School me on Fidel LaBarba?

You know, in American gay culture, a beard is someone you use as a fake romantic date or significant other to carry on a facade of heterosexuality. La Barba means "the beard." Someone in Fidel's heritage was like known for giving aid and comfort to a gay. That is not very in-line with my religion, tbf. I don't wanna get banned so I have nothing else to say about this guy. He shoulda changed his name if he didn't sanction that type of behaviour.

 

Difficult to judge him accurately w/ so little footage (the Chocolate rematch is the only 1 I've come across). From contemporary accounts, he was 1 of the most respected technicians of his day & was considered a young phenom as a fly. After cleaning out the fly division & unifying the titles, he vacated his title to attend college for a year, then returned to the ring as a feather. Although he continued to be a highly respected fighter, he never achieved the same level of dominance or consistency that he had during his brief run @ fly. After the win over Chocolate, he was made the favorite to unseat fw champ Battling Battalino, but Batt surprised a lot of so-called "experts" by muscling & hustling LaBarba to victory. LaBarba was eventually forced to retire prematurely b/c of an eye injury.

 

I see the name and I think of Castro and this:

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He won an Olympic Gold Medal in 1924 or 28, whichever one was in Los Angeles. He was, I believe, the first Olympian to achieve success as a professional fighter.

 

Great insight Boxed Ears, thoughts and prayers.

 

have you got any explanation for the names of the two famous pirates Blackbeard and Barbarossa?

 

Me too!

As a little girl reading the Ring Record Book, I admired him tons, thought he was one of the greatest flyweights of all time.

Ive revisited that thought but, back then to be a world champion was tougher so he was great enough.

 

Blackbeard was an Afro-American pirate in the late umpteenth century, ca umpty-nine twelve. He was very wise and powerful and no one wanted to insult him with the nickname they came up with-nappy beard. They asked if they could say that or if that "wasn't cool." Blackbeard said "Well, it's not a slur exactly, like, I don't think it'd get you banned on a boxing forum, but it still sounds vaguely insulting to how my facial hair grows, and I can't stand the potential appearance of the disrespect from my crew." Because his beard, unlike most pirates in that region, was not real "straight." He was adopted by a singer named Madonna. So, they started calling him Afro-American beard. He did not like that either, having not been born in the Americas, despite obviously being Afro-American in his heritage. But, again, he knew it was said with love, and it was only "the potential appearance of disrespect," he'd mentioned which rendered this second attempt at a nickname unusable. He suggested just calling him Blackbeard and they all respected it and knew if they didn't respect it, they'd meet their fate at the end of his iced out cutlass, which had rims on the clamshell hand guard. I learned about all of this in February, because it's the month they'll tell you stuff like that. The concept of a gay beard was never mentioned and apparently had nothing to do with the nickname. Just a weird coincidence to do with literal beards.

As far as Barbarossa, that is a corruption of the term Barba Tabula Rasa. Originally, it meant whenever a gay wanted to genuinely start over as a straight and make his life anew with a clean, straight slate, and only the ostensible beard (which they likened to a real partner) was still called a beard, no matter how genuine the attempt at hetero love it was. It evolved into a shorter Barba-Rasa, but then, for some reason, Hanna-Barbera, and eventually it was spelled Barbarossa. "I'm moving to The Hamptons with Sheryl and it's going to be an absolute Barbarossa. No more dongs for me." That would be how it is currently used in a sentence and how it was used for the aforementioned pirate's time. Born Tim Minchin, he was often just called "El Butt Piratè" and he'd get pretty steamed and anyone who called him that would meet their fate at the end of his bedazzled Spanish cutlass. He was Spanish, though his surname and given name were English. Anyways, he did have to admit that his Spanish piratery WAS actually an attempt at looking non-gay, and suggested it was something akin to a "Barbarossa", or, in that Spanish pirate era, a "gay clean slate," as he'd left for the sea after breaking up with his lover, Stuart von Coggenstuschmal, the Duke of Swishensby, in Frankish Germania, where present day Bavaria is, and known for decadent chocolates and a love of Streisand, as it was in that time as well. I hope this clears everything up. Thank you for asking. I don't get to do this a lot since my professorial days have ended, due to "inappropriate lectures."