Famous Boxers on the street...

[dagosd2000]

"Mordida" in Mexican society means putting the "bite" on someone,a bribe,shaking a guy down. Jose had a club in the Zona Rosa in Mexico City when one night the cops tried to put the bite on him. Mantequiila got his boys together and turned the tables on the cops. They beat them up and then stripped them down and threw them out into the street. Can't help but not like that guy.

[HomicideHenry]

In the spirit of Halloween, I must recount the age old tale of the events that would lead up to the great escape artist and magician Harry Houdini's death.

While touring in Canada at the prestigous McGill University in Montreal, Houdini met up with a student named J. Gordon Whitehead, who also just happened to be the college boxing champion.

While reports are unclear, what is known is that Whitehead made a challenge to Houdini, as he had heard that one of Houdini's many acts was that he could take any punch from any man in his stomach. Houdini, not even paying attention to Whitehead said "Yeah, Yeah" as he tried to brush the young man away.

Without hestitation, and without Houdini tightening up his abdominal muscles, he sucker punched Houdini three times, before Whitehead was pulled off of Houdini, who was sitting down on a couch while having his portrait done by another student.

What Houdini didn't realize was that he was already suffering from appendicitis, and it was believed at the time that the sucker punches accelerated the infection/damage to the appendix...

Houdini held on to life for seven days, dying on Halloween night 1932, at the age of 52.

It is said that Whitehead, following Houdini's death, began to parade himself as "The Man Who Killed Houdini", making challenges to all comers while still on the amateur college circuit. Whether he tried his hand at professional boxing is not known, but what is known is that Whitehead didn't graduate from McGill University, then became a religous minster for a time in the USA and he eventually died of malnutrition in the 1950's.

[Expug]

When I was a bakery truck driver some clown got on my truck with a .45 and robbed me at gun point.
It happened in the loop .(Down town Chicago).
He roughed me up cuz he had a piece and it was in the truck so nobody could see.
When he left the truck , I chased him caught him and beat the hell out of him.
I was written up in the Sun Times Under the heading"Ex Boxer still Packs Punch Suspect finds"It was 1987. Art Petacque wrote it.
The radio personality Paul Harvey featured the incident on his show."Page One".
The Robber was sentenced to 20years . He was charged with 14 counts as he robbed 13 other drivers.
I wish I knew how to post the article.
It was my 15 min. for sure.
Its in the Chicago Sun Times archives but they make you pay to download it.

[HomicideHenry]

Great story ExPug, reminds me of two stories I read once of Jack Dempsey beating up two 20 year old guys when he was in his 70's when they tried to mug him, and of Buddy Rogers (the wrestler) when he was also in his 70's and stopped a store robbery with some of his classic wrestling holds.

[Seamus]

Bobby Chacon got the better of USC tailback and Heisman Trophy Runner Up Anthony Davis in a fight once.

[Diamond WEAPON]

Somebody posted a video a couple months ago of Zab Judah and his homeboys roughing up some guys that were trying to hustle them in craps.

I heard that when Mike Tyson was a teenager he'd rob people by running up on them and knocking the shit out of them.

Ricardo Mayorga used to run with gangs in Nicaragua and often got into streetfights, sometimes involving machetes, hence many of his scars.

Naseem Hamed got into an altercation with Chris Eubank at an airport when he bragged about being a World Champ while reminding Eubank he wasn't anymore.

Bernard Hopkins was imprisoned in 11th grade for 56 months for "strong-arm robbery", where he beat people down and robbed them.

[The Great John L]

Antonio Inoki's match with Muhammad Ali is of this style. Yeah, that's right. I'm saying that Ali-Inoki was totally pre-planned.

Boy if that’s true, they should shoot the sorry SOB who choreographed it, because it was probably the most boring hour of “sports entertainment” in history. If it was entirely pre-planned, why didn’t they try to make it at least a little entertaining?

[Expug]

Great story, Expug.

Henry, I'm not sure about that story about Rogers at age 70 stopping a robbery (if you cite a source, I'll be your buddy forever), but I do have a story about him nearly beating beaten up by someone nearly 50, and a few other stories about him.

Buddy Rogers wasn't that popular with other wrestlers. He was simply perfect; he had it all. He had the look, he could talk better than anyone, and he simply put on the best matches out there, short of Lou Thesz. But worst of all, he was mean.

He was a great "worker." Not in the Ric Flair way, where he used a lot of different moves over the course of a long match, but in the way he "worked" the crowd. In an era when there were still a few people who thought wrestling was real, Rogers was the type who made the match look real. Great Japanese wrestlers like Inoki, Misawa, Kawada, Tsuruta and Baba took a lot of their styles from him.

Here's what a Buddy Rogers match might look like. The match started out like an ordinary, fixed pro wrestling match, but halfway through the match, it would turn into a fight. Rogers pioneered the modern angle of, "they're going at it for real!!!111oneoneoneon" Most of his matches ended up with him and his opponent really going at it, punching the hell out of each other, really fighting. Rogers's opponents would leave the ring sore, bruised and bloody. Antonio Inoki's match with Muhammad Ali is of this style. Yeah, that's right. I'm saying that Ali-Inoki was totally pre-planned.

Lou Thesz was probably the best wrestler the sport/spectacle had seen in decades. Not only could he put on a great match, but he could literally take just about anyone apart in a real match. Thesz was the last of the "hookers," wresters who specialized in submission moves that were illegal under amateur rules. It's from them that we got the modern sport of Mixed Martial Arts. They'd do the gimmick of taking on all comers, and beat them by twisting their arm or legs in a way they're not supposed to bend.

Naturally, Rogers and Thesz were matched up a lot. Rogers won a few and Thesz won a few. Then, at a card they were wrestling on, Ed "Strangler" Lewis was announced. Strangler Lewis helped get Thesz into wrestling, and he was Thesz's idol. Buddy Rogers turned to Thesz and said, "why's that old guy getting part of my paycheck?" Thesz never lost a match with Rogers again. No matter how it was booked, Thesz refused to get pinned by Rogers.

Later in his career, Thesz spent most of his time wrestling in Japan, where he made more money than anywhere else, and Rogers became the champion. Thesz refused to lose the title to Rogers, so he lost the title to three-time NCAA wrestling champion, Dick Hutton, who lost it to Pat O'Conner, who eventually lost it to Rogers. All these matches were pre-determined, of course. After two years as champion, Rogers was booked to lose the title to the 46-year-old Lou Thesz, who was coming out of retirement.

Rogers didn't want to lose the title; being the champion made him a big draw, and made him a lot of money. Right before the match, Thesz told the 41-year-old, but still-tough Buddy Rogers, "We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way," meaning that if Rogers didn't cooperate, Thesz would tear him apart. The match went ahead as planned.

Great stuff Dec.
I'd recommend Gene Lebells book to you .
I think its called the Godfather of grappling or something along those lines.
He idolized Thesz .
He talks a great deal about his pro wrestling career and his and Thesz' era.
He also tells a story of Lou tapping out and almost breaking the national collegiate heavyweight wrestling champs arm in about 10 seconds while training one day.
It was no contest.

[Seamus]

Don't forget Roddy Piper ! I remember watching a film of him preparing for his boxing match with Mr T, and he had some really good handspeed.

[I Feel Fine]

Billy Conn broke his hand in a fight with his brother.

As a result his return fight with Joe Louis was postponed until years later, after WWII.

It was Conn's father-in-law, not his brother.

[HomicideHenry]

The only thing I recall of the Buddy Rogers incident was that it happened down in Florida, I believe. I only remember it because my grandfather had been following George Foreman and Larry Holmes come backs, and it was mentioned on the news that Rogers stopped a robbery, and my dad and grandpa went into some rant that the old school guys could still kick ass.

Ironically, I remember my grandpa telling me stories when I was a kid because I was a huge wrestling fan, and he told me it was fake. I asked him why, and he said back in the 1950's and 1960's he occasionally saw wrestlers in the bars where he would go, and the supposed 'bad guys' and 'good guys' were all in the same bar and not hating one another like they were in the arena and television. Buddy Rogers was one of many whom he seen in the bar.

[Goodnight, Irene]

According to Sterling's Kings Of The Ring, Floyd Patterson disarmed & rendered unconscious a knifeman en route to a training session for the second of his three encounters with Ingemar Johansson, badly cutting his right hand in the process.

[Nile4000]

Michael Dokes reportedly beat up 3 people at a LA club.
Mitch Green reigning terror in the South Bronx back in the day as a Black Spade.

[The Great John L]

John L. Sullivan was knocked on his ass by some frog kickboxer.

Source?

[The Great John L]

Antonio Inoki's match with Muhammad Ali is of this style. Yeah, that's right. I'm saying that Ali-Inoki was totally pre-planned.

Boy if that’s true, they should shoot the sorry SOB who choreographed it, because it was probably the most boring hour of “sports entertainment” in history. If it was entirely pre-planned, why didn’t they try to make it at least a little entertaining?

If it had been entertaining, everyone would have known it was fake.

Right.

[Jaclem]

..bernie reynolds, a heavyweight who slipped into the top ten for an hour or so was kayoed in the ring by marciano and charles...and was knocked flat in bar by...robert mitchum!!! source; a police report printed at the time. damned impressive for mitchum..even if reynolds got cold cocked by those two world champions, he was a professional heavyweight fighter, and was active at the time.

[HomicideHenry]

robert mitchum

Anyone who can play Max Cady in the original Cape Fear, is one bad ass mother fornicator. 8) lol

[muray]

Al (Bummy) Davis began his career as a streetfighter