Rubin Carter

[Super_Fly_Sam]

I was just watchin the Hurrincane movie last night....

and to me it seemed as though he was made out to be an awsome fighter..

was he really that good?? could he have been a great champ if he wasnt locked up??

[McGrain]

Good but limited. He was enormously strong and a violent type, but as far as I can see he could only do one thing well.

It would be no fun to be in with him, put it that way. Unless you were Dick Tiger of course.

He was also a really nasty peice of work - the film only scratches the surface of that uncomfortable truth. He supposedly told the Emile Griffith that "he was like a woman who wanted to be raped" which is an interesting choice of words.

[Super_Fly_Sam]

So he was just like a savage beasty type of fighter???...

not one who could really change up his style a modify himself to suit his opposition??

[Nemesis]

He's a cunt, he hates boxing nowadays

[McGrain]

Originally Posted by Super_Fly_Sam

So he was just like a savage beasty type of fighter???...

not one who could really change up his style a modify himself to suit his opposition??

Well he has a trunk load of losses. Yes, basically, I think if you bring the right fight plan he could be beaten, he doesn't seem at all adaptable to me. Not all of his losses are at the top level.

It seems that Tiger was able to out-muslce him but maybe that would be all in that department. I'd say that he has been overated off the back of the movie. A good, not a great fighter.

[Super_Fly_Sam]

Originally Posted by McGrain

Well he has a trunk load of losses. Yes, basically, I think if you bring the right fight plan he could be beaten, he doesn't seem at all adaptable to me. Not all of his losses are at the top level.

It seems that Tiger was able to out-muslce him but maybe that would be all in that department. I'd say that he has been overated off the back of the movie. A good, not a great fighter.

Oh Ok fair enough... but he really did beat that fulla for the world title and get robbed ay?? coz he did get presented with the belts when he got out of jail


and i herd that he was being sued by the guy who

[Super_Fly_Sam]

Originally Posted by Nemesis

He's a cunt, he hates boxing nowadays

Why?

[JohnThomas1]

Originally Posted by McGrain

I'd say that he has been overated off the back of the movie. A good, not a great fighter.

I'll go an extra yard and say he was also overrated dating way earlier off the strength of the Bob Dylan song, "Hurricane" from 1975.


Pistol shots ring out in the barroom night
Enter Patty Valentine from the upper hall.
She sees the bartender in a pool of blood,
Cries out, "My God, they killed them all!"
Here comes the story of the Hurricane,
The man the authorities came to blame
For somethin' that he never done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.

Three bodies lyin' there does Patty see
And another man named Bello, movin' around mysteriously.
"I didn't do it," he says, and he throws up his hands
"I was only robbin' the register, I hope you understand.
I saw them leavin'," he says, and he stops
"One of us had better call up the cops."
And so Patty calls the cops
And they arrive on the scene with their red lights flashin'
In the hot New Jersey night.

Meanwhile, far away in another part of town
Rubin Carter and a couple of friends are drivin' around.
Number one contender for the middleweight crown
Had no idea what kinda shit was about to go down
When a cop pulled him over to the side of the road
Just like the time before and the time before that.
In Paterson that's just the way things go.
If you're black you might as well not show up on the street
'Less you wanna draw the heat.

Alfred Bello had a partner and he had a rap for the cops.
Him and Arthur Dexter Bradley were just out prowlin' around
He said, "I saw two men runnin' out, they looked like middleweights
They jumped into a white car with out-of-state plates."
And Miss Patty Valentine just nodded her head.
Cop said, "Wait a minute, boys, this one's not dead"
So they took him to the infirmary
And though this man could hardly see
They told him that he could identify the guilty men.

Four in the mornin' and they haul Rubin in,
Take him to the hospital and they bring him upstairs.
The wounded man looks up through his one dyin' eye
Says, "Wha'd you bring him in here for? He ain't the guy!"
Yes, here's the story of the Hurricane,
The man the authorities came to blame
For somethin' that he never done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.

Four months later, the ghettos are in flame,
Rubin's in South America, fightin' for his name
While Arthur Dexter Bradley's still in the robbery game
And the cops are puttin' the screws to him, lookin' for somebody to blame.
"Remember that murder that happened in a bar?"
"Remember you said you saw the getaway car?"
"You think you'd like to play ball with the law?"
"Think it might-a been that fighter that you saw runnin' that night?"
"Don't forget that you are white."

Arthur Dexter Bradley said, "I'm really not sure."
Cops said, "A poor boy like you could use a break
We got you for the motel job and we're talkin' to your friend Bello
Now you don't wanta have to go back to jail, be a nice fellow.
You'll be doin' society a favor.
That sonofabitch is brave and gettin' braver.
We want to put his ass in stir
We want to pin this triple murder on him
He ain't no Gentleman Jim."

Rubin could take a man out with just one punch
But he never did like to talk about it all that much.
It's my work, he'd say, and I do it for pay
And when it's over I'd just as soon go on my way
Up to some paradise
Where the trout streams flow and the air is nice
And ride a horse along a trail.
But then they took him to the jailhouse
Where they try to turn a man into a mouse.

All of Rubin's cards were marked in advance
The trial was a pig-circus, he never had a chance.
The judge made Rubin's witnesses drunkards from the slums
To the white folks who watched he was a revolutionary bum
And to the black folks he was just a crazy ******.
No one doubted that he pulled the trigger.
And though they could not produce the gun,
The D.A. said he was the one who did the deed
And the all-white jury agreed.

Rubin Carter was falsely tried.
The crime was murder "one," guess who testified?
Bello and Bradley and they both baldly lied
And the newspapers, they all went along for the ride.
How can the life of such a man
Be in the palm of some fool's hand?
To see him obviously framed
Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land
Where justice is a game.

Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise
While Rubin sits like Buddha in a ten-foot cell
An innocent man in a living hell.
That's the story of the Hurricane,
But it won't be over till they clear his name
And give him back the time he's done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.

[McGrain]

It's a decent enough choone though.

[JohnThomas1]

Originally Posted by McGrain

It's a decent enough choone though.

Bloody fantastic. Goes for about near 9 minutes, i play it at the local for two reasons, one it's great and two it's length makes it fantastic value

[McGrain]

Originally Posted by JohnThomas1

Bloody fantastic. Goes for about near 9 minutes, i play it at the local for two reasons, one it's great and two it's length makes it fantastic value

Plus it irratates the fuck out of anyone who doesn't know their history. Get a lot of "what", "who".

[JohnThomas1]

Originally Posted by McGrain

Plus it irratates the fuck out of anyone who doesn't know their history. Get a lot of "what", "who".

Hahahaha fair enough. I actually put at least two guys onto it by playing the sucker.

[Nemesis]

Originally Posted by Super_Fly_Sam

Why?

he's turned into some pacifist, looking for the abolition of boxing because of ring fatalities, I think it happened just after the Duk Koo Kim - Ray Mancini fight

[Thread Stealer]

Carter's career as a contender was finished by the time he went to prison.

Carter was by most accounts a p.o.s., but I need to do more research about the case. I've heard different opinions regarding it.

[TBooze]

Originally Posted by Super_Fly_Sam

Oh Ok fair enough... but he really did beat that fulla for the world title and get robbed ay?? coz he did get presented with the belts when he got out of jail


and i herd that he was being sued by the guy who

Actually Giardello won the fight fairly easily. And it was Joey's family who sued (and won) the makers of the movie, because it suggested that Carter was robbed (which was not true), and further more that Giardello was boo'd in Phillidelphia, which is laughable as Giardello was a demi god there.

Carter was given his WBC belt in recognition of his life's struggles.

If you want to know more about Carter then Hurricane: The life of Rubin Carter, fighter by James S Hirsch could be a good starting point.