Legitmate Good People In Boxing...

Well Liston was a ex con, doing jobs for the mob, and beating up cops. I would hardly call that a nice guy.

 

Alexis Arguello.

 

Good call. :good

 

As great a human being as he was a fighter. This is indeed saying something.

 

I agree. He was always genuinely concerned about the state of a battered opponent. Usually the first guy (other than the ref) to see to him.

 

Eddie Futch, first class gentleman
Angelo Dundee
Ray Arcel

 

I´m really wondering that Max Schmeling wasn´t mentioned. The term "good man" is invented for him. Refusing to fire his jewish manager Joe Jacobs or beeing deivorced of his wife Anny Ondra despite the nazis pressuring him, hiding two jewish children during the "Reichskristallnacht" in his flat. After WWII when he got rich due to beeing the man of Coca Cola in germany he helped Joe Louis during the time he had no money and even paid for his funeral when he died, he also paid 500$ a month for Walker when he was in a hospital because of Parkinson´s disease. He also did very very much charity work. All around I think he was the best human beeing whe put the gloves on ever.

 

Alexis Arguello..?
I don't know how much of a bad upbringing he had, I know his home country was ravaged with civil war in his prime years though.

 

You beat me to it Loewe. Schmeling is a genuine good guy from everything I heard, including being deeply uncomfortable with Hitler even before Hitler showed his true colors, sheltering Jewish kids on Kristallnacht, helping his Jewish manager get out of Germany, lending Louis money and looking after him later in his life, etc.

Alexis Arguello is pretty much the definition of this in boxing.

The guys that Cus D'amato set up to look after Tyson's career and finances, Jimmy Jacobs and Bill Cayton, were honest and decent guys, a rarity in boxing. But Jacobs died and King turned Mike against Cayton, whose financial planning, if followed, would have possibly made Mike a billionaire to this day. Cayton also made a huge effort to preserve classic boxing film, so a lot of us here in the classics section owe him a debt of gratitude.

 

To me, there have been many, many good people in this sport of boxing, but one stands out for me and that's Floyd Patterson. His appeal for me really trascends the sport itself.

 

I have a great deal of admiration for Max Schmeling as well. What a bum rap he got for years about the Nazi thing. He deserves credit for his heroism in saving the lives of those two Jewish lads as well as his refusal to fire his Jewish trainer Joe Jacobs, and most of all, he deserves respect for the brilliant way he upset Joe Louis. This fight has always been sniffed at and downplayed as though he beat Louis at age 12 or something, when in reality he fearlessly faced the man who so terrorized that he had them practically wetting their britches BEFORE even entering the ring. He seems to have been a decent, good man who didn't deserve all the bad press he recieved.

 

Jimmy Mclarnin
Tony Zale
Arguello
Tunney

 

Alexis Arguello
Muhammad Ali
Thomas Hearns