BoxRec

Archie Moore was not only clever with words, he also had some excellent punchlines as well.

At a later stage in his career, Moore tended to baloon in weight between fights. The press would hassle him about his weight and call him fat and suggesting he practiced gluttony.
To this Archie responed: "I am not a glutton. I am an explorer of food."

-KOKid-

KOKid, I wonder if that was the start of spin-doctoring. I know there's a term for what Archie was doing, just escapes my mental grasp right now.

Maybe the word you are looking for is a euphemism. The only other term I could think of would be politically correct.

I would venture to guess that spin doctoring would go back as far to the dawn of man.

...a touch of "doin' the dozens", but gently.

Food Explorer? The might Make Kirk Johnson the Chief Spelunker of that sort of Exploration.

Ballyhoo!!!!

Tergiversate - to use ambiguities or evasive statements. American Heritage Dictionary.

-KOKid- wrote:Archie Moore was not only clever with words, he also had some excellent punchlines as well.

At a later stage in his career, Moore tended to baloon in weight between fights. The press would hassle him about his weight and call him fat and suggesting he practiced gluttony.
To this Archie responed: "I am not a glutton. I am an explorer of food."

-KOKid-

Some years ago a local boxing guy named Tony (judge or ref perhaps) had an unfortunate encounter with a flight of stairs and ended up with a broken knee. Whilst recovering from this one he stubbed his toe and broke that, too

Someone mentioned that he wasn't having much luck at the moment, to which he replied: "well, my name is Toe-Knee, after all"