Fighters who had a disease in the ring

Yes I saw the McNeely fight and poor Pete was like a chicken trying to take on a fox.He went for it like a wild man! He probably figured it’s gotta be death or glory against this guy…and it definitely wasn’t glory he found!

As for Spinks…I slightly disagree that he “fought as normal as ever.” Tyson didn’t let him fight his normal way…he was on him from the start and didn’t let up. Spinks had no time or space to execute any type of game plan as Tyson just unleashed all his fury on him, not giving Spinks a chance to find his feet.

Had he managed to weather Storm Tyson and got through the 1st round, then we MIGHT have seen Spinks fight his normal fight. But might is just a shortened version of ‘woulda coulda shoulda!’

 

I don't think you know what chronic means. Foreman made excuses to why he lost to Ali. I never heard Foreman make any excuse for losing to Jimmy Young, Evander Holyfield, or Tommy Morrison. Foreman didn't even make excuses when he got robbed against Shannon Briggs. Also I never seen a fighter who lost the title not make excuses for losing the title.

 

An excuse is still an excuse. I was an athlete in High School, before a Cross Country meet, we would shake hands, and after a meet, we would still shake hands. We lost 2 meets that year (1973) but in the end we defeated the two teams that beat us early in the season, we won the City Championship in Nov 1973. Had we acted like spiled sports after a meet, pouted and made excuses, we would no longer be on the team. I learned good sportsmanship at home and at school. When we lost those two meets early that championship season, we worked harder and worked hard to win the title. George Foreman and his conspiracy theory in his loss to Muhammad Ali on Oct 30 1974, plain and simple, Foreman met a man that he could not outsmart and intimidate. Excuses are like everybody's behind, everyone has one. I do know what chronic means son, I have my college degree in Psychology. I did not pay much attention to George following his loss to Jimmy Young in March 1977, he also blamed the climate for his loss, Young trained in the same climate.

 

Spotted a typo: surely you mean 1873 for your high school heroics, right?

I didn’t even know they had high school cross country in that century. Congrats on the championship — they can never take that away (even a century and a half later)!

 

Spinks tried to execute a game plan.

The fight was 91 seconds long and that includes the countout and the voluntary knockdown when Spinks took a knee, so more like 70 seconds of fighting.

And in just over a minute Michael threw I think it was a dozen right-hand leads. I don’t think he landed one, but obviously Eddie Futch saw something that made them think the right lead was a key to Spinks winning … or at least surviving the early onslaught. Even the KO punch was a counter of a Spinks right lead.

I’ve always wanted to ask what the game plan was — maybe they just thought Michael needed to land a good right to get Tyson’s respect and back him off, maybe they saw something that they (mistakenly) thought Tyson would be vulnerable to the right lead, maybe they just figured Tyson would be looking for the jab and they could catch him off-guard early and mix him up a bit. Who knows? But that’s a lot of right leads in a short, short fight so there had to be a reason behind it … he didn’t just go out there and keep trying that without it being part of a plan.

You can say he ‘froze up’ but he didn’t freeze up to the point that he wasn’t trying to execute whatever it was they were trying to do.

 

Ha Ha. That was a good one buddy, I even had a drink with John L. Sullivan himself.

 

Something I often wonder as fighters are such complicated and frankly fragile individuals (most of the time) emotionally speaking, I wonder, how often they allow themselves to be hit as punishment. It may sound odd but I'd imagine being hit for a living is the perfect penance for a sinful or lavish lifestyle. Some fighters styles are built surrounding their ability to absorb punishment, so it would track that some men may do it on purpose as a sort of self-harm against themselves.

I have no idea the validity of this, but am sure that it must present itself in at least a few ATG, and many fighters in any weight class of any ranking.

 

Allan Green had surgery on his intestines after losing to Edison Miranda.

 

I picture this as you behind the bar serving an underage little Johnny Sullivan.

 

The Spinks case is interesting. I personally think he was sh*t scared. I also read a boxing mag. Q & A interview in which he admitted as much.

But then people point to Spinks always looking like that before many of his fights - which, when you check, he often actually did - perhaps simply always holding but managing general levels of fear every time out.

Otherwise, maybe Michael was just a Dude that often looked a lot more worried than he was.

But the real crux question - if there was fear, was it so bad as to have seriously impaired his performance? Tbh, it seems not.

Otherwise, it would be required to describe the alternate, confident version of Spinks and how he would’ve/could’ve fought differently for an improved performance. I don’t think there’s an answer to that.

I could nominate Norton vs Foreman and say Ken might’ve done better if not so leery. Norton admitted to being tight, unable to take full advantage of openings he saw - and I think you could see his mobility, at the least, was a bit stilted.

He was boxing pretty well still but came undone upon Foreman’s first solid punch which wasn’t necessarily an absolute killer. Now even if Ken’s chin wasn’t granite at best, being very nervous could still impair whatever resilience he had in the first place.

We often uphold Floyd Patterson as the poster boy for fear (vs Liston) but I’ve never read an in depth description of what Floyd didn’t do or could’ve done if not for the fear he held.

It seemed in the rematch that Floyd came out to fight, barely missing Liston with an otherwise, very good right hand. Though it’s true that trying to fight too aggressively can be a symptom of impairing fear.

Floyd’s fear, like Norton’s, could’ve effected his resilience a bit - but, to be clear, it wasn’t too surprising that if hit square by a guy like Sonny, Patterson would likely be put out.

So really, what other options could/should Floyd have employed for a better performance?
A literal, not rhetorical, question open to all answers.

 

Ad Wolgast , .. ,mental illness/dementia

 

A fearless Patterson would get KO’d by Sonny … in the first round.

Because he’d take chances. And when he did that, he’d take punches. And when he took Sonny’s punches, he fall down and go boom.

 

Please don’t equivocate. Just answer the damn question.

I think as you do. Should I be worried?

I think a Floyd, unencumbered by fear, achieves a PB of 2 mins and 14 seconds into the first round - at least trending in the right direction albeit via very tiny steps.

 

I must’ve had my immunity shots as a baby since it seems that I completely dodged the speed disease bullet. Lucky me.

Ray must’ve caught SPEEVID 56. I’ve read about that infamous mass outbreak in history books. Absolutely devastating. People on the streets randomly launching lightning combinations at one other - just because they could.

 

I don’t know if it occurred during his career (I haven’t necessarily read/heard that it did) , but apparently, Bat Nelson eventually went the same way.

Later in a sanitarium they apparently built an outdoor gym for Bat to train with. True or not, the claim was that upon each use, Bat literally believed he was still Champ training for a title defence.

The provision of a gym to occupy and keep in shape sounds reasonable enough but it’s possible that someone was gilding the lily with the other stuff.