Manilla”. Ali won that brutal encounter, but said afterwards that he had never felt closer to death than he did that night.

Throughout the two Corinthians' lives, it was impossible to discuss one without mentioning the other, because their destinies were (and are) forever interlinked.

We remember the three fights with a shudder, with nostalgia and with real admiration, but what we also remember is the continuous mutual acrimony which enveloped both of them. It was an antagonism which was to last far too long.

Ali’s pre fight “trash talk” was legendary, and he used verbal jabbing to hurt his opponents long before they entered the ring. He always referred to Frazier as a “white man’s puppet” and an “Uncle Tom", terms which were hurtful, inaccurate, and unworthy of such a gifted athlete.

He made those remarks because he was genuinely afraid of Frazier, and he had every right to be - his opponent was an awesome destroyer in the mould of Marciano, Graziano, and Joe Louis (much later, we were to witness a similar wrecking machine in the persona of Mike Tyson).

Frazier on the other hand gave it back, and when Ali famously (and poignantly) lit the Olympic flame in Atlanta in 1996, Frazier remarked: "I wish he had fallen into the flame. If I had the chance, I’d have pushed him in.”

He meant it too. Long after they had stopped boxing, and when Ali succumbed to Parkinson’s disease, Frazier still could not resist another swipe at his former opponent, asking journalists: "Tell me now, him or me; which one talks worse now?"

But if those remarks grate with all of us, they are understandable in the context of a relationship between the two which was always weighted in Ali’s favour. The way he treated Frazier over the years was despicable, although perversely we lapped it up in the same gratuitous and voyeuristic way we enjoyed the brutal encounters between the two men. The slamming body punches, the jabs, the uppercuts and the hooks that no man should have been able to withstand. The gruelling rounds which both men toughed out - they seemed to be boxing and fighting each other forever, and perhaps in a way they always will be.

Ali defined Frazier because of those fights, and because of that war of words. But of course Frazier defined his great rival too. Without Frazier’s greatness - his thundering punch, his seeming invincibility, and his enormous self belief - Ali could not plausibly have been called The Greatest. History may not remember Joe as the greatest boxer, but there were many times in his life that he was the better man.

In later years the two were able to put their long-running feud to one side. Frazier said of Ali: "I’d do anything he needed for me to help”, and the two collaborated on photoshoots to raise money for charity.

I was heartened to see at Joe’s funeral the Reverend Jesse Jackson asked the congregation to “show your love” for the deceased. Ali stood and clapped vigorously, acknowledging at last his respect and admiration for a man who, although not the Greatest, was a credit to his race. The human race, that is.

Some Champion. Some fighter. Some man.