BoxRec

Joy of a blow below the belt

There are some eternal mysteries in sport: how many times does a transfer have to stall before it becomes a saga, why are divers so tanned when nearly all swimming pools are indoors, that sort of thing. One that must rank high among them is what we experts call The Immutable Law of the Nads. This states that when a sportsman is struck a painful blow he can expect sympathy, unless the painful blow happens to land in the groin, in which case mass sniggering will follow the poor fellow's bellows of agony as certainly as "banned" follows "BBC" when it comes to Scottish football managers.

Yes, there is nothing more guaranteed to elicit laughter from a man than seeing another man banged in the nuts. It doesn't matter who the recipient is, or the force of the blow. When the supremely amiable David Lloyd was hit below stairs by a ferocious delivery from Jeff Thomson during the Ashes series of 1974-75 it didn't just dent his abdominal protector, it turned it inside out, yet the hoots of mirth went up from the antipodes to Accrington just the same.

It has happened to us all, and when your turn comes there is nothing you can do, but stifle your moans and try and enter into the spirit of the thing. "Every bit of me that had begun on the inside was now on the outside," Lloyd would later tell Richie Benaud of the moment when his alleged pre-series boast that he could "play Jeff Thompson with my dick" was given the ultimate test. "I didn't need a doctor, I needed a welder."

There are occasions when making light of your pain requires even more courage. When the great Scottish lightweight Ken Buchanan fought Roberto Durán the rugged Panamanian struck him below the belt with such percussive force it ruptured one of the Scot's testicles. A Glaswegian, Buchanan knew the score. He didn't moan. Years later when he was asked if he ever thought of the fight he replied: "Aye, whenever I go to the toilet."

All of which brings us by a predictably circuitous route to the antics of Zabdiel "Super" Judah in his fight against Amir Khan (sadly still resisting the eminently sensible suggestion by one reader of this column that he should adopt the nickname "the Wrath of"). The New Yorker fell to the floor in round five claiming a foul. The referee took a different view, ruling that Khan's punch landed nearer to the 33‑year‑old's breadbasket than his meat and two veg, and counting "Super" out as the American languished on the deck with the defiantly sulky look of a pre‑schooler proclaiming himself too full to eat his broccoli.

No one had much sympathy with the beaten man, because, in one of those strange vagaries of life, when it comes to blows in the pills people find real pain hilarious and fake pain infuriating.

The best example of the sort of ire provoked by a man who cries wolf about scrotal damage is the reputation of the British and Commonwealth heavyweight champion of the 1930s Phil Scott. Scott was a decent and skilful light-heavyweight, but when he stepped up to the higher division and crossed the Atlantic everything went awry. In the US Scott gained an unenviable and enduring reputation after he managed to engineer his way to a world title fight with Jack "the Battling Gob" Sharkey mainly by falling down the minute an opponent landed a body blow, clutching his groin and squeaking "Foul!" He carried out this manoeuvre so frequently that he was nicknamed Faintin' Phil, or more poetically the Swooning Swan of Soho. Neither was affectionate.

It was said of Scott that he stuck to the canvas better than oil paint and that unlike other old pugs he wouldn't be able to run a pub after retirement because every time the bell rang on the cash register he'd fling himself to the deck. One pugnacious boxing referee who had officiated over Faintin' Phil commented: "He is the yellowest bum I ever saw. For 10 cents I'd take him into a cellar and give him a licking myself."

In the US boxing fans far too young ever to have seen Scott fight still get incensed at the very mention of his name. "Scott? You could have kayoed the guy with a handful of peanuts," snapped one US fight writer a couple of years back when the subject of Britain's horizontal heavyweights was raised.

Better then to think instead of one of Phil Scott's contemporaries, world welterweight champ Fritzie "the Croat Comet" Zivic. In his 1940 clash with Al "Bummy" Davis, a fighter who was as rough and tough as you might expect a man whose father was a bootlegger and whose two elder brothers ran with Murder Incorporated to be. After Zivic – no stranger to boxing's dark arts – had stuck a thumb in his eye, Bummy lost his temper and struck his opponent repeatedly in the groin. When he reached 10 the referee stepped in and disqualified him. Davis responded by kicking the ref and a mini-riot ensued. Asked about the affair afterwards Zivic was sanguine. "You're not playing the piano," he said, "you're boxing."

Never mind what Rudyard Kipling thought, if you can brush aside a whack in the jockstrap from a man named "Bummy" with a wisecrack, then you are a man, my son.

J-C wrote:That's a great piece. The Buchanan/Duran fight came to mind for me when I watched the contraversy over the ending of Judah/Khan.

Bummy Davis is an interesting guy to say the least, there was a book about him released fairly recently, think I might check it out.

Gazmac81 wrote:Funny - ( expect uproar from the the east coasters though form the "Glasgwegian" Buchanan comments )

Carbo wrote:

J-C wrote:That's a great piece. The Buchanan/Duran fight came to mind for me when I watched the contraversy over the ending of Judah/Khan.

Bummy Davis is an interesting guy to say the least, there was a book about him released fairly recently, think I might check it out.

Buchanan was a brilliant boxer. He was the only boxer before Lewis to go to the US and fight the best and make it to the very top. Beating Ismael Laguna for the title outdoors in San Juan in 100-plus degree heat was an amazing effort.

But the fight against Duran, if you watch it, just looked painful. Duran was about 21 at the time, and just irresistible. Buchanan couldn't maintain any distance, because Duran was all over him for all 13 rounds. But the punch that finished it, the low blow, was shocking. It was Galotta low, and right in the balls. It wasn't even close to the belt, and was brazenly deliberate. It was just an act of spite and nastiness against an already beaten man. Buchanan just couldn't recover, and it should have been a disqualification. If Duran hadn't battered him from pillar to post for the rest of the fight, it would have been.

If there's one boxer in history I could chose not to face, it would have been Duran at lightweight. He wasn't going to knock you out with a single punch, but he was heavy handed, harder to hit than you would imagine, and just kept coming and kept throwing punches that hurt. And you knew he hated you. He could beat you sensless, and then, just out of badness, stick a thumb in your eye, and elbow on your collar bone, or, as Buchanan found out, an uppercut to the bollocks. There was also that time that one of his opponents was being carried out the ring on a stretcher. A journalist asked Duran how he felt about the man being carried to hospital. "Bad," Duran replied. "If I'd hit him right, they would be carrying him to the morgue."

Yup, I wouldn't fancy going 15 with Duran.

Anyway, love Harry Pearson. If you get a chance to read any of his books, do so.

Gazmac81 wrote:Funny - ( expect uproar from the the east coasters though form the "Glasgwegian" Buchanan comments )

King Geedorah wrote:

jamesmcdonnell wrote:

Carbo wrote: Buchanan was a brilliant boxer. He was the only boxer before Lewis to go to the US and fight the best and make it to the very top. Beating Ismael Laguna for the title outdoors in San Juan in 100-plus degree heat was an amazing effort.

But the fight against Duran, if you watch it, just looked painful. Duran was about 21 at the time, and just irresistible. Buchanan couldn't maintain any distance, because Duran was all over him for all 13 rounds. But the punch that finished it, the low blow, was shocking. It was Galotta low, and right in the balls. It wasn't even close to the belt, and was brazenly deliberate. It was just an act of spite and nastiness against an already beaten man. Buchanan just couldn't recover, and it should have been a disqualification. If Duran hadn't battered him from pillar to post for the rest of the fight, it would have been.

If there's one boxer in history I could chose not to face, it would have been Duran at lightweight. He wasn't going to knock you out with a single punch, but he was heavy handed, harder to hit than you would imagine, and just kept coming and kept throwing punches that hurt. And you knew he hated you. He could beat you sensless, and then, just out of badness, stick a thumb in your eye, and elbow on your collar bone, or, as Buchanan found out, an uppercut to the bollocks. There was also that time that one of his opponents was being carried out the ring on a stretcher. A journalist asked Duran how he felt about the man being carried to hospital. "Bad," Duran replied. "If I'd hit him right, they would be carrying him to the morgue."

Yup, I wouldn't fancy going 15 with Duran.

Anyway, love Harry Pearson. If you get a chance to read any of his books, do so.

Didnt Duran once spit on a felled opponent as well?

That is the story. There's also the one about him threatening to send people to the morgue but turning up to the hospital once when Esteban De Jesus was recovering from a KO, may have been after their rubbermatch, and shedding a few tears. I actually think it may have been Esteban that was threatened with the trip to the mortuary.