The ex-fighter known around here as the Butcher, affectionately, has a signed photograph of Joe Frazier that he keeps like a laminated Mass card in his wallet. He has other personalized mementos, too, including a couple of scars on his fist-dented face, the handiwork of Smokin Joe. The Butcher knew Frazier as well as anyone can in the public intimacy of a boxing match, where exhausted men hold each other in sweaty, slow-dance clinches. But he did not go to Fraziers funeral in Philadelphia on Monday, attended by boxings elite. Among other reasons, the Butcher drives a school bus now; he had to make his rounds. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/us/the-butcher-and-the-joe-frazier-ron-stander-bout.html :hat
As someone once said, if boxing fights were determined by heart alone then Boone Kirkman and Ron Stander would have won the title. I'm glad to hear Ron has got a job, sounds lucid and looks back peacefully on his career. In fact, it sounds like people in Omaha have a better appreciation of their gutsy contender than Philadelphia has of their ATG champ.
Ron Stander could have been better conditioned and had a better career but he was the first to expose Earnie Shavers, he took a pounding from Shavers and then turned it around to stop Shavers...I heard he beat pro football Lyle Alzado in the amateurs but not sure if it was him or Ron Lyle
