Originally posted by The Surgeon
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Loving that story bud.I bet you were fucking gutted when you found out -
U can believe that mate!Originally posted by The_Demon View Post
Ud have thought they would have mentioned about Barrera goin tho huh!?
Still great night out, great atmosphere, decent live scrap with plenty blood and a wicked KO for HattonComment
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Just finished reading Frank Bruno's book - FRANK Fighting Back
Its a good read and id recommend it. I want to post this bit tho, its from when Bruno gets back home after being cooked up in the mental institution to find Mountains of supportive messages in his home.
I'll just quote it word for word
"There was one special message tho. It didnt come through the letter box but i knew the guy who wrote it would have sent it to me personally if he'd had my address. It appeared in the Daily Mirror, a couple of days after i was taken to Goodmayes. (mental institute)
There was so much to take in that i cried. It was a very depressing moment. In our first fight he was as good a boxer as i ever met. But he has obviously had some really tough battles outside the ring which have done him in. I had no idea things were that bad. Frank should not be cast away like some used cloth. He's better than that and i know the British people will see him right. Its not like Frank was punch drunk from being beaten up for so many years like some boxers. He pretty much held his own. I always thought he did a great job walking away from boxing when he did. He got a good title and a good payday. But for us boxers fighting is just a way of making a living. Thats the easy part. The hard part is making a life outside.
It was from Mike Tyson.Comment
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Prior to his Rematch with Gene Tunney, Jack Dempsey had learned that Gangster Al Capone had made a Massive cash bet on Jack to win. Fearing Capone and his boys would pull some sort of crazy stunt to make sure he won, Dempsey wrote a letter to Al Capone asking him to kindly leave it as a fair fight between to proud men and the best man would win. Soon later a $200 boutique of flowers arived for Jacks wife with only a small card in it that read
"To the Dempseys
And a Clean Fight"Comment
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A copy paste from Sugar ray Robinson's P4P bio :-
"Having lost some of his appeal in the ring, Sugar felt compelled
to reconcile with Muhammad Ali, asking him to serve in
his corner as a second. With Ali by his side, he hoped, more
spectators would be attracted to the fight. Sugar knocked
Beecham out in the second round. Ali was so busy trying to get
his new wife, Sonji, to adjust to the lifestyle prescribed by the
Nation of Islam that in his autobiography, The Greatest, he talks
more about his fights with her than about Sugar’s bout.
It got so bad between the couple that Sugar had to come to
Sonji’s rescue. Upset that Sonji’s miniskirt kept crawling up her
leg during a party for Sugar at some large estate in Kingston,
Muhammad snatched her by the arm and marched her off to a
bathroom, where he locked the door and released all his hostility.
He pulled on her dress; but in his trying to stretch it, it tore.
This fueled Sonji’s resistance, and they became so loud that
Sugar came to the door to see what was happening. “This is my
wife and this is my business, so get away from the damn door,”
Ali screamed to Sugar. But Sugar said he wasn’t going anywhere
until he found out what was going on. “Listen, I’m gonna open
this door in a second, and if you ain’t gone, I’m gonna whip you
good,” Ali warned. “You ain’t nothing but a middleweight, so go
on, mind your own business.” Sugar heeded Ali’s command,
realizing that if he were to knock the door down and confront
Ali, it might be a worse mismatch than his fight with Joey
Maxim."Comment
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Originally posted by Greatest1942 View Post
No Problemo...
heres's another (paste)
Along with his pay, Sugar was able to pick up additional
change whenever Bojangles came to town and appeared at the
Tree of Hope or the “Wishing Tree,” which was located on
Seventh Avenue between 131st and 132nd Streets, near the
Lafayette Theatre. Black performers believed the tree to be the
purveyor of good luck to those who stood beneath its branches.
“It was their totem pole of hope. More than that, the immortal
Bojangles Bill Robinson used to pay a weekly visit to the tree,
which had been there when he was a kid with dreams of greatness.
Young Sugar and the other boys would wait for Bojangles.
When he arrived, he would have the kids dance for him,
rewarding the best ones with a handful of coins. It was no contest.
Sugar always won. With his natural grace and lithe, limber
body, he would tap his way to a perfect imitation of the grinning
Bojangles.”Comment
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Another Story from Atlas's autobiography :-Originally posted by Greatest1942 View Post
"Tyson was sitting there with us, his back facing the cabinets, a little
overwhelmed by the contrast between this warm, bountiful dinner table
and what he was used to. Everything with him was “Yes, sir” and “No,
sir,” and I knew it was all bull****. In fact, later on, when he had moved
in, I actually said to him one day, “Stop with the ‘Yes, sir,’ because in a
few months you’re going to be wanting to say something a whole lot less
ingratiating, like ‘**** you,’ but you’re not going to be allowed to say
that. So don’t go too far in this direction, either.”
He was a kid who was really the opposite of the image that built up
around him later on. He grew up in a rough place and got knocked
around. He had no father to look up to. He had a mother who for whatever
reasons, although I don’t want to pass too much judgment on her,
wasn’t able to raise him the way you’d want to raise a kid. And he suffered.
He was made fun of and picked on by other kids, who called him
“Stinky Mike” because he didn’t bathe. By his own account, he avoided
getting beat up by hiding between the walls in abandoned buildings—
an image that has always stuck with me.
The point is, this was a kid with no self-confidence, who had this very
imposing physical presence, but underneath, though he tried to project
power, felt like a fraud. He was a con man and a predator, which was
how he ended up in reform school. His real crimes, which very few people
know about, were against old ladies. He’d go up to them in the projects
when they were carrying bags of groceries and ask them in that sweet
lispy voice, “Can I help you, ma’am?” Just like he was saying “Yes, sir” to
me and Cus now. When these old ladies would say, “Yes, thank you,
young man,” he’d carry their bags into the elevator, and after the doors
closed, he’d knock their teeth out and take their money. The difference
was—as he was about to learn—not everybody was as gullible or weak as
those old ladies.
Here at the dinner table, he was nervous. He felt that he was still auditioning
because he hadn’t yet gotten paroled to us. He was on his best
behavior.
When Camille said, “Mike, can you please get me a fork? They’re
right behind you in the cabinet,” he didn’t react the way a normal person
who was secure with himself would react. He thought that the
quicker he got the fork, the more points he’d get. So he jumped up to
get it, and one of his legs—and he had big, muscular legs—caught
underneath the table and literally picked up that end of the table. The
food—all those chicken legs and mashed potatoes and everything—
started sliding off.".......
Camille was saying,
“Careful, you’re going to knock the table over, Mike.” Tyson had his
hands up, overreacting as if he’d committed a crime, going, “Oh, my
God! I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Cus was saying, “Look at that power! Wow!
What savage raw power!” And I was thinking, “This is weird. This kid is
going to be ****ing heavyweight champ.”Comment
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Another copy paste, this time from the Ghosts of manilla
"Casually flipping the Amin photo back into the crate, Ali discovered
another set of pictures, all of fighters who formed big and small
pieces of his career. Here was the forever penitential Floyd Patterson;
the picaresque Jack Johnson, still defiant with his grin; the champagne
smile of Sugar Ray Robinson, whom Ali admired the most; Joe Louis,
with his spare grimness; his true mentor Archie Moore, with the silky
ease and nonchalance of a horn player; the scuffed face of the doomed
Jerry Quarry; the sharply ridged prominences of George Chuvalo,
who, with an asphalt jaw and nothing else, first tapped into the attitude
necessary to beat Ali. He lingered over George Foreman, back
then the dark at the top of the stairs, then passed without comment
until he came to the squatting gargoyle Sonny Liston. He pointed an
accusatory finger at Sonny, and said with conviction: “He the devil.
Not enough fire in hell for him.” Contrary to the impression that has
come down through the years—that Sonny had caved in psychologically
under the hysteria that Ali had whipped up—Ali had feared
Liston always as a small child might a strong night wind in the trees."Comment
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Kids and the elderly.Originally posted by Holtol View Post
The people whom he felt wouldn't judge him.
Liston is to me, without a doubt, boxing's saddest story.Comment
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