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#17 |
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Diamond Dog
East Side VIP
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 63,257
vCash: 1000 |
He basically let Walter Stanton kick the shit out of him for the first round of their 1908 contest for a bit of fun. Then, when he started actually fighting (having been battered all around the ring, punches he absorbed with "contemptuous ease") he took his man out with ease.
Previous to Ketchel II, he would scratch this crude, weird likeness onto the various different punching bags he had scattered around the training camp and then talk to "Ketch" as he beat him up. He laughed and joked with ringside pressmen about the misery he was about to inflict upon Sailor Burke prior to his August '08 contest and followed up to the word. Then, on Thanksgiving, 1936, he slaughtered his wife and shot himself in the heart. Took three bullets to stop it. |
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#21 |
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Belt holder
ESB Addict
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: here (duh!)
Posts: 3,494
vCash: 1280 |
Anyone interested in learning more about Ketchel should steer clear of Brutality: the Tragic Story of Ketchel (I think that's the title). Its dreadful, poorly written, and composed in a reverential, worshipful love of its subject. That's the only book I'm had a chance to crack open on Ketchel and it was disapointing, especially because the story has such potential.
A few more thoughts on Stanley: It was very interesting as annecdotes surfaced about Edwin Valero after Valero's suicide because so many details in Valero's mental and psychological deterioration mirrored stories about Ketchel. Stanley was famously tempermental. He was know to shot holes through doors whenever someone was foolish enough to wake him up when he was sleeping. His foul moods were also highly unpredictable. I heard he would abruptly fly off the handle for for trivial reasons, i.e. people talking while has training or for no reason at all. He would often cruelly beat his own friends for imagined provocations. I heard someone speculate that Ketchel heard voices. It's not out of the question, given the fact that he was obviously mentally ill, but there's no evidence to corroborate this. And obviously Ketchel's fondness for bedding other men's wives is well documented, given the fact that it cost him his life. One story details that Ketchel walked all the way from Grand Rapids to what is now Jenison, a suberb of Grand Rapids during the dead of winter to visit one of his married lovers. This story won't have much signficance to people outside the region, but Jenison would have been an insane trek to make on foot, considering its crisscrossed by rivers and thick forrests. And west michigan is fucking frigid during the winter. Don't know if its true, but if it is, the guy was willing to walk further and harder to nail a married woman and risk getting shot than I would be. As I mentioned, Grand Rapids definitely isn't proud of Ketchel the way it is with Gerald Ford, Anthony Keidis, or Mayweather. He's never listed among its list of famous residents. And given his sexual deviation, temper, and passion for opium, its not surprising. |
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#24 |
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Contender
ESB Senior Member
Join Date: Feb 2012
Posts: 761
vCash: 500 |
Are you kidding? Leaning? He's a good two or three inches shorter. He could stand straight up and put on cowboy boots and he'd still be shorter.
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#28 | |
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Belt holder
ESB Addict
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Los Angeles
Posts: 2,518
vCash: 500 |
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#29 | |
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Belt holder
ESB Addict
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 1,978
vCash: 1000 |
Quote:
A very bad man indeed. |
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#30 | |
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Champion
East Side Guru
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 7,609
vCash: 1000 |
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