RARA-AVIS: Re: Professional Boxing--Real Life

From: Charlie Williams ( cs_will@hotmail.com)
Date: 26 Dec 2007


As a counterpoint to this, check this video about an English pro boxer (click on the clip a couple of times to get it full screen):

http://charliewilliams.blogspot.com/2007/12/could-have-been- contender.html

A professional loser, you might say. No one would call his life a success but it shows that a bit of defensive talent can get you through without getting addled too much. (Mind you, then there's the booze.) It's the other guys I worry about, the ones who have the way paved for them until reality strikes. I've met a couple of pros who had 20+ fights (mostly pre-determined losses) before getting tired of it. No obvious addlement apart from facially.

Charlie.

---------- charliewilliams.net

--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Jack Bludis <buildsnburns@...> wrote:
>
> Just a story of a real encounter with a professional boxer.
> When I was a kid one of my older neighbors, who was a
> pretty good amateur boxer, became a pro.
>
> I hadn't seen him in about a year and I sat next to him on
> a bus going to downtown Baltimore. I asked how he was doing
> and asked him how his boxing career was going.
>
> "Pre' good. Pre' good."
> "Where are you fighting?"
> "Had 'na couple uh fights in Cle'land, One is Wash'tin.
> Couple'a more, you know."
>
> Needless to say his adenoids had been destroyed and the
> halting way he he spoke made me thing his brain was addled
> a little. (Although I'm not sure I knew the word "addled"
> when I was 12 or 13.)
>
> I asked him how many fights he had, and he said, "I d'know,
> fi' gonna fight 'siss next mumff."
>
> Noticing his struggle, but not being very diplomatic at the
> time I asked, "Did you win any?"
>
> "Yeah, I won all fi'. Gonna move up to middle weight.
> Fightin' a guy in New York."
> ------
> Undefeated at five fights. I really don't know what
> happened in the sixth, but the next I saw him was about
> five years later. He was a basket case mentally and
> physically.
>
> I always thought of that as a lesson. They boxers who get
> knocked down and keep getting up are the ones who who loose
> their faculties early--unless the way is being paved for
> them.
>
> Anyhow, just a story of real life I thought might fit with
> the theme of Boxing fiction. I guess real life is where a
> lot of those boxing stories come from.
>
> BTW, I noticed later that Rocky Marciano--memory escapes
> me, but I think he was the only heavyweight champ to retire
> undefeated--sounded almost the same. They keep getting up.
>
> My guy never became champ.
>
> Jack Bludis
>
>
>
> http://crimespace.ning.com/profile/JackBludis
> http://jackbludis.com/
> Recent Story at http://backalleywebzine.com/
>
>
>
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