A boxing thread

Someone mentioned Ali's medical condition being an exception rather than the rule.

While this may be true, there have been numerous boxers severely injured during their careers. Besides Ali, Jerry Quarry and Meldrick Taylor come to mind as two others.

Quarry, around 1993, was unable to feed or dress himself and had to be cared for by relatives. Two of Quarry's brothers, also fighters suffered damage.

Mike ended up with pugilistic dementia and Bobby suffers from Parkinson's disease, same as Ali. Jerry died in 1999.

 

Certainly, there are a few high-profile punch drunk fighters.

I knew about Jerry's sad case, I was living in Minnesota at the time and he was pretty much a legend up there. The guys who suffer the most are usually the heavier weights, and they are almost uniformly the guys who fought on well past their primes and their abilities to defend themselves.

Ali probably should've retired after the second Frazier fight, certainly after the Foreman fight. Speaking of Foreman, there was a guy who really didn't have that many fights all together; he fought very few amateur fights, I think he'd fought not much more than a dozen fights total before he won Olympic gold in '68. And look at him, probably as clever and funny a fellow as you'll ever meet--nothing wrong upstairs.

I think boxing's a great sport, but it's not without its dangers. Few sports are. After a few injuries--including the torn pec that ended my career--I realized that while I was a serviceable fighter, I lacked those incredible defensive reflexes that are necessary to really climb to the top of the sport, amateur or pro, and I got out. I believe I have very little brain damage--probably none whatsoever--as I only suffered one concussion in two years of fighting at the collegiate level. Anyway, I got out before it hurt me. If others did the same, once they realized they didn't have it or had lost it, there wouldn't be many of the tragic examples you cite.

 

Oh now, maybe after the third Frazier fight, which came after the Foreman fight. You see, it was this third fight that give us The "Thriller in Manila," the greatest heavyweight fight in boxng history. It was classic war, blood, and guts with both fighters near physical exhaustion.

Also, remember those great lines of Ali about Frazier:

"It's going to be a thriller and a chiller and a killer when I get the gorilla in Manila!"

And as Ali was holding a small rubber gorilla and hitting it repeatedly he said

"Come on gorilla, we in Manilla."

This was stuff but at the sad expense of Joe Frazier who was one of the nicest guys in the game.

Dreamt last night "The Greatest" died. Odd, Isn't it?

Ali should probably have retired aftert the Shavers fight, a good hard fought effort by both and won by Ali.

 

Jimmy Young beat him but, I guess, not convincingly.

 

Ernie Shavers probably took his pound of flesh from Ali's brain. Shavers was one of the hardest hitters in boxing history. Foreman, though, in my mind, stands above all of them. As slow moving as his punches were, they were like a telephone pole strung up by a crane, swinging with its end towards your head; once he hit you, the punch would just plow right through--your head was no resistance. That's how he destroyed that Soviet fighter for the gold medal, the Ruskie had it all over George in technique, savvy, skill--everything--but he knocked that hapless guy silly just by swinging those big tree trunks in the guy's general direction. It was a very gory fight for the amateurs.

Ali probably left more than a little behind in the ring after that first Frazier fight. And so did Joe, I think. Remember, he got knocked down about 50 times (not literally) in the first round or two against Foreman just a few fights later. I don't think either Foreman or Ali were ever the same after the first fight.

I think Ali said that the closest he ever came to death was in the Thriller in Manilla.

 

lfauss said

Sure you aren't thinking of Duane Bobick?
Being from Mpls. originally the Bobicks were local boxing heroes.Quarry I think was from Omaha.

Most brutal fight I've ever seen:Ray Mancini vs a korean whose name I forget. Unbelievable punishment in which Mancini tragically killed opponent.


Dan

 

You're thinking of Duk Ko Kim. It was tragic.

 

Quarry claimed LA as his hometown and fought out of Bellflower, CA.

 

In a title fight, the challenger has to take the title. Young constantly stuck his body from the waist up outside the ropes.

I would have begun the ten count everytime he did that!

 

Jimmy"the preacher of pugilistic punishment,the minister of maul,the padre of pain" Clifton,

I think you may be right on all counts!

 

OUCH--You're right!

How could I, an ex-boxer who's "career" (what there was of it) actually overlapped a bit with those fighters, blow that one? And I like to pride myself on my knowledge of boxing history.

Maybe I am a bit addled from those old boxing days.

Boom Boom fought Duk Koo Kim (sp?). That was actually a pretty good fight, wasn't so lopsided as the tragic results would indicate. The legend--and I think a true one--goes that when they went into his hotel room after his death to clear things out, they saw "Win or Die!" written in Korean on the mirror or the lampshade or something. I guess it was one of those options, sadly.

 

Nice alliteration. Foreman, in his comeback, was called "The Punching Preacher."

 

Boom Boom was good but Alexis Arguello showed him who was the boss! Livingstone Bramble also taught Mancini a thing or two about boxing.

After the Kim fight, the WBC immediately ordered all title bouts be reduced from 15 to 12 rounds. Other sanctioning bodies soon followed.

I miss the 15 rounders but understand the reason. Boxing needs reforming. Head gear, two-minute rests between rounds, and fighting only 10 rounds would be a good start.

 

lfauss,

Kim ,while fighting well ,IIRC took some pretty solid blows at the end. I remember thinking they should have stopped it.

 

Rocky Marciano.

49-0, 43 KO's

Enough said.

 

Oh, all you "Bay staters" stick together like glue, ha!

Only kidding, of course. "The Brockton Blockbuster" certainly has the best record in heavyweight history but if he fought Charles and Walcott today, the fights would have been stopped and he would have lost.

 

And had the Rock fought Joe Louis in the latter's prime rather than when he was washed up, old, and just fighting to pay back old taxes, he would've gotten a big "KOed by" blemish on that perfect record. And had he not thrown out his back and retired and fought on another few years and run into a young brash man who was coming of age in Louisville named "Clay", he would've gotten another such blemish on that record.

Just my opinion. But kudos to Rocco Marchegiano (his real name), he didn't have much for skills as champions go, but he had heart and an iron will. A lot of lesser fighters wouldn't have gotten up and won after having their bells rung like he did. He was this unstoppable machine, like Dennis Rodman pursuing a rebound, just all drive. That's how he managed to run up that gaudy record. That, and avoiding the two greatest champions of the last century mentioned above.

 

A good boxer will beat a good fighter anytime. Marchiano was a fighter like Liston, Shavers, Frazier, Foreman, and Tyson. None of these had any great boxing skills or talent or any ring saavy and finese, just awesome power!

I like boxing, not fighting. I like to see skills like those of Sugar Ray Robinson, Sugar Ray Leonard, and Muhammad Ali.

 

While I believe that I understand the general intent of this statement (and I might generally agree) I would haten to add that this is true only within the context of an organized, supervised match in the ring. In a street fight, a good boxer will generally be found face down in the gutter. A good street fighter, who cares nothing about rules, fairness or mercy will typically dismantle a good boxer. If nothing else, the street fighters willingness to employ weapons will immediately give him an almost insurmountable advantage.

To those who have expressed some distaste for boxing I would add my own belief that boxing is not a sport, it is a martial art. Like Judo, fencing, karate or escrima, it is a martial art. The fact that people bet on the outcome does not make it "sport" in my opinion.

 

Employment of weapons changes the formula--I'll grant you that, even the best guys on the University of Nevada boxing team alongside whom I fought (we had three national champions on the team and six All-Americans--regrettably, none of them me) aren't much of a match for a street brawler with a baseball bat, a blackjack or a gun, but a "good" street fighter sans weapons gets his head handed to him by a good boxer.

"Good" street fighters paw at each other and throw awkward windmill punches like idiots. A good boxer would just laugh, shift his hips, and deliver a straight punch that breaks the street brawler's nose in about two seconds. No, I take that back, knowing that a properly-placed punch to the mid section is worth its weight in gold, he'd give the street brawler's chubby little tummy a little tap and leave him doubled on the ground to get up a half hour later a little sore and a lot wiser.

Coach always used to say: "One to the body's worth ten to the head." Of course, he also used to say--I'm not making this up--"Keep away from women, kids, it's no good for the legs." We probably didn't follow that last one like we should've.