BoxRec

Breaking news on the BBC website.

Former champ Berbick found dead
Trevor Berbick, the last boxer to fight Muhammad Ali, was found dead in a church courtyard in the Jamaican capital Kingston on Saturday.
The 52-year-old former heavyweight champion was discovered at about 0630 local time, police confirmed.

More soon.

Extremely tragic news.

Berbick had the heart of a lion in the ring..even when Tyson pasted him all over the place, he refused to take a step back and was trying to get up and fight on to the bitter end.

RIP Mr. Berbick

Unfortunately, he will be remembered for two things. Beating up on the shell of Ali and being a bit part player in the Tyson story

He was a brave, able and true champion. You can say no better of a fighter

RIP Champ

Slapsie

I hope he will also be remembered for his KO of John Tate. One of the funniest KO's.

Although then, he was on the recieving end of another classic KO.

he probably wasnt the nicest guy in the world but RIP anyway mr berbick.
my thoughts are with your children

Very sad... RIP... Berbick was a very tough and underrated fighter... few seem to remember the tough fight he gave a peak Holmes...

harrygreb wrote:he probably wasnt the nicest guy in the world but RIP anyway mr berbick.
my thoughts are with your children

True Harry true, whatever was wrong with the man his chidren should be thought of at this time.

R.I.P. Trevor Berbick

I heard he had chop wounds on him? Sounds a bit grisly.

livingstone cole wrote:

Slapsie Maxie wrote:Unfortunately, he will be remembered for two things. Beating up on the shell of Ali and being a bit part player in the Tyson story

He was a brave, able and true champion. You can say no better of a fighter

RIP Champ

Slapsie

That's funny, I'll remember him for being a rapist and as such my sympathy is just a touch limited. ObviouslyI don't condone his murder nor support his murderer but I'm not likely to bother wasting any time thinking about him.

Great. You do that. I remember him as a boxer, because that's how we know about him in the first place, and a good boxer at that.

so you dont believe that attoning for past transgressions is possible or that rape/murder/the breaking of laws in general can be quite a subjective issue?

again livingstone your black and white view of the world gets you into a bit of bother - still like ya though, you old student teacher you

livingstone cole wrote:Oh I believe in rehabilitation, but you have to weigh up the issues. Sexual crimes are something that I utterly deplore and in most cases can't forgive. As I say I believe in rehabilitation but it's certainly not worth the risk of finding out if you can truly rehabilitate a sex offender due to the nature of the way you find out.
It's because unlike other crimes, sex offences have no motive, the other person is always 100% innocent and while I don't wish them any specific harm I just feel that rapists and paedophilles should be indefinately detained. And if a few of them turn up dead in a grizzly manner from an incident unrelated to their crimes I'll keep my sadness in reserve. Not that I'm condoning violence against sex offenders - just that if it happens, well I'm not gonna cry about it.

So I guess you dont watch any Mike Tyson fights then....

WHAT? SEX OFFENCES HAVE NO MOTIVE???? I DONT BELIEVE THIS.
YOU ARE ABOUT TO TRAIN AS A TEACHER AND YOU COME UP WITH A COMMENT LIKE THAT!!!!
ON YOUR FIRST POST YOU STATED "I CANT BRING MYSELF TO ADMIRE A RAPIST IN ANY CONTEXT" THEN YOU SAY IN YOUR NEXT POST " SEX CASES I DEPLORE AND IN MOST CASES I CANT FORGIVE"
GET IT STRAIGHT MISTER LIVINGSTONE - YOUVE GOT 30 IMPRESSIONABLE CHILDREN IN FRONT OF YOU AND YOUVE MOVED YOUR STATED POSITION IN ONE BREATH. THINK ABOUT IT. YOU EITHER BELIEVE IN REHABILITATION OR YOU DONT, BUT OF COURSE YOUR BLACK AND WHITE VIEW AGAIN TRIPS YOU UP BECAUSE YOU CANNOT HOLD YOUR VIEW FOR MORE THAN 10 SECONDS WITHOUT IT BEING PROVED WRONG. SORRY ABOUT THE CAPITALS.

From what I've heard, he's been living in fantasyland for YEARS and still couldn't come to terms with the Tyson loss. He thought he'd been drugged & begged for a rematch for years. This guy lost it big time, the alleged rape, the Larry Holmes incident. He was going to fight for the Canadian heavyweight title and then got deported, I'm sure. His life had been a dreadful mess for years and few are surprised that something bad has happened to him.

There's a good book by Dominic Calder-Smith on focusing on the men that Tyson beat and how their lives went. 'The Long Round' I think it was. Highly recommended, especially for now.

harrygreb wrote:WHAT? SEX OFFENCES HAVE NO MOTIVE???? I DONT BELIEVE THIS.
YOU ARE ABOUT TO TRAIN AS A TEACHER AND YOU COME UP WITH A COMMENT LIKE THAT!!!!
ON YOUR FIRST POST YOU STATED "I CANT BRING MYSELF TO ADMIRE A RAPIST IN ANY CONTEXT" THEN YOU SAY IN YOUR NEXT POST " SEX CASES I DEPLORE AND IN MOST CASES I CANT FORGIVE"
GET IT STRAIGHT MISTER LIVINGSTONE - YOUVE GOT 30 IMPRESSIONABLE CHILDREN IN FRONT OF YOU AND YOUVE MOVED YOUR STATED POSITION IN ONE BREATH. THINK ABOUT IT. YOU EITHER BELIEVE IN REHABILITATION OR YOU DONT, BUT OF COURSE YOUR BLACK AND WHITE VIEW AGAIN TRIPS YOU UP BECAUSE YOU CANNOT HOLD YOUR VIEW FOR MORE THAN 10 SECONDS WITHOUT IT BEING PROVED WRONG. SORRY ABOUT THE CAPITALS.

I think you got the wrong end of it with the motive H. As livingstone says there is no provocation involved in rape, it is just control, the forcing of ones self on to another person. Without being crude a woman has the absolute right to say no, even up to and after entry, as they should be in control of their own bodies, not the guy who has just spent some time and or money on her. The mindset of the nonce case is such that they can not be re-habilitated, such is the level of their mysoginy.

glad you have realised your poor choice of words - another thing youre gonna have to sort out in your teaching career!
i quote you "..the motive is contained within their own mindset and is not proviked by the victim" well, how many other crimes can we say that about? pretty well most of them i reckon. burglary, mugging, shoplifting, domestic violence, you name it.
however, i do take your point. i recall that you have worked with drug users/abusers so you must know that dealers, whom i regard as low filth,
can turn it around and become decent members of society. rape is a tough one - i did jury service last year and we convicted a man in his sixties of rape although it was more on the technical definition of the word than a situation where the victim was traumatised beyond imagination (which was not the case).
i agree, though, with andy mac that there is a absolute right of the rape victim, man or woman, to refuse consent. although again we must not immediately think that every victim of this crime is going to suffer deep psychological wounds for the rest of their days. it just aint true.
interesting question though.

RIP Trevor Berbick - a fallen warrior. Not sure exactly what went on in Trevor's personal life, other than the poor bloke seemed to have lost the plot 20 years ago. Stories of Trev saying he'd been drugged via his hotel air conditon vent, before a fight, stick in the mind...

Never forget Larry leaping off a car roof and laying into a startled Berbick in a car park

He had a helluva chin on him. An early KO1 loss is a real mystery, though Mercado (?) was SOME puncher that's true.

Mickey Duff made big money backing Trevor when he took on the much touted, unbeaten Greg Page, on the big Holmes/Cooney undercard. Berbick battered him from pillar to post.

Seem to recall his tilt at Holmes was one of the first ever HBO boxing cards, and hence I missed it while in the States, as no-one had HBO at the time.

He never said die that's for sure: witness his mad scramble to right his senses after Tyson had just exploded onto the world scene. He refused to believe that he'd just been knocked out, even though his legs were telling him otherwise.
He was so SURE he'd outslug Mike, that he just stood right in front of him. One of the few times that chin ever let him down.

Terrible end for him & you have to feel for the kids he's left behind, whatever you think of the man.

RIP TREVOR BERBICK - WBC HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMP OF THE WORLD.

Livingstone, how much do you know about Berbicks case? He served only 15 months, & as i recall there was doubt over the credibility of the women.

What do you make of Desiree Washington going up to Tysons hotel room at 2 in the morning? Was that just for coffee?

I would be hesitant to call either man a rapist.

Anyways, RIP Trevor Berbick. Guy participated in some tremendous fights & was a real warrior who wouldn't take a back step.

steve689 wrote:R.I.P. Trevor Berbick

I heard he had chop wounds on him? Sounds a bit grisly.

Lamb or Pork?

Sorry, thought I'd try and lighten the tone, it's been a shit weekend.

Berbick seemed as if he was paranoid, he often said that it was a conspiricy against him that he didn't get a rematch against Tyson, and also he was drugged before the 1st fight with Tyson.

He was also convicted of holding a gun against the head of his former business manager, who he thought was plotting against him.

Altogether he was a pretty mixed up guy, he had a taste of the big time for a short while, but couldn't handle it when it came to an end.

Apparently he was killed over a land dispute.