Joe Frazier vs Manuel Ramos
Classic American West Coast Boxing
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
Joe Frazier vs Manuel Ramos
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dagosd2000
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 8638
- Joined: 01 Sep 2007, 03:31
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
Canon Jhonson. TJ
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dagosd2000
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 8638
- Joined: 01 Sep 2007, 03:31
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
"Little Red" Lopez
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
Roberto Duran vs. Javiar Ayala
February, 1973 - Los Angeles Sports Arena
This is the Duran that I boxed with at the Main Street Gym.
He was preparing for this bout, with Mexican champ Javiar Ayala, whom he easily defeated.
Duran was just 21, a few months older than me.
His "Hands of Stone" left a permanent impression upon me.
-Rick Farris
February, 1973 - Los Angeles Sports Arena
This is the Duran that I boxed with at the Main Street Gym.
He was preparing for this bout, with Mexican champ Javiar Ayala, whom he easily defeated.
Duran was just 21, a few months older than me.
His "Hands of Stone" left a permanent impression upon me.
-Rick Farris
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
The impression he left mate was that physical or mentalkikibalt wrote:Roberto Duran vs. Javiar Ayala
February, 1973 - Los Angeles Sports Arena
This is the Duran that I boxed with at the Main Street Gym.
He was preparing for this bout, with Mexican champ Javiar Ayala, whom he easily defeated.
Duran was just 21, a few months older than me.
His "Hands of Stone" left a permanent impression upon me.
-Rick Farris
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
Is that Leoncio Ortiz he is fighting?telboy66 wrote:The impression he left mate was that physical or mentalkikibalt wrote:Roberto Duran vs. Javiar Ayala
February, 1973 - Los Angeles Sports Arena
This is the Duran that I boxed with at the Main Street Gym.
He was preparing for this bout, with Mexican champ Javiar Ayala, whom he easily defeated.
Duran was just 21, a few months older than me.
His "Hands of Stone" left a permanent impression upon me.
-Rick Farris
PS: Oh sorry, it already says Ayala.
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
Researcher gave the Chumash a gift: their heritage
John Peabody Harrington relentlessly studied Indian families for decades. Today, a 71-year-old woman who considered him a pest is grateful for his intense scholarship.
By Steve Chawkins
January 31, 2010
Everyone thought the tall, strange white man was some kind of genius. But to teenage Ernestine De Soto he was a giant pain in the neck, a nosy, "Ichabod Crane-like" character who drew her mother's attention from its rightful place -- on her.
John Peabody Harrington studied De Soto's Chumash family for nearly 50 years, pumping her great-grandmother, her grandmother and her mother for the tiniest details of their lives. Everything fascinated him: the Chumash names of places mostly forgotten, of fish no longer caught -- even, to the family's puzzlement, of private parts never discussed in polite company. A brilliant linguist and anthropologist, Harrington had been just as relentless with countless Indian families throughout the West, but that didn't impress the young Ernestine.
"I was just a brat to him," she said. "He'd never speak to me if he could help it."
Toward the end of his life, Harrington was ravaged by Parkinson's disease, and De Soto's mother spoon-fed the lonely old man. Sometimes De Soto's 5-year-old daughter would tickle his feet. In a few months, he would die, poor and obscure, most of his obsessively collected notes gathering dust in barn lofts and attics. But over time his work would profoundly influence De Soto and many other Native Americans whose heritage was on the verge of vanishing.
"It's due to his madness that we are who we are today," said De Soto, a 71-year-old nurse who works at a Santa Barbara rest home. "We have a language. We have an identity."
Paranoid and secretive, Harrington was a fiercely devoted researcher of California tribes. He had a particular fascination with the Chumash, recording virtually every sound and word of their language, every nuance of their belief system and daily lives. As he did with other Native Americans until his death in 1961, he furiously quizzed De Soto's relatives for days at a time, sometimes recording their recollections on wax cylinders or scratchy aluminum disks.
At her kitchen table, De Soto vividly recalled how annoyed she was by the Smithsonian researcher's constant questions on "everything from the hair on top of your head to how you trim your toenails." Just as vividly, she slips into the voices of long-gone family members, telling stories that, but for Harrington, would have been lost.
From time to time, De Soto stages one-woman presentations portraying female ancestors back to her great-great-great-grandmother Maria Paula, who was born in 1769, the year Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola trekked up the coast through Santa Barbara.
Her stories start in a Chumash beach village and culminate with the trials of a modern Chumash woman: Ernestine.
Boat-builders and astronomers, the Chumash lived in villages scattered from Malibu to Morro Bay and spoke about eight dialects that are virtually separate languages. Before Spanish colonization, there were as many as 20,000; by the end of the mission system in the 1830s, there were perhaps 3,000. Most died in epidemics.
None of this was of more than passing interest to the young Ernestine. Today, though, she's intensely proud of her lineage in Santa Barbara's Barbareño band of Chumash. She says her DNA is a rare strain of Haplogroup D, a genetic sequence that links her to present-day Ecuadorean tribesmen and a 10,000-year-old human tooth found in an Alaska cave. And, though no full-blood Chumash are thought to survive, De Soto was pleased to be chosen years ago as the model for an early Chumash woman in a diorama at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.
"As soon as I die, they'll probably throw it in the basement," she joked.
She also stars in the poignant documentary "Six Generations," a museum project produced and directed by filmmaker Paul Goldsmith that traces her roots to the days when Spanish monks established missions along the California coast. Generation after generation, the stories of De Soto's ancestors are punctuated by disaster, displacement and disease.
As De Soto uncovered them, they resonated with her.
By the time she was 24, she had five children and more hard lessons than she could count from a string of abusive men. For a few years, she drifted. At points, she was sick, broke, disowned by her family. Only in her late 30s did she start pulling her life together, taking classes at Santa Barbara City College. For one assignment, she wrote about her family -- for a while, she lived in a small house with 17 relatives -- and a tide of memories surged.
"It evoked feelings that were always there," she recalled. "They were just dormant."
Taken by a teacher to the archive of the Santa Barbara Mission, she met an earnest graduate student named John Johnson. His thesis was on Chumash marriage and family patterns, and he was intensely interested in Mary J. Yee, the last native speaker of Chumash. Yee, who had recently died, was De Soto's mother.
The two became fast friends.
With Johnson at her side, De Soto pored over the mission's records of births, baptisms and deaths. To learn about two of her great-uncles, she dipped into records as far afield as San Quentin. She scoured her memory for the old family stories her mother used to tell. And she dived into the microfilmed field notes of Harrington, her old nemesis.
Yee, the wife of a Chinese vegetable peddler, was a favorite source -- and, later, a close friend -- of Harrington's. And while the eccentric scholar was picking her brain, Yee was inspired to take her own notes, recording family lore and drawing caricatures of her questioner. Her 42 notebooks are in the Santa Barbara museum, and De Soto finds something new each time she delves into them.
"It's like a little girl going into the attic and opening an old trunk, pulling out all these dolls, clothes and old family things," she said. "It's like having a treasure."
There's Yee's prayer in Chumash for her daughter, which has yet to be translated. And there are the ancient tales -- one of which De Soto turned into a children's book, "Sugar Bear," about Chumash generosity to wayfarers.
"She'd tell me stories every night," De Soto said.
"There were old ghost stories. She remembered the taste of acorn mush, and how my great-grandmother would grind acorns, chew them and feed them to her babies like a bird."
Other family memories weren't so gentle.
A devout Catholic, De Soto tries to attend Mass every day. Her refrigerator magnets are religious paintings. But growing up, she heard about a female ancestor who was flogged by a monk for running off from the mission with a Spanish soldier. She knew that at various times, her family fled rather than face mistreatment.
Even so, De Soto worked at the mission's infirmary for six years and developed a deep fondness for the friars.
"I'd joke around with them," she said. "I'd say: I have to leave now. Don't beat me!"
In "Six Generations," she narrates two centuries of mostly melancholy family history.
Great-great-grandmother Maria Ygnacia shares her home with local paisanos who return to rob her and her blind husband and rape their daughter. "This is how they repaid the favor of being allowed to live here," De Soto says in the film, portraying Maria in a solemn monotone.
Great-grandmother Luisa Ygnacio sees her husband, a violin player for the mission's orchestra, complain of cramps and, in the space of a morning, drop dead of cholera. Her second husband is stabbed to death in a Los Angeles saloon, and a third is found facedown in a creek, apparently killed by bandits. A 4-year-old son, one of her 15 children, dies of a rattlesnake bite.
The stories roll on, most of them sad but not unusual for the time, the place and the people. De Soto's mother, who spoke only a Chumash dialect until she was 12, had never seen a camera and bolted in terror from a class photograph, figuring she was about to be gunned down. Lacking toys, she played with a dead owl until her parents burned the rotting carcass.
Some of the stories are verified in old newspaper accounts and mission records. Many came straight from Harrington's notes: Delirious from a fever, Maria Juana as a young girl dreamed of marrying a wot -- a chief -- years before she actually did so. As she lay dying, Maria Ygnacia sent her daughter-in-law to gather spring clover for a last meal.
Such details would be poignant in any family, but for De Soto they are especially so because her people came so close to extinction.
Other Native American families feel the same way.
Her old friend Johnson, now curator of anthropology at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, said that over his career he has received inquiries from more than 1,000 people eager to trace their roots.
Some, he said, hope to receive federal benefits or revenues from groups with casinos, like the Santa Ynez band of Chumash. Many are driven by more profound forces.
"I've had people just weep with the realization that they've been able to identify their ancestors," said Johnson, who has sometimes been criticized as a know-nothing outsider when a search comes up dry.
"It's emotionally overwhelming. We can show them that their great-grandparents worked with John Harrington and that the stories they heard from some great-aunt are real. It's validating for them," he said.
For De Soto, it's the kind of knowledge that has helped her deal with tough circumstances.
The mother of five grown children has seen her family raked by mental illness, alcoholism and drug abuse. She has a congenital heart condition and a respiratory ailment. She doesn't think retirement is in the cards.
"But we're hard-grit survivors," she said. "What I have -- it's a legacy you can't put a dollar value on."
[email protected]
John Peabody Harrington relentlessly studied Indian families for decades. Today, a 71-year-old woman who considered him a pest is grateful for his intense scholarship.
By Steve Chawkins
January 31, 2010
Everyone thought the tall, strange white man was some kind of genius. But to teenage Ernestine De Soto he was a giant pain in the neck, a nosy, "Ichabod Crane-like" character who drew her mother's attention from its rightful place -- on her.
John Peabody Harrington studied De Soto's Chumash family for nearly 50 years, pumping her great-grandmother, her grandmother and her mother for the tiniest details of their lives. Everything fascinated him: the Chumash names of places mostly forgotten, of fish no longer caught -- even, to the family's puzzlement, of private parts never discussed in polite company. A brilliant linguist and anthropologist, Harrington had been just as relentless with countless Indian families throughout the West, but that didn't impress the young Ernestine.
"I was just a brat to him," she said. "He'd never speak to me if he could help it."
Toward the end of his life, Harrington was ravaged by Parkinson's disease, and De Soto's mother spoon-fed the lonely old man. Sometimes De Soto's 5-year-old daughter would tickle his feet. In a few months, he would die, poor and obscure, most of his obsessively collected notes gathering dust in barn lofts and attics. But over time his work would profoundly influence De Soto and many other Native Americans whose heritage was on the verge of vanishing.
"It's due to his madness that we are who we are today," said De Soto, a 71-year-old nurse who works at a Santa Barbara rest home. "We have a language. We have an identity."
Paranoid and secretive, Harrington was a fiercely devoted researcher of California tribes. He had a particular fascination with the Chumash, recording virtually every sound and word of their language, every nuance of their belief system and daily lives. As he did with other Native Americans until his death in 1961, he furiously quizzed De Soto's relatives for days at a time, sometimes recording their recollections on wax cylinders or scratchy aluminum disks.
At her kitchen table, De Soto vividly recalled how annoyed she was by the Smithsonian researcher's constant questions on "everything from the hair on top of your head to how you trim your toenails." Just as vividly, she slips into the voices of long-gone family members, telling stories that, but for Harrington, would have been lost.
From time to time, De Soto stages one-woman presentations portraying female ancestors back to her great-great-great-grandmother Maria Paula, who was born in 1769, the year Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola trekked up the coast through Santa Barbara.
Her stories start in a Chumash beach village and culminate with the trials of a modern Chumash woman: Ernestine.
Boat-builders and astronomers, the Chumash lived in villages scattered from Malibu to Morro Bay and spoke about eight dialects that are virtually separate languages. Before Spanish colonization, there were as many as 20,000; by the end of the mission system in the 1830s, there were perhaps 3,000. Most died in epidemics.
None of this was of more than passing interest to the young Ernestine. Today, though, she's intensely proud of her lineage in Santa Barbara's Barbareño band of Chumash. She says her DNA is a rare strain of Haplogroup D, a genetic sequence that links her to present-day Ecuadorean tribesmen and a 10,000-year-old human tooth found in an Alaska cave. And, though no full-blood Chumash are thought to survive, De Soto was pleased to be chosen years ago as the model for an early Chumash woman in a diorama at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.
"As soon as I die, they'll probably throw it in the basement," she joked.
She also stars in the poignant documentary "Six Generations," a museum project produced and directed by filmmaker Paul Goldsmith that traces her roots to the days when Spanish monks established missions along the California coast. Generation after generation, the stories of De Soto's ancestors are punctuated by disaster, displacement and disease.
As De Soto uncovered them, they resonated with her.
By the time she was 24, she had five children and more hard lessons than she could count from a string of abusive men. For a few years, she drifted. At points, she was sick, broke, disowned by her family. Only in her late 30s did she start pulling her life together, taking classes at Santa Barbara City College. For one assignment, she wrote about her family -- for a while, she lived in a small house with 17 relatives -- and a tide of memories surged.
"It evoked feelings that were always there," she recalled. "They were just dormant."
Taken by a teacher to the archive of the Santa Barbara Mission, she met an earnest graduate student named John Johnson. His thesis was on Chumash marriage and family patterns, and he was intensely interested in Mary J. Yee, the last native speaker of Chumash. Yee, who had recently died, was De Soto's mother.
The two became fast friends.
With Johnson at her side, De Soto pored over the mission's records of births, baptisms and deaths. To learn about two of her great-uncles, she dipped into records as far afield as San Quentin. She scoured her memory for the old family stories her mother used to tell. And she dived into the microfilmed field notes of Harrington, her old nemesis.
Yee, the wife of a Chinese vegetable peddler, was a favorite source -- and, later, a close friend -- of Harrington's. And while the eccentric scholar was picking her brain, Yee was inspired to take her own notes, recording family lore and drawing caricatures of her questioner. Her 42 notebooks are in the Santa Barbara museum, and De Soto finds something new each time she delves into them.
"It's like a little girl going into the attic and opening an old trunk, pulling out all these dolls, clothes and old family things," she said. "It's like having a treasure."
There's Yee's prayer in Chumash for her daughter, which has yet to be translated. And there are the ancient tales -- one of which De Soto turned into a children's book, "Sugar Bear," about Chumash generosity to wayfarers.
"She'd tell me stories every night," De Soto said.
"There were old ghost stories. She remembered the taste of acorn mush, and how my great-grandmother would grind acorns, chew them and feed them to her babies like a bird."
Other family memories weren't so gentle.
A devout Catholic, De Soto tries to attend Mass every day. Her refrigerator magnets are religious paintings. But growing up, she heard about a female ancestor who was flogged by a monk for running off from the mission with a Spanish soldier. She knew that at various times, her family fled rather than face mistreatment.
Even so, De Soto worked at the mission's infirmary for six years and developed a deep fondness for the friars.
"I'd joke around with them," she said. "I'd say: I have to leave now. Don't beat me!"
In "Six Generations," she narrates two centuries of mostly melancholy family history.
Great-great-grandmother Maria Ygnacia shares her home with local paisanos who return to rob her and her blind husband and rape their daughter. "This is how they repaid the favor of being allowed to live here," De Soto says in the film, portraying Maria in a solemn monotone.
Great-grandmother Luisa Ygnacio sees her husband, a violin player for the mission's orchestra, complain of cramps and, in the space of a morning, drop dead of cholera. Her second husband is stabbed to death in a Los Angeles saloon, and a third is found facedown in a creek, apparently killed by bandits. A 4-year-old son, one of her 15 children, dies of a rattlesnake bite.
The stories roll on, most of them sad but not unusual for the time, the place and the people. De Soto's mother, who spoke only a Chumash dialect until she was 12, had never seen a camera and bolted in terror from a class photograph, figuring she was about to be gunned down. Lacking toys, she played with a dead owl until her parents burned the rotting carcass.
Some of the stories are verified in old newspaper accounts and mission records. Many came straight from Harrington's notes: Delirious from a fever, Maria Juana as a young girl dreamed of marrying a wot -- a chief -- years before she actually did so. As she lay dying, Maria Ygnacia sent her daughter-in-law to gather spring clover for a last meal.
Such details would be poignant in any family, but for De Soto they are especially so because her people came so close to extinction.
Other Native American families feel the same way.
Her old friend Johnson, now curator of anthropology at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, said that over his career he has received inquiries from more than 1,000 people eager to trace their roots.
Some, he said, hope to receive federal benefits or revenues from groups with casinos, like the Santa Ynez band of Chumash. Many are driven by more profound forces.
"I've had people just weep with the realization that they've been able to identify their ancestors," said Johnson, who has sometimes been criticized as a know-nothing outsider when a search comes up dry.
"It's emotionally overwhelming. We can show them that their great-grandparents worked with John Harrington and that the stories they heard from some great-aunt are real. It's validating for them," he said.
For De Soto, it's the kind of knowledge that has helped her deal with tough circumstances.
The mother of five grown children has seen her family raked by mental illness, alcoholism and drug abuse. She has a congenital heart condition and a respiratory ailment. She doesn't think retirement is in the cards.
"But we're hard-grit survivors," she said. "What I have -- it's a legacy you can't put a dollar value on."
[email protected]
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
BILL DWYRE
LATimes.com
Manny Pacquiao decides to simply fight on
Boxer looks toward bout with Joshua Clottey but still wishes he was facing Floyd Mayweather Jr. instead.
By Bill Dwyre
February 2, 2010
Manny Pacquiao is back in town. Boxing is like phases of the moon, and Pacquiao is in the training phase.
There will be a fight, all right. But not the one the world wanted, nor Pacquiao and his trainer, Freddie Roach.
"I wanted Mayweather bad, real bad," Roach says.
"I'm not angry at Floyd," Pacquiao says. "I just feel disappointed in his allegations."
It is a Monday afternoon at Roach's Wild Card Gym in Hollywood. The air is stale, the noise often deafening and the entire place decorum-challenged, unless you are into wrinkled 1972 boxing posters. That's as it should be. They train boxers here, not ballerinas.
Pacquiao prepares for a March 13 fight that was to be between him, recently acclaimed fighter of the decade in a vote by the U.S. Boxing Writers, and Floyd Mayweather Jr., who would tell you the boxing writers got it wrong. Now, the fight will be between Pacquiao and Joshua Clottey.
Once Pacquiao and Mayweather parted ways in the well-documented drug-testing dispute, Mayweather agreed to fight Shane Mosley on May 1 at MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Mosley has signed the contract deal, but as of Monday night, Mayweather had not.
Richard Schaefer, chief executive of Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions, says he expects the Mayweather signature any minute. He also says that Mosley agreed to all the Olympic-style random testing , including blood testing right up to fight time, that Pacquiao had rejected.
There are attempts from all camps to portray this fallback outcome as just fine for boxing, maybe even better.
Roach says Clottey might give fight fans a better show than the tactical, defense-minded Mayweather because "Clottey comes forward and it could become a war." Pacquiao refers to the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium, where his fight will be held in front of an expected 40,000 people, as "a beautiful place" and the Top Rank camp of Bob Arum characterizes the new venue as an important step in bringing new fans to the sport. Schaefer says that, as great as the 40-0 Mayweather is, Mosley's stunning domination of Antonio Margarito 13 months ago at Staples Center proves how dangerous he is.
Still, the loss of the Pacquiao-Mayweather mega-fight, one that could have put as much as $40 million in each fighter's pocket, hangs in the Wild Card Gym like the smell of body odor.
"In the end," Roach says, "if we had given in on the blood testing, it would have been like giving Mayweather the first round. Why would we do that?
"Manny hates needles. He said that's what cost him the first [Erik] Morales fight [March 2005]. We made a mistake on that one. Nevada has every boxer give blood once a year, and Manny hadn't done that, so we had to do it the night before the fight, just like Mayweather wanted. Manny said it made him weak for three days. Even if they took blood from him 14 days before the fight, that would have meant I lose him on key sparring days 14, 13, and 12 days out."
The Mayweather camp will read that and chuckle. Those theorizing that Pacquiao must use steroids or he would have agreed to the extra drug testing will not be moved.
There is the issue of time running out on Pacquiao's boxing career. He will run for Congress in the Philippines in mid-May. Roach has said he doesn't think Pacquiao can be a marquee boxer and a politician at the same time. Asked about that Monday, Pacquiao says, "Why not?"
There is the issue of how much these next fights could mess things up. Were Clottey to win, might not Pacquiao see that as a perfect time to retreat to politics full time? Were Mosley to win, might that not do the same thing?
"Shane came to the gym twice to ask me to let him fight Manny," Roach says. "I told him no both times, and both times for the same two reasons: First, there isn't enough money there, and second, you're too good a fighter."
There is the issue of Pacquiao's current lawsuit against the Mayweathers for defamation. Pacquiao's attorney, Daniel Petrocelli, says that the case is in federal court in Nevada, is moving at full speed and can be in trial by year's end.
But the real issue remains lost money for the boxers and lost opportunity for the sport. For now, Pacquiao-Mayweather has gone away, but probably not forever.
Pacquiao is asked whether he is so angry at Mayweather that he will never be able to bring himself to step into the ring against him.
"No, I can fight him," Pacquiao says. "I'm just not sure he ever really wanted the fight."
Roach is asked whether the fight that didn't happen has now become like a burr in his saddle.
He nods.
[email protected]
LATimes.com
Manny Pacquiao decides to simply fight on
Boxer looks toward bout with Joshua Clottey but still wishes he was facing Floyd Mayweather Jr. instead.
By Bill Dwyre
February 2, 2010
Manny Pacquiao is back in town. Boxing is like phases of the moon, and Pacquiao is in the training phase.
There will be a fight, all right. But not the one the world wanted, nor Pacquiao and his trainer, Freddie Roach.
"I wanted Mayweather bad, real bad," Roach says.
"I'm not angry at Floyd," Pacquiao says. "I just feel disappointed in his allegations."
It is a Monday afternoon at Roach's Wild Card Gym in Hollywood. The air is stale, the noise often deafening and the entire place decorum-challenged, unless you are into wrinkled 1972 boxing posters. That's as it should be. They train boxers here, not ballerinas.
Pacquiao prepares for a March 13 fight that was to be between him, recently acclaimed fighter of the decade in a vote by the U.S. Boxing Writers, and Floyd Mayweather Jr., who would tell you the boxing writers got it wrong. Now, the fight will be between Pacquiao and Joshua Clottey.
Once Pacquiao and Mayweather parted ways in the well-documented drug-testing dispute, Mayweather agreed to fight Shane Mosley on May 1 at MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Mosley has signed the contract deal, but as of Monday night, Mayweather had not.
Richard Schaefer, chief executive of Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions, says he expects the Mayweather signature any minute. He also says that Mosley agreed to all the Olympic-style random testing , including blood testing right up to fight time, that Pacquiao had rejected.
There are attempts from all camps to portray this fallback outcome as just fine for boxing, maybe even better.
Roach says Clottey might give fight fans a better show than the tactical, defense-minded Mayweather because "Clottey comes forward and it could become a war." Pacquiao refers to the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium, where his fight will be held in front of an expected 40,000 people, as "a beautiful place" and the Top Rank camp of Bob Arum characterizes the new venue as an important step in bringing new fans to the sport. Schaefer says that, as great as the 40-0 Mayweather is, Mosley's stunning domination of Antonio Margarito 13 months ago at Staples Center proves how dangerous he is.
Still, the loss of the Pacquiao-Mayweather mega-fight, one that could have put as much as $40 million in each fighter's pocket, hangs in the Wild Card Gym like the smell of body odor.
"In the end," Roach says, "if we had given in on the blood testing, it would have been like giving Mayweather the first round. Why would we do that?
"Manny hates needles. He said that's what cost him the first [Erik] Morales fight [March 2005]. We made a mistake on that one. Nevada has every boxer give blood once a year, and Manny hadn't done that, so we had to do it the night before the fight, just like Mayweather wanted. Manny said it made him weak for three days. Even if they took blood from him 14 days before the fight, that would have meant I lose him on key sparring days 14, 13, and 12 days out."
The Mayweather camp will read that and chuckle. Those theorizing that Pacquiao must use steroids or he would have agreed to the extra drug testing will not be moved.
There is the issue of time running out on Pacquiao's boxing career. He will run for Congress in the Philippines in mid-May. Roach has said he doesn't think Pacquiao can be a marquee boxer and a politician at the same time. Asked about that Monday, Pacquiao says, "Why not?"
There is the issue of how much these next fights could mess things up. Were Clottey to win, might not Pacquiao see that as a perfect time to retreat to politics full time? Were Mosley to win, might that not do the same thing?
"Shane came to the gym twice to ask me to let him fight Manny," Roach says. "I told him no both times, and both times for the same two reasons: First, there isn't enough money there, and second, you're too good a fighter."
There is the issue of Pacquiao's current lawsuit against the Mayweathers for defamation. Pacquiao's attorney, Daniel Petrocelli, says that the case is in federal court in Nevada, is moving at full speed and can be in trial by year's end.
But the real issue remains lost money for the boxers and lost opportunity for the sport. For now, Pacquiao-Mayweather has gone away, but probably not forever.
Pacquiao is asked whether he is so angry at Mayweather that he will never be able to bring himself to step into the ring against him.
"No, I can fight him," Pacquiao says. "I'm just not sure he ever really wanted the fight."
Roach is asked whether the fight that didn't happen has now become like a burr in his saddle.
He nods.
[email protected]
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
The word is Amir Khan goes from humble Bolton boy to Las Vegas headliner when he defends his WBA light-welterweight title against lightweight star Juan Manuel Marquez at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on May 15.
It is Khan’s US debut.
The 23-year-old Lancashire lad has just linked up with Golden Boy Promotions in America, headed by former boxing great Oscar De La Hoya, and this is the dizzying upshot. Khan takes on an established ‘name’ who adorns the world No. 1 spot at lightweight and went 12 brisk rounds with pound-for-pound No. 1 Floyd Mayweather Junior in his very last outing in September, which is more than Manchester’s Ricky Hatton could do in December 2007. At 36 the classy Mexican’s record reads like a “Who’s who” of modern boxing greats: Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao, Marco Antonio Barrera, Joel Casamayor, Manuel Medina…
Both Marquez and Khan have beaten Barrera.
Marquez held the magnificent Pacquiao, boxing’s Bruce Lee and pound-for-pound No. 2, to a controversial draw in a 12-round classic at the MGM Grand back in May 2004. To me he was absolutely robbed of the win, despite a disastrous start when he was down three times in the first round. Marquez is a smooth-boxing yet surprisingly aggressive exponent and he came back and held his own for the next 11 but “Pac Man” is phenomenally popular in Tinsel Town and the Las Vegas judges came up with what amounted to blatant fence-sitting. (Las Vegas remains Las Vegas to this day – its decisions often reviled.) Pacquiao then blatantly avoided Marquez over the next four years, showing why when they finally met again in March 2008 at the Mandalay Bay and Pacquiao surfaced on yet another ‘Las Vegas decision’, this time a split decision - the same Pacquiao later to destroy De La Hoya, Miguel Cotto and Hatton, respectively. If Pacquiao – and Mayweather – was unable to put a real dent in Marquez, you can be sure Khan fails to as well.
Marquez never really got close to the slick, so-much bigger “Pretty Boy” four months ago, although he got close enough to go down in the second round. He might be vulnerable early on but bounced up and continued pursuing the 40-0 Mayweather to the final bell to concede a wide, unanimous decision. With 50 wins of his own, Marquez can really fight but he turned pro in 1993 when Khan was still only seven and one wonders if all those years, some on the gruelling Mexican circuit, all those big fights, are beginning to show. He cuts up and swells up easily these days and – more ominously – is NOT a light-welterweight. Frankly, he looked fleshy at 142 pounds against Mayweather, just two pounds over the same light-welterweight limit at which he tackles Khan. He also looked slower than normal. Marquez has ‘grown’ naturally through the divisions, dominating the featherweights for many years before tackling Pacquiao, the second time, at super-featherweight, after which he moved to lightweight and picked Juan Diaz and Joel Casamayor to pieces for world lightweight belts, prior to the Mayweather humbling. As the latter affair showed, Marquez is small and slowish at anything above lightweight.
On the contrary, Khan was up at light-welterweight in the amateurs and is lightning-fast, so fast, in fact, referees are often forced to intervene because the other guys are too preoccupied with defence to punch back. Joe Calzaghe used the same trick. Khan can whack a bit but is not a puncher, not at this level, anyway, and here is where we really get down to the rub, for, despite his Mexico city upbringing, his left hook to the liver, his punch-picking, his “Dinamita” tag, his big-hitting younger brother (Rafael), Marquez, like Khan, is not a big puncher. Indeed, Team Khan chose Marquez before mandatory challenger Marcos Maidana of Argentina, a barely known challenger with a better-known record of 27-1 (26), a challenger who can knock you out. We all know Khan’s chin was severely exposed less than two years ago by the tall, long-armed Breidis Prescott of Colombia in just 54 seconds (yes, 54 seconds, and you can add two heavy knockdowns to those seconds, one of them when he fell like he were shot). Pointedly, the Englishman has never looked to settle the score with Prescott, despite plenty of chances. Even a former stablemate of his took on and licked Prescott just two months ago.
Nevertheless, Khan came back from Prescott to bust up Barrera in five rounds early last year in Manchester - although Khan’s own family would admit Barrera was not the same man outscored over 12 rounds by Marquez in Vegas in 2007 – and then looked sharp in outscoring the talented but light-hitting Andreas Kotelnik of the Ukraine for the major WBA belt in the summer, also in Manchester. He did the 12 rounds in a canter. He blew away New York’s Dmitiry Salita in 76 seconds in his first defence in December in Newcastle – another non-puncher - after which he ‘fancied’ a new challenge, this one.
He is still only 23, to remind you, 13 years younger than Marquez.
A skilful, sharp-hitting, long-armed stylist, very much in the De La Hoya mould, very much a new Golden Boy, with golden-coloured shorts to match, the champion’s ability is in no doubt, if not his durability. To me, Amir is hungrier than Marquez, who must have picked up a nice payday for Mayweather - bigger, busier and quicker. He looks ready for his first truly ‘big’ fight. He looks ready to win on points.
It is Khan’s US debut.
The 23-year-old Lancashire lad has just linked up with Golden Boy Promotions in America, headed by former boxing great Oscar De La Hoya, and this is the dizzying upshot. Khan takes on an established ‘name’ who adorns the world No. 1 spot at lightweight and went 12 brisk rounds with pound-for-pound No. 1 Floyd Mayweather Junior in his very last outing in September, which is more than Manchester’s Ricky Hatton could do in December 2007. At 36 the classy Mexican’s record reads like a “Who’s who” of modern boxing greats: Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao, Marco Antonio Barrera, Joel Casamayor, Manuel Medina…
Both Marquez and Khan have beaten Barrera.
Marquez held the magnificent Pacquiao, boxing’s Bruce Lee and pound-for-pound No. 2, to a controversial draw in a 12-round classic at the MGM Grand back in May 2004. To me he was absolutely robbed of the win, despite a disastrous start when he was down three times in the first round. Marquez is a smooth-boxing yet surprisingly aggressive exponent and he came back and held his own for the next 11 but “Pac Man” is phenomenally popular in Tinsel Town and the Las Vegas judges came up with what amounted to blatant fence-sitting. (Las Vegas remains Las Vegas to this day – its decisions often reviled.) Pacquiao then blatantly avoided Marquez over the next four years, showing why when they finally met again in March 2008 at the Mandalay Bay and Pacquiao surfaced on yet another ‘Las Vegas decision’, this time a split decision - the same Pacquiao later to destroy De La Hoya, Miguel Cotto and Hatton, respectively. If Pacquiao – and Mayweather – was unable to put a real dent in Marquez, you can be sure Khan fails to as well.
Marquez never really got close to the slick, so-much bigger “Pretty Boy” four months ago, although he got close enough to go down in the second round. He might be vulnerable early on but bounced up and continued pursuing the 40-0 Mayweather to the final bell to concede a wide, unanimous decision. With 50 wins of his own, Marquez can really fight but he turned pro in 1993 when Khan was still only seven and one wonders if all those years, some on the gruelling Mexican circuit, all those big fights, are beginning to show. He cuts up and swells up easily these days and – more ominously – is NOT a light-welterweight. Frankly, he looked fleshy at 142 pounds against Mayweather, just two pounds over the same light-welterweight limit at which he tackles Khan. He also looked slower than normal. Marquez has ‘grown’ naturally through the divisions, dominating the featherweights for many years before tackling Pacquiao, the second time, at super-featherweight, after which he moved to lightweight and picked Juan Diaz and Joel Casamayor to pieces for world lightweight belts, prior to the Mayweather humbling. As the latter affair showed, Marquez is small and slowish at anything above lightweight.
On the contrary, Khan was up at light-welterweight in the amateurs and is lightning-fast, so fast, in fact, referees are often forced to intervene because the other guys are too preoccupied with defence to punch back. Joe Calzaghe used the same trick. Khan can whack a bit but is not a puncher, not at this level, anyway, and here is where we really get down to the rub, for, despite his Mexico city upbringing, his left hook to the liver, his punch-picking, his “Dinamita” tag, his big-hitting younger brother (Rafael), Marquez, like Khan, is not a big puncher. Indeed, Team Khan chose Marquez before mandatory challenger Marcos Maidana of Argentina, a barely known challenger with a better-known record of 27-1 (26), a challenger who can knock you out. We all know Khan’s chin was severely exposed less than two years ago by the tall, long-armed Breidis Prescott of Colombia in just 54 seconds (yes, 54 seconds, and you can add two heavy knockdowns to those seconds, one of them when he fell like he were shot). Pointedly, the Englishman has never looked to settle the score with Prescott, despite plenty of chances. Even a former stablemate of his took on and licked Prescott just two months ago.
Nevertheless, Khan came back from Prescott to bust up Barrera in five rounds early last year in Manchester - although Khan’s own family would admit Barrera was not the same man outscored over 12 rounds by Marquez in Vegas in 2007 – and then looked sharp in outscoring the talented but light-hitting Andreas Kotelnik of the Ukraine for the major WBA belt in the summer, also in Manchester. He did the 12 rounds in a canter. He blew away New York’s Dmitiry Salita in 76 seconds in his first defence in December in Newcastle – another non-puncher - after which he ‘fancied’ a new challenge, this one.
He is still only 23, to remind you, 13 years younger than Marquez.
A skilful, sharp-hitting, long-armed stylist, very much in the De La Hoya mould, very much a new Golden Boy, with golden-coloured shorts to match, the champion’s ability is in no doubt, if not his durability. To me, Amir is hungrier than Marquez, who must have picked up a nice payday for Mayweather - bigger, busier and quicker. He looks ready for his first truly ‘big’ fight. He looks ready to win on points.
Last edited by bennie on 03 Feb 2010, 04:36, edited 2 times in total.
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Rick Farris
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 7200
- Joined: 15 Feb 2008, 16:04
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
[/img]
Lucky for me, mental.telboy66 wrote:The impression he left mate was that physical or mentalkikibalt wrote:Roberto Duran vs. Javiar Ayala
February, 1973 - Los Angeles Sports Arena
This is the Duran that I boxed with at the Main Street Gym.
He was preparing for this bout, with Mexican champ Javiar Ayala, whom he easily defeated.
Duran was just 21, a few months older than me.
His "Hands of Stone" left a permanent impression upon me.
-Rick Farris
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
(Photo by Theo Ehert)
Bobby Chacon vs. Turi Pineda
February 15, 1973 - Olympic Auditorium
Bobby Chacon had only been a pro ten months when he KOed Turi Pineda for his 15th consecutive win and 14th knockout. This was an explosive bout in which both fighters were rocked prior to Bobby putting Pineda to sleep in the fifth round.
-Rick Farris
Bobby Chacon vs. Turi Pineda
February 15, 1973 - Olympic Auditorium
Bobby Chacon had only been a pro ten months when he KOed Turi Pineda for his 15th consecutive win and 14th knockout. This was an explosive bout in which both fighters were rocked prior to Bobby putting Pineda to sleep in the fifth round.
-Rick Farris
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
Last Friday, I watched Gabriel Campillo give Beibut Shumenov a beating in a bout which was shown on Fox Sports Espanol. Yet Shumenov managed to "win" the split decision, possibly the worst boxing verdict that I have seen in recent years.
- Chuck Johnston
- Chuck Johnston
-
dagosd2000
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 8638
- Joined: 01 Sep 2007, 03:31
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
Amanda and Conrado having a friendly talk after Amanda's dance lesson .
DON CONRADO
Conrado Leyva is the Director of the Cultural Center in Jiquilpan. I met him around ten years ago when I walked in there with some of my paintings. I had a Villa and a Zapata. There was Conrado sitting in his office,silver haired,a walker folded against the wall. He propped up when he saw the paintings.
I told him that the paintings were my gift to the Center because I had grown to love the town. My wife is from Jiquilpan I told him. We had built a home here. Wanted to retire in Jiquilpan. I wanted to die in Jiquilpan.
Conrado called in the girl and told her to write me a certificate that I had donated the paintings to the center. Then he wanted to know about me. I told him that I was born in Chicago. That my bloodline was Italian. I told him I loved Mexico and that I felt at home in Mexico. That I had always felt connected.Even when I was younger I had this sensation.
You know when you are bonding with someone. I knew after a few moments that this was happening between me and Conrado. He is older than me. He has a reputation in Michoacan for developing an interest with the people with their culture. The Cultural Center is very beautifull. They've added a big auditorium in the last several years. Two levels. Classrooms with instructors that teach languages,music,and dance. There is also art classes. Conrado has given me a room if I wish to paint . He says that I'm Jiquilpan's resident artist.
Today I have around 30 paintings at the Center. Sometimes he sends them to different parts of the Republic on exhibit. The same holds true for the town's library where my paintings are alongside the murals of the great Mexican muralist,Jose Clemente Orozco.
You see Jiquilpan has this tradition for the arts. An appetite for the country's traditions because Lazaro Cardenas was born in Jiquipan . Along with Benito Juarez they were Mexico's two great Presidents. Just ask the people and they will tell you this.Lazaro Cardenas wanted what was right for Mexico.
Of course my paintings I bring are Mexican in nature.Figures of their past. The revolutinarios. The great singers and film legends. Then there are the images of the common people. The campesinos,los indios,the ones that work and struggle.The smiles on the faces. The people love my paintings. They especially take note that a foreigner had done this for them.
During the summers Amanda teaches Flmenco dance .Adults and children from as far away as Zamora come to take lessons. I watch Amanda from outside her studio. When Conrado arrives,the first greeting he gives is to Amanda. He leans on the handles of his walker and makes a big fuss about her. Maybe when I die I'll know that I am in heaven if I wake up sitting outside Amanda's studio and watching Conrado make a big fuss about my grand daughter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvj-Rmi0IdI
Una Pagina Mas
Los Cadetes De Linares
Last edited by dagosd2000 on 03 Feb 2010, 11:52, edited 1 time in total.
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dagosd2000
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 8638
- Joined: 01 Sep 2007, 03:31
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
Chuck1052 wrote:Last Friday, I watched Gabriel Campillo give Beibut Shumenov a beating in a bout which was shown on Fox Sports Espanol. Yet Shumenov managed to "win" the split decision, possibly the worst boxing verdict that I have seen in recent years.
- Chuck Johnston
I saw that too Chuck and I agree with you. I guess they want the rubber match.
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
Chuck1052 wrote:Last Friday, I watched Gabriel Campillo give Beibut Shumenov a beating in a bout which was shown on Fox Sports Espanol. Yet Shumenov managed to "win" the split decision, possibly the worst boxing verdict that I have seen in recent years.
- Chuck Johnston
You should move to Britain Chuck if it's bad decisions you want we are getting them every week now it seems
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
The expression 'face-first' comes to mind.kikibalt wrote:(Photo by Theo Ehert)
Bobby Chacon vs. Turi Pineda
February 15, 1973 - Olympic Auditorium
Bobby Chacon had only been a pro ten months when he KOed Turi Pineda for his 15th consecutive win and 14th knockout. This was an explosive bout in which both fighters were rocked prior to Bobby putting Pineda to sleep in the fifth round.
-Rick Farris
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
Guys, thanks for your condolences on my uncle Bobby.
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
This is a great photo. Danny will always be one of my favorite fighters. It was his heart.kikibalt wrote:
Danny "Li'l Red" Lopez
Circa 1976
The photo was probably taken some time in late 1977 or after since Bennie Georgino did not take over as Danny's manager until after Howie Steindler's death on March of 1977.
Randy
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
"This is a man's world"!dagosd2000 wrote:
James Brown
This is a man's world, this is a man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl
You see, man made the cars to take us over the road
Man made the trains to carry heavy loads
Man made electric light to take us out of the dark
Man made the boat for the water, like Noah made the ark
This is a man's, a man's, a man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl
Man thinks about a little baby girls and a baby boys
Man makes then happy 'cause man makes them toys
And after man has made everything, everything he can
You know that man makes money to buy from other man
This is a man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl
He's lost in the wilderness
He's lost in bitterness
-
dagosd2000
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 8638
- Joined: 01 Sep 2007, 03:31
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
Randyman wrote:Guys, thanks for your condolences on my uncle Bobby.
Randy
That's what I like. That look. Like go ahead, take a sock at me.I'll knock your block off
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scartissue
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 1893
- Joined: 31 Mar 2002, 20:00
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
My heart goes out to you, Randy.Randyman wrote:Guys, thanks for your condolences on my uncle Bobby.
Scartissue
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
You're right. Dave Parris needs to be ousted, somehow. He is behind a lot of these rotten decisions.telboy66 wrote:Chuck1052 wrote:Last Friday, I watched Gabriel Campillo give Beibut Shumenov a beating in a bout which was shown on Fox Sports Espanol. Yet Shumenov managed to "win" the split decision, possibly the worst boxing verdict that I have seen in recent years.
- Chuck Johnston
You should move to Britain Chuck if it's bad decisions you want we are getting them every week now it seems
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
Chili: a bowl of red-blooded American heaven
Chili is as personal as a fingerprint and as satisfying as any dish. Break out the pot and the chiles and you've got yourself a winner for Super Bowl.
Chili is a wonderfully simple, no-fuss dish. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
By Noelle Carter
February 4, 2010
It's been called both a "bowl of blessedness" and the "soup of the Devil," and it's the stuff of legend.
Frank and Jesse James reputedly downed a few bowls before pulling some of their heists -- and supposedly spared one town because of it. O. Henry spun a short story around it, and Will Rogers allegedly judged a town by its quality. It's said Eleanor Roosevelt tried -- without success -- to get the secrets of one recipe, and that Lyndon B. Johnson remarked that the kind concocted outside his home state of Texas was "usually a weak, apologetic imitation of the real thing." Not even Elizabeth Taylor was immune -- she had whole quarts packed in dry ice and shipped to Rome while she was filming "Cleopatra."
I'm talking about chili, and I've been a devotee of the stuff for years now. There's nothing better when you're entertaining a crowd. And I don't know about you, but I'll be hosting a little football party on Sunday, and I plan to fix a big pot the day before. All I have to do is let it reheat while I entertain and watch the game and, voilà! Dinner is served. No stress.
Chili is a wonderfully simple, no-fuss dish. Meat, generally a somewhat tough cut of beef or pork, is spiced with chiles and stewed -- slowly -- with a few choice ingredients. The results are magical: a richly flavored dish (neither soup nor stew, chili is in a category all its own) that only gets better with time. Fix it a day or two ahead, cook it slowly, then let it sit awhile before serving, giving it proper time to mature and develop. A good chili ages like a fine wine.
That's not to say chili is without its drama. Some people have an almost religious zeal about their chili -- and any deviation from the one true recipe is heretical. Still, the variations are endless. From the classic Texas beef-lover's "bowl of red" to a New Mexican "bowl of green," it's a dish that's arguably been adopted in some way by every state in the Union.
There are all-meat and all-bean varieties, as well as recipes for white chili, "Yankee" chili, wild game, turkey and even seafood chilies. Some chilies are proudly rated for their heat ("four-alarm," "code red"). There are chili societies -- the Chili Appreciation Society International (CASI) and the International Chili Society (ICS) -- and chili cookoffs -- the CASI has held its annual event in Terlingua, Texas, since 1967.
And then there's Cincinnati-style -- as if the chili alone is not enough, this may be served "five-ways" with, count 'em: spaghetti, chili, beans, chopped onion and shredded cheese. Since we're a nation united by variety, move over apple pie -- chili is the true All-American dish.
Colorful history
The earliest chilies were probably borne out of necessity, using some of the oldest tricks in the book: Cooking tough meat until tender and spicing it so it tastes good.
According to the legendary chili historian Frank X. Tolbert, some of the earliest chilies evolved on the trails, from dried beef packed with fat, seasoned with salt and spiced with dried chili peppers. Historian Everett DeGolyer called it a "pemmican of the Southwest."
Eventually, in the 1880s, chili moved to town, as brightly dressed "chili queens" set up their stands at dusk in San Antonio, their colorful lamps leading customers to the wonderful smells wafting from chili that had been simmering all day.
The ICS speculates that, in competing with each other, these chili queens are probably responsible for improving chili and bringing it closer to what we know today.
This classic Texas bowl of red, or something like it, is my personal favorite recipe. This is a meat-lover's chili -- no beans allowed.
I start with dried whole chiles, which I stem, seed and rehydrate. Sure, you can use packaged ground chile, but there will be a night and day difference in flavor.
Like all ground spices, chile powder can oxidize and lose intensity as it sits, making for hollow flavor. Dried whole chiles are rich with flavor and not too much work if you're passionate about the end product.
Meat versus beans
I trim and cube several pounds of chuck roast. You don't have to go for a high-priced cut; choose a cheaper piece that is tough and has a lot of internal fat for the best flavor. You could grind it, but I prefer cubes for their texture and appearance.
Render a pound of bacon in a big heavy pot, preferably cast iron. Leave a little of the fat in the pot, and purée the fried bacon with the rehydrated chiles to make a paste to add to the sauce. Pork is not usually found in Texas red chili, but the bacon helps thicken the sauce and lends so much flavor.
Stew the chili with onion, garlic and fresh-roasted chiles. I also add tomatoes -- that's discouraged in certain schools too, but the acidity helps brighten the chili and focus all those flavors. And I throw in a beer -- a good dark stout -- to lift the flavors a little more.
Cook the chili at a low simmer until the meat is tender, about two hours. It's great served right away, but like most soups and stews, it improves overnight in the fridge.
If you like to add beans, go ahead -- this is your chili. But throw them in toward the end; you don't want to overcook them or they'll turn to mush.
On the other hand, a bean-based chili can be surprisingly rich and full-flavored as well. I sometimes like to make a mixed-bean chili with hominy. It's a colorful dish with a ton of flavor, rich and hearty. And no one would know it's vegetarian unless you mentioned it.
Or you could take the chili method down a different path entirely. My lentil chili draws from a North African inspiration, using Merguez sausage and harissa (a hot, North African chili paste) for flavor. I balance the heat with fresh ginger, lemon, cinnamon and turmeric, and finish the chili with chopped fresh parsley and a sprinkling of cilantro. The flavors kind of explode in the mouth -- bright, fresh notes balanced with subtle but intense heat.
It's not traditional, but it's good. And whatever your preferences, at the end of the day, it's all about good chili, whether you're from Coleman, Texas (reportedly Will Roger's favorite chili town), or Fort Worth (that little town supposedly spared by the James boys).
As Pat Garrett, famous for killing Billy the Kid, supposedly once said of the outlaw, "Anyone that eats chili can't be all bad."
[email protected]
Chili is as personal as a fingerprint and as satisfying as any dish. Break out the pot and the chiles and you've got yourself a winner for Super Bowl.
Chili is a wonderfully simple, no-fuss dish. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
By Noelle Carter
February 4, 2010
It's been called both a "bowl of blessedness" and the "soup of the Devil," and it's the stuff of legend.
Frank and Jesse James reputedly downed a few bowls before pulling some of their heists -- and supposedly spared one town because of it. O. Henry spun a short story around it, and Will Rogers allegedly judged a town by its quality. It's said Eleanor Roosevelt tried -- without success -- to get the secrets of one recipe, and that Lyndon B. Johnson remarked that the kind concocted outside his home state of Texas was "usually a weak, apologetic imitation of the real thing." Not even Elizabeth Taylor was immune -- she had whole quarts packed in dry ice and shipped to Rome while she was filming "Cleopatra."
I'm talking about chili, and I've been a devotee of the stuff for years now. There's nothing better when you're entertaining a crowd. And I don't know about you, but I'll be hosting a little football party on Sunday, and I plan to fix a big pot the day before. All I have to do is let it reheat while I entertain and watch the game and, voilà! Dinner is served. No stress.
Chili is a wonderfully simple, no-fuss dish. Meat, generally a somewhat tough cut of beef or pork, is spiced with chiles and stewed -- slowly -- with a few choice ingredients. The results are magical: a richly flavored dish (neither soup nor stew, chili is in a category all its own) that only gets better with time. Fix it a day or two ahead, cook it slowly, then let it sit awhile before serving, giving it proper time to mature and develop. A good chili ages like a fine wine.
That's not to say chili is without its drama. Some people have an almost religious zeal about their chili -- and any deviation from the one true recipe is heretical. Still, the variations are endless. From the classic Texas beef-lover's "bowl of red" to a New Mexican "bowl of green," it's a dish that's arguably been adopted in some way by every state in the Union.
There are all-meat and all-bean varieties, as well as recipes for white chili, "Yankee" chili, wild game, turkey and even seafood chilies. Some chilies are proudly rated for their heat ("four-alarm," "code red"). There are chili societies -- the Chili Appreciation Society International (CASI) and the International Chili Society (ICS) -- and chili cookoffs -- the CASI has held its annual event in Terlingua, Texas, since 1967.
And then there's Cincinnati-style -- as if the chili alone is not enough, this may be served "five-ways" with, count 'em: spaghetti, chili, beans, chopped onion and shredded cheese. Since we're a nation united by variety, move over apple pie -- chili is the true All-American dish.
Colorful history
The earliest chilies were probably borne out of necessity, using some of the oldest tricks in the book: Cooking tough meat until tender and spicing it so it tastes good.
According to the legendary chili historian Frank X. Tolbert, some of the earliest chilies evolved on the trails, from dried beef packed with fat, seasoned with salt and spiced with dried chili peppers. Historian Everett DeGolyer called it a "pemmican of the Southwest."
Eventually, in the 1880s, chili moved to town, as brightly dressed "chili queens" set up their stands at dusk in San Antonio, their colorful lamps leading customers to the wonderful smells wafting from chili that had been simmering all day.
The ICS speculates that, in competing with each other, these chili queens are probably responsible for improving chili and bringing it closer to what we know today.
This classic Texas bowl of red, or something like it, is my personal favorite recipe. This is a meat-lover's chili -- no beans allowed.
I start with dried whole chiles, which I stem, seed and rehydrate. Sure, you can use packaged ground chile, but there will be a night and day difference in flavor.
Like all ground spices, chile powder can oxidize and lose intensity as it sits, making for hollow flavor. Dried whole chiles are rich with flavor and not too much work if you're passionate about the end product.
Meat versus beans
I trim and cube several pounds of chuck roast. You don't have to go for a high-priced cut; choose a cheaper piece that is tough and has a lot of internal fat for the best flavor. You could grind it, but I prefer cubes for their texture and appearance.
Render a pound of bacon in a big heavy pot, preferably cast iron. Leave a little of the fat in the pot, and purée the fried bacon with the rehydrated chiles to make a paste to add to the sauce. Pork is not usually found in Texas red chili, but the bacon helps thicken the sauce and lends so much flavor.
Stew the chili with onion, garlic and fresh-roasted chiles. I also add tomatoes -- that's discouraged in certain schools too, but the acidity helps brighten the chili and focus all those flavors. And I throw in a beer -- a good dark stout -- to lift the flavors a little more.
Cook the chili at a low simmer until the meat is tender, about two hours. It's great served right away, but like most soups and stews, it improves overnight in the fridge.
If you like to add beans, go ahead -- this is your chili. But throw them in toward the end; you don't want to overcook them or they'll turn to mush.
On the other hand, a bean-based chili can be surprisingly rich and full-flavored as well. I sometimes like to make a mixed-bean chili with hominy. It's a colorful dish with a ton of flavor, rich and hearty. And no one would know it's vegetarian unless you mentioned it.
Or you could take the chili method down a different path entirely. My lentil chili draws from a North African inspiration, using Merguez sausage and harissa (a hot, North African chili paste) for flavor. I balance the heat with fresh ginger, lemon, cinnamon and turmeric, and finish the chili with chopped fresh parsley and a sprinkling of cilantro. The flavors kind of explode in the mouth -- bright, fresh notes balanced with subtle but intense heat.
It's not traditional, but it's good. And whatever your preferences, at the end of the day, it's all about good chili, whether you're from Coleman, Texas (reportedly Will Roger's favorite chili town), or Fort Worth (that little town supposedly spared by the James boys).
As Pat Garrett, famous for killing Billy the Kid, supposedly once said of the outlaw, "Anyone that eats chili can't be all bad."
[email protected]
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
A family business built on chili bricks
Dolores Canning Co. in East L.A. has spiced up the Southland and beyond with its brand of frozen chili.
Some restaurants, such as Philippe the Original, doctor up Dolores Chili Brick to make it their own. (Richard Derk / Los Angeles Times)
February 4, 2010
After polishing off his French dip sandwich at Philippe the Original in downtown Los Angeles, Bert Muñoz redirects his attention to the meaty chili dripping down the sides of a 1950s-era melamine bowl and onto his cafeteria tray.
With quick flicks of his wrist, the chatty 37-year-old co-owner of Dolores Canning Co. scoops up brick-red spoonfuls without spilling even a drop onto his white knit shirt emblazoned with the company logo.
"I'll walk by a hot dog stand and can tell it's our chili just by the smell of it," Muñoz says proudly of his bloodhound-like ability to ferret out the family's product at Los Angeles-area street vendors and restaurants.
Over the years, he has tossed back plenty of bowls straight (competition lingo for all-meat, no-bean chili). Tasting his family's spicy, ground beef-laden specialty is all in a day's work for the sales manager of the East Los Angeles meat processing plant founded more than 50 years ago by his grandfather, Basilio Muñoz.
The brick is born
After building a successful business based on Mexican meats and prepared foods, Basilio and his sons Augustine, Frank and Steve introduced the Dolores Chili Brick in 1973.
"Grandpa started out distributing meat and canning menudo, but his baby project was to make chili that wasn't canned," Bert recalls of the company's gradual shift from canned to frozen products including not only menudo (traditional Mexican hominy, tripe and calf foot stew), but also chili con carne. "With a frozen chili that's concentrated, you get a fresher flavor."
The unusual name, a reference to the chili's shape when packaged and frozen, isn't just a clever marketing gimmick. The term hails from the earliest dehydrated chili "bricks" made by Texas cowboy cooks around 1850. Drying a mixture of pounded beef, chile peppers and salt and shaping it into stackable rectangles that could be easily rehydrated with boiling water came in handy on Midwestern cattle drives and Gold Rush treks to California.
Today, Frank manages the company's finances while Bert and his father, Steve, handle sales and purchasing. Bert's 42-year-old cousin, David, manages factory operations and an aunt, Teresa, is the accountant (Basilio and Augustine, David's father, died several years ago).
The family continues to package raw meat products such as carne asada (flank steak marinated with onions, vinegar and oregano) and produces a handful of jarred pickled products, including jalapeño-laced pork rinds and pig's feet spiced with red chile peppers.
But the chili brick has been the focus of the business for as long as Bert can remember.
"By 5 years old we were in the spice room, 8 to 10 we were working in the kitchen, and by 16 we were driving trucks after school to make deliveries," he says.
Bert and his cousin are the only grandchildren out of 10 to work in the family business. David suspects it has something to do with the rather unglamorous nature of meat processing. " 'Grandpa day care' over Christmas vacation was driving all over Southern California to slaughterhouses."
The chili is named after their grandmother, the woman with movie-star good looks on the company logo. The logo is based on a 1930s carnival painting of Dolores, flirtatiously fanning her face.
Putting it together
The family recipe is a traditional red chili made with paprika and chile pepper-spiked ground beef that is enriched with ground beef hearts to give it a more robust, meaty flavor.
According to the International Chili Society, the industry watchdog that regulates chili competitions, the Muñoz family's all-meat chili would qualify for the competition circuit (chilies with too many added ingredients, such as beans, are frowned upon by chili fanatics).
But Bert and David are less concerned than the ICS about variations to their product.
"People doctor it up with whatever they like, serve it thick or thin . . . add onions, beans or even more beef to make it chunkier," says David unapologetically. "We love to hear about that kind of thing."
A scan of the company website with its somewhat unusual family recipes is evidence of that openness to culinary experimentation. There's chili-sauced spaghetti, chili dip made with copious amounts of cream cheese, even a turkey and chili tamale casserole.
As for the Muñoz family's personal taste, David is a devout Frito pie fan, the classic Texas snack of corn chips piled with chili and shredded cheddar, and Bert concocted his own variation as a student at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo.
"I used to load up cases of chili for the frat house and we'd eat chili over steamed white rice all week. It's still my favorite," he says.
Even Philippe takes the liberty to make a few tweaks. "I tell customers they can buy the chili from Smart & Final, but they come back asking why it doesn't taste the same," says day manager Elias Barajas, who typically leaves out one important detail: Philippe uses beef stock rather than water to reconstitute the chili, giving it a richer flavor.
Because the product is so widely available at restaurant supply stores, keeping up with customers can be tricky. "Even we don't know how many places use our chili," David says.
That makes it hard to market the company's other products, such as its carne asada, to customers who already use the chili. That's when Bert's nose for sniffing out chili comes in handy.
"I'll sit down at a restaurant or go to a party and I can smell our chili on the stove," he says.
But for this manufacturer, the ultimate badge of honor is kudos from a resident of chili's birthplace.
"A woman in San Antonio orders our chili by mail," he claims. "She says it's better than what she can get in Texas."
[email protected]
Dolores Canning Co. in East L.A. has spiced up the Southland and beyond with its brand of frozen chili.
Some restaurants, such as Philippe the Original, doctor up Dolores Chili Brick to make it their own. (Richard Derk / Los Angeles Times)
February 4, 2010
After polishing off his French dip sandwich at Philippe the Original in downtown Los Angeles, Bert Muñoz redirects his attention to the meaty chili dripping down the sides of a 1950s-era melamine bowl and onto his cafeteria tray.
With quick flicks of his wrist, the chatty 37-year-old co-owner of Dolores Canning Co. scoops up brick-red spoonfuls without spilling even a drop onto his white knit shirt emblazoned with the company logo.
"I'll walk by a hot dog stand and can tell it's our chili just by the smell of it," Muñoz says proudly of his bloodhound-like ability to ferret out the family's product at Los Angeles-area street vendors and restaurants.
Over the years, he has tossed back plenty of bowls straight (competition lingo for all-meat, no-bean chili). Tasting his family's spicy, ground beef-laden specialty is all in a day's work for the sales manager of the East Los Angeles meat processing plant founded more than 50 years ago by his grandfather, Basilio Muñoz.
The brick is born
After building a successful business based on Mexican meats and prepared foods, Basilio and his sons Augustine, Frank and Steve introduced the Dolores Chili Brick in 1973.
"Grandpa started out distributing meat and canning menudo, but his baby project was to make chili that wasn't canned," Bert recalls of the company's gradual shift from canned to frozen products including not only menudo (traditional Mexican hominy, tripe and calf foot stew), but also chili con carne. "With a frozen chili that's concentrated, you get a fresher flavor."
The unusual name, a reference to the chili's shape when packaged and frozen, isn't just a clever marketing gimmick. The term hails from the earliest dehydrated chili "bricks" made by Texas cowboy cooks around 1850. Drying a mixture of pounded beef, chile peppers and salt and shaping it into stackable rectangles that could be easily rehydrated with boiling water came in handy on Midwestern cattle drives and Gold Rush treks to California.
Today, Frank manages the company's finances while Bert and his father, Steve, handle sales and purchasing. Bert's 42-year-old cousin, David, manages factory operations and an aunt, Teresa, is the accountant (Basilio and Augustine, David's father, died several years ago).
The family continues to package raw meat products such as carne asada (flank steak marinated with onions, vinegar and oregano) and produces a handful of jarred pickled products, including jalapeño-laced pork rinds and pig's feet spiced with red chile peppers.
But the chili brick has been the focus of the business for as long as Bert can remember.
"By 5 years old we were in the spice room, 8 to 10 we were working in the kitchen, and by 16 we were driving trucks after school to make deliveries," he says.
Bert and his cousin are the only grandchildren out of 10 to work in the family business. David suspects it has something to do with the rather unglamorous nature of meat processing. " 'Grandpa day care' over Christmas vacation was driving all over Southern California to slaughterhouses."
The chili is named after their grandmother, the woman with movie-star good looks on the company logo. The logo is based on a 1930s carnival painting of Dolores, flirtatiously fanning her face.
Putting it together
The family recipe is a traditional red chili made with paprika and chile pepper-spiked ground beef that is enriched with ground beef hearts to give it a more robust, meaty flavor.
According to the International Chili Society, the industry watchdog that regulates chili competitions, the Muñoz family's all-meat chili would qualify for the competition circuit (chilies with too many added ingredients, such as beans, are frowned upon by chili fanatics).
But Bert and David are less concerned than the ICS about variations to their product.
"People doctor it up with whatever they like, serve it thick or thin . . . add onions, beans or even more beef to make it chunkier," says David unapologetically. "We love to hear about that kind of thing."
A scan of the company website with its somewhat unusual family recipes is evidence of that openness to culinary experimentation. There's chili-sauced spaghetti, chili dip made with copious amounts of cream cheese, even a turkey and chili tamale casserole.
As for the Muñoz family's personal taste, David is a devout Frito pie fan, the classic Texas snack of corn chips piled with chili and shredded cheddar, and Bert concocted his own variation as a student at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo.
"I used to load up cases of chili for the frat house and we'd eat chili over steamed white rice all week. It's still my favorite," he says.
Even Philippe takes the liberty to make a few tweaks. "I tell customers they can buy the chili from Smart & Final, but they come back asking why it doesn't taste the same," says day manager Elias Barajas, who typically leaves out one important detail: Philippe uses beef stock rather than water to reconstitute the chili, giving it a richer flavor.
Because the product is so widely available at restaurant supply stores, keeping up with customers can be tricky. "Even we don't know how many places use our chili," David says.
That makes it hard to market the company's other products, such as its carne asada, to customers who already use the chili. That's when Bert's nose for sniffing out chili comes in handy.
"I'll sit down at a restaurant or go to a party and I can smell our chili on the stove," he says.
But for this manufacturer, the ultimate badge of honor is kudos from a resident of chili's birthplace.
"A woman in San Antonio orders our chili by mail," he claims. "She says it's better than what she can get in Texas."
[email protected]
Re: Classic American West Coast Boxing
Back in 1983, writer Steve Vender wrote, “The word on the street was that Roberto Duran was through, finished as a fighter, the greatness gone forever from the man who said ‘no mas’.” This introduced his report on Duran’s four-round pounding of Pipino Cuevas in front of 17,000 fans in Los Angeles (surely the last ‘real’ LA fight crowd to turn out in such numbers; forget the coke boys who roll up in their fancy cars to watch cheats such as Shane Mosley against Antonio Margarito).
The word on the street today is that Mikkel Kessler is also through, the man who once hilariously claimed he was more ‘British’ than Joe Calzaghe because of his English mother. Hmmm, I’m not so sure. I know he has an English mother - but a finished fighter? Yes, Calzaghe outscored him in 2007 and America’s Andre Ward dished out a nasty 11-round beating to him a few months ago in the States, picking apart and inevitably busting up the tough Dane, who stayed on his feet throughout. The first thing to go is certainly not Kessler’s chin. However, Ward is unbeaten, hungry, big and quick. With all those assets, he just may have dished out a similar beating to Carl Froch - who knows?
I do know one thing, the “Super Six” super-middleweight tournament in which Kessler, Froch, Ward, Allan Green, Arthur Abraham and Andre Dirrell all fight each other, seemingly a million times over a million years, is a joke which I continually fail to get, no matter how many times I hear the thing. It was a great unification series in the making, a ‘knockout’ series. Froch, the WBC champ, would take on Kessler, the WBA champ (now Ward’s belt), the winner then facing Canada’s classy Lucian Bute, the IBF kingpin, but southpaw Bute was not included because he is one non-American too many for American-TV paymasters, Showtime - a Canadian of Romanian ancestry - and to compound the situation, Robert Stieglitz, the WBO super-middleweight kingpin, is also European. Thus we have an inevitable influx of Americans in the event, some good, some not so good, and who knows what the whole point of this “Super Six” is? Perhaps someone can enlighten me. Boredom, personally, set in some time ago.
There are still good fights looming, such as this one, on April 17 in Herning in Denmark (where?), Dirrell against "King" Arthur in March in the States, the talented Ward against Green a month later, also in the States, but it all reminds me of the eight-man series to decide Muhammad Ali’s heavyweight successor in 1967 which wound up being won by – Ali’s sparring partner - and failed to include the best successor. One fighter, by the way, has already dropped out of the “Super Six” for his own safety. He took so many beatings, he had no option but to quit.
Kessler-Froch also looks potentially brutal. The straight-ahead Kessler is not particularly quick but neither is Froch and we can expect a thrilling set-to between men who love a scrap and lack nothing in durability, pride and power. Froch, the big, strong Nottingham revelation, is a year older than Kessler at 31 but fresher and arguably more adaptable. He has shown he can travel in this tournament, and find a way to win, whereas Kessler lost, of course. He has shown he can box a bit, too. Carl “The Cobra” has those long arms of his with which he whips in the jabs and counters.
Nevertheless, home advantage looks a ‘biggie’ for Kessler, “The Viking Warrior”, who will be desperate to make amends for the Ward pasting in November, to say the least. Despite the rumours of his wear-and-tear, Kessler, a pro since 1998, is too good to go down without a real fight, here, and Froch will undoubtedly make him fight, fight to the bitter end.
It will undoubtedly boil down to the judges. A split or a majority decision for Froch looks the likeliest of outcomes but a draw is not of the question in such a location. Now, that would really mess up the “Super Six” concept – LOVELY.
The word on the street today is that Mikkel Kessler is also through, the man who once hilariously claimed he was more ‘British’ than Joe Calzaghe because of his English mother. Hmmm, I’m not so sure. I know he has an English mother - but a finished fighter? Yes, Calzaghe outscored him in 2007 and America’s Andre Ward dished out a nasty 11-round beating to him a few months ago in the States, picking apart and inevitably busting up the tough Dane, who stayed on his feet throughout. The first thing to go is certainly not Kessler’s chin. However, Ward is unbeaten, hungry, big and quick. With all those assets, he just may have dished out a similar beating to Carl Froch - who knows?
I do know one thing, the “Super Six” super-middleweight tournament in which Kessler, Froch, Ward, Allan Green, Arthur Abraham and Andre Dirrell all fight each other, seemingly a million times over a million years, is a joke which I continually fail to get, no matter how many times I hear the thing. It was a great unification series in the making, a ‘knockout’ series. Froch, the WBC champ, would take on Kessler, the WBA champ (now Ward’s belt), the winner then facing Canada’s classy Lucian Bute, the IBF kingpin, but southpaw Bute was not included because he is one non-American too many for American-TV paymasters, Showtime - a Canadian of Romanian ancestry - and to compound the situation, Robert Stieglitz, the WBO super-middleweight kingpin, is also European. Thus we have an inevitable influx of Americans in the event, some good, some not so good, and who knows what the whole point of this “Super Six” is? Perhaps someone can enlighten me. Boredom, personally, set in some time ago.
There are still good fights looming, such as this one, on April 17 in Herning in Denmark (where?), Dirrell against "King" Arthur in March in the States, the talented Ward against Green a month later, also in the States, but it all reminds me of the eight-man series to decide Muhammad Ali’s heavyweight successor in 1967 which wound up being won by – Ali’s sparring partner - and failed to include the best successor. One fighter, by the way, has already dropped out of the “Super Six” for his own safety. He took so many beatings, he had no option but to quit.
Kessler-Froch also looks potentially brutal. The straight-ahead Kessler is not particularly quick but neither is Froch and we can expect a thrilling set-to between men who love a scrap and lack nothing in durability, pride and power. Froch, the big, strong Nottingham revelation, is a year older than Kessler at 31 but fresher and arguably more adaptable. He has shown he can travel in this tournament, and find a way to win, whereas Kessler lost, of course. He has shown he can box a bit, too. Carl “The Cobra” has those long arms of his with which he whips in the jabs and counters.
Nevertheless, home advantage looks a ‘biggie’ for Kessler, “The Viking Warrior”, who will be desperate to make amends for the Ward pasting in November, to say the least. Despite the rumours of his wear-and-tear, Kessler, a pro since 1998, is too good to go down without a real fight, here, and Froch will undoubtedly make him fight, fight to the bitter end.
It will undoubtedly boil down to the judges. A split or a majority decision for Froch looks the likeliest of outcomes but a draw is not of the question in such a location. Now, that would really mess up the “Super Six” concept – LOVELY.