Boxing is at least half dependent on the tales, stories, legends, and controversies that attach themselves to particular fighters and bouts. We all know this, and everyone loves retelling some of these stories and adding their own spin and interpretation onto them. Then there's the flip side to this. The stories that are bogus, provably wrong, cases where the stories, rumors, and spin completely covers up the real thing, and it drives you up the ****ing wall every time you hear someone say it as if it was true. For example, one of my most hated ones is the Tyson-Douglas so called "long count". As complete a load of absolute bull**** as has ever been seen, and it comes courtesy of Don King no less, and yet Tyson fanboys toss it out endlessly when they're whining that Mike Tyson was really the greatest ever. I happened to be growing up at the time, and I worshiped Tyson at the time, (I used to just love the way "The undefeated, undisputed heavyweight champion of the world" sounded) but the long count didn't happen. I saw, and for the longest time, had taped a rebroadcast of the fight that HBO did, which included Mike and Douglas sitting down in the studio together doing interviews about the fight and such, and part of the thing they addressed was the long count. In a study they did, they determined that it takes the ref on average about 14 seconds to do the 10 count, and Meyran was perfectly on that time. But the worst fanboys will also try to claim that Meyran then gave a fast count to Tyson, even though he got the same exact count as Buster! Let's take a look at the footage: [yt]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/AmPx2ixbhlA&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/AmPx2ixbhlA&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/yt] Now here you can see that Tyson is on his back by 1:05. Meyran doesn't wave the fight off until 1:20, which is 15 seconds. And yet I often see the fanboys posting things like "And then after giving Buster a slow count he quick counted Mike, gave him a count nobody could beat!!!" and **** that's even worse than that, and it makes my teeth clench every time. So, what stories and myths drive you up the wall?
Ali throwing his gold medal in the river because of the racism he found despite being Olympic champ. Funny how it took this story about 15 years to come out. Duran being so ill he couldn't continue vs Leonard Frazier having little left after Fight of the Century Hagler's early fights being robberies (this myth doesn't exist any more of course, but it did until about 10 years ago) Larry Holmes being "a nice guy really" T.A.F.K.A. Prince having his ribs broken so he could give himself a blow-job Mark Almond having ice cubes made out of horse spunk
Ali getting up to 5 minutes rest waiting for the glove to be changed[except it wasnt],in the Cooper fight. Johnson was badly hurt by Ketchel's double crossing wild right ,yeah sure ,that's why he sprang up and kod him instantly. Johnson laid down for Willard ,he tried his best and ran out of gas.Jeffries was drugged against Johnson .Naseem Hamed is a nice guy ,just misunderstood .Ditto Tyson.
I know, always bugged me that one. Henry gets a raw deal from the historians- it was about 12 minutes. Richard Burton and Liz Taylor sank three bottles of whisky each at ringside by the time that interval was over. And here's what they replaced that glove with: This content is protected
I think it's worse than that tbh. I swear a whole generation now believes Cooper actually beat Ali. All we are ever shown is Cooper landing the left hook and Ali going down.
Ali was DQ'd in the 5th, Henry awarded the win. Then some Black Muslim 'heavies' and a threatened withdrawal from their UK tour by The Four Tops forced the BBBC to reverse the result. :-(
That wasn't Ali ,it was his brother Rudy ,Ali was in a secret location being trained to assassinate Malcolm X.
Yes with the long count one in Tyson-Douglas. It is actually true that the ref counted slower than 10 but a) the ref's count is always the determining one and b) he gave Mike the exact same slightly slower cadance. Plus Douglas's KD seemed a bit flashy, he didn't seem dazed and in fact rather annoying, thumping the canvas around 3 in annoyance, getting to a crouch and waiting for most of the count before getting up. He knew what he was doing.
I remember reading in 1 of Ali's biographies how he went into a cafe and some racist biker guys came over saying 'olympic n'gger you better give us your medal'. The story went Ali and friend fled on a motorbike, they first thought of going to their neighbourhood but drove quickly to the outskirts of town. As the bikers arrived they were spread out and basically the first few copped a beating in a bloody brawl. I think that biography came out in the 60s but it maybe 70s and my memory maybe tainted as I read it about 14years ago
Now you're just out of order, obviously a true story. (one of the worst) When i was a growing up this was taken as concrete, are you telling me it's not true? My world is falling apartatsch