Professional boxing champions with class, good role models.

Two HWs off the top of my pointy head: Lennox Lewis and Floyd Patterson. I may be missing something, but best I can recall, both were gentlemen in and out of the ring ...

 

max schmeling as i recall was a class act for all of his life. AND he stood up to hitler and was sent to russian front because of it!

 

Might have been worth adding this on to the thread about good ambassadors. They seem much the same thing but I'd throw Michael Spinks and Ezzard Charles in.

It may not have panned out the same without the injury - I don't know and am not suggesting he was anything other than a gentleman - but Michael Watson's reaction to his injuries and debilitation is a shining example to anyone, younger or older. I always imagine a role model influences younger generations. Michael is rare in that respect because any age group can admire, and be inspired by, how he has picked himself up and got on with it.

 

I remember a commentator in the 70s telling Norton he liked his image, that it was "good for the young people".

 

Don't believe he was ever sent to the Russian front. He also never affronted Hitler, rather he was very savvy in walking that fine line of acceptance from both sides, but he knew whom he had to please.

None of this is meant to denigrate Schmeling in any way. He was from all appearances a gentleman.

 

correction as per his biography-
During the Nazi purge of Jews from Berlin, he personally saved the lives of two Jewish children by hiding them in his apartment.[7] It was not the first time that Schmeling defied the Nazi regime's hatred for Jews. As the story goes, Hitler let it be known through the Reich Ministry of Sports that he was very displeased at Schmeling's relationship with Joe Jacobs, his Jewish fight promoter, and wanted it terminated, but Schmeling refused to bow even to Hitler. During the war, Schmeling was drafted, where he served with the Luftwaffe and was trained as a paratrooper. He participated in the Battle of Crete in May 1941, where he was wounded in his right knee by mortar fire shrapnel during the first day of the battle. After recovering, he was dismissed from active service after being deemed medically unfit for duty because of his injury. Nevertheless, in July 1944 a rumor that he had been killed in action made world news.[8]

 

Right, I knew all about that stuff. Crete was not the Eastern Front first of all, and his hiding of the Jewish kids is nothing short of heroic. No argument about that at all, but he never thumbed his nose at the Nazis.

Nor should he have been expected to, by the way, endangering his family's lives and all. He did more than enough and should be proud. But the way you describe his actions is a little misleading.

 

that is why i said, correction! LOL! and saving kids and protecting his manager WAS thumbing his nose at the nazis! families were SHOT for less!

 

Like I said, nothing short of heroic. You'll get no argument from me there. But Schmeling was sly about a lot of such things, he didn't just extend the middle finger to Hitler and company. For obvious reasons.