While reading a book about Carlos Monzon ("A Fistful of Murder" by Don Stradley, very cheap on Amazon), I came across this story: "One afternoon as [Monzon and his new girlfriend Susana Jimenez] were strolling around Mar del Plata, reveling in the success of [their hit movie] La Mary and their blossoming romance, Susana noticed some penguins on the beach. Enchanted by the funny birds, Susana said that she wished she could pet one of them. Wishing to please, Monzon picked up a rock and smashed a penguin on the head. Then he hoisted the bird to his shoulders and brought it to Susana. She took one look at the nearly dead animal and screamed. "You told me you wanted to touch him," Monzon said, oblivious to what he had done." Obviously, killing a penguin is pretty ****ed up as was Monzon's life, but the image of this big gangly ass dude dragging a half-dead penguin over for his girlfriend to pet and expecting her to be tickled cracks me up. There are also a lot of anecdotes about Roberto Duran in the runup to the Montreal fight with Leonard. Their hotels were right down the street from each other so Duran would bump into Ray and his wife on the regular... Evidently he would stop in the middle of the street, grab his dick and scream horrible insults every time he saw them (I think he made the same gesture to Ray's wife after the fight actually). Uncouth and comedic but SRL was really shaken up that he had to fight someone capable of such incivility. I'm sure there are tons of these...
It was a decent wee read that book. Is what it is, you know what you're getting because fo the true crime series it's a part of, but I found it pretty engaging.
I thought it was really well-written and liked all the details about his fights and career.. The one about Gatti has less boxing talk so it was less engaging imo. He has books on Valero & Tapia too.
Apparently Stanley Ketchel shot one of his friends in the foot for annoying him, then full of apologies took him to the nearest doctor. Don't know how true that is but I read it somewhere & Ketchel was borderline psychopathic.
Borderline? And if that story is true about Monzon, he just became even more detestable in my eyes and I couldn't stand him before. Terrible thing to do although I would take it with a bit of a pinch of salt. I can't imagine a penguin not being timid of a human approaching and hanging around and the way the story is told makes Monzon sound utterly simple, that he would be so brutal in front of a woman he was trying to impress. He was nasty in every way but I doubt that he lacked intelligence.
Billy Conn found a chained dog on one of his runs and spent some minutes throwing stones at it. Bit ****ed up.
He was a bad man, but he was charming by all accounts most people of his cut of cloth are, i doubt it is true though his breed of mentally un hinged tend to be mute to emotion so this may have been a lesson in being a chameleon.
Well, I heard that Larry Holmes told a kid working his area over as a newspaper boy was scolded for brining it to his door opposed to the letter box he was rather upset as he and his farther watched Larry fight numerous times together... I hear that Holmes can be quite the grump at times and is tight with his money but he has been a perfect gentleman on many other encounters reported.
It's a book and the guy is trying to sell it, but I doubt that Duran intimidated or shook up SRL by screaming insults. SRL grew up near DC when it had one of the highest crime rates in the U.S., and he had been around boxers and boxing since he was young. Most boxers have been in the ring or at least sparred with criminals of all types, fighting a guy who made an obscene gesture is probably not a big concern.
Don't know the amount of truth to it, but there was a story where Max Baer had just laid Mae West. He gets up afterwards, goes to the window of the hotel room and opens the drapes - still bare-arsed naked - and starts waving. West asks him what he was doing and he responded something like, "Oh, I bet my friend in the hotel across the street that I could get you to bed." I wonder if he was ever asked back.
Max was a softie at heart with a lustful side he was a jester till the end. His last recorded words were along the lines of "No silly a people doctor" when asked if he wanted a house doctor called.
Maybe it reminded him of an opponent that he had landed a right hand on, and the adversary waddled like that penguin, Lol.
