The Verbal Flatulence Of Earnest Shavers.....

Both good points Irish and Mitchell. What I am curious about is why the domination was so much more specific to the heavyweight division? The level of American dominance is more prevalent in the heavyewight division than in any other division and in any other era.

 

It has become MUCH MUCH MUCH more lucrative to go into the NFL, NBA and MLB now than vs. 15-20 years ago. Not just in terms of pen to paper, but scholarships to better schools, better sports medicine and physical therapy to continue longer more lucrative careers. The landscape of these sports in the USA has changed quite a bit, and the reasons for that would need another thread to detail.

 

I agree with the first sentence. Absolutely that is the case, its not just that the USA fell off and that's why there is a non-American champion(s). But the division is greatly enriched with more top level American talent, imo.

as to the Lampley comment... please. The guy is from the USA, this is not part of some madde up conspiracy you want to perpetuate... even George Foreman was cheering for Rahman and he is a huge fan of Lennox, but he is also the same guy who fought in the ring and waved the flag for his country. It doesn't go any deeper than that. It's also a testament to the fact that Lennox was the only half decent non-American heavyweight champion in damn near a century and the commentators were vocalizing a return to the norm.

 

You folks will enjoy the telecast a lot more if you simply turn the volume off on HBO.

I confess I listen to it sometimes, probably about 30 percent of the time, and it is mainly garbage compared to Don Dunphy calling a fight.

Three people on a broadcast is far too much, particularly if not one single one of them has ever boxed before, folks, and they have not, therefore, they sure as hell do not know what they are talking about.

Nothing against Jim and Max who are very nice guys whom I have spent time with in Houston, but neither one knows anything about the science of the sport.

Karl

 

steward never boxed?

 

American Light heavyweights have also been exceptionally strong.

Some exceptions would be Freddie Mills, Fitzsimmons, Torres, and the two Argie chaps from the late 70's, Galindez and Jorge Ahumada, and the Venezuelan Rucente, John Conteh too. Modern non-American 175lbrs of non-US denomination would be DM, Andries, Adamek, Harding, Calzaghe, all of whom were excellent but I don't know if that lot could match the American contingent.

But your main men would be Foster, Conn, Maxim, Moore, Charles, Levinksy, the late 70's/early 80's American contingent, and then of course Virgil Hill, Roy Jones, Even Tommy Hearns. Hopkins, Tarver, and then Dawson make up a very competent list of pugs.

As for this Pascal lad...well he lost to Froch, so.....:dunno:

 

He did. IIRC he had a very short pro career and then suddenly packed it in. He sold sellotape door-to-door and worked in electrics before he came to training.

Steward sold sellotape like nobody else could. And, brother, if you don't believe me, you come on down to the Sellotape Arena, and I'll punch you right in the fucking guts with a boxful of sellotape, keyboard king...:nono:

 

all of this is easily pissed on by pointing that as soon as more and more black american guys started fighting, they took over the division... you brought up Jack Sharkey in an earlier post, a 1920s/30s era fighter... from Joe Louis all the way up to the sport's plummeting decline in popularity in the US in the 90s... all but three of the recognized holders of ANY of the main championship belts were black guys from the united states, they werent immigrants from Africa... they were the descendants of the black people that were forcibly brought here for 100s of years from Africa, scientifically bred like they were cattle by their oppressors... the men who owned the division for all those years were the descendants of those men and women, black AMERICANS, a unique ethnic group, linked to but made different from their African cousins by literally centuries of mad scientist bullshit by white (usually English, Dutch or Scot) slaveowners... yes there were plenty of the oppressors who just couldnt resist taking a free piece of some of the female slave's loving... so, we see you getting a semi-erection over the prosepct of Muhammad Ali having some white in him and perhaps that is why he was so fast? clearly, since we Irish are famous for our super fast 210 pound boxing champions:scratcher:

for fun, lets take a look at the world title holders from 20 years ago (WBC, WBA, IBF) as of August 15, 1990 from say Lightweight up to Heavyweight. I picked those weights simply because both black americans and european whites tend to be physically bigger and thus are not often found below those weights:

of the 9 WBC Champions, 5 were black American guys
of the 8 (one title was vacant) WBA Champions, 4 were black american guys
of the 9 IBF champions, 6 were black Americans

this is not a giant population we are talking about here, they make up generally between 12 and 13 % of our population here in America and yet they make up an extraordinary amount of the best fighters for as long as boxing is popular here... then all of the sudden its popularity sinks to unheard of lows and there are magically a lot fewer of them within the span of one generation and you think that rather than the sport losing its visibility (and thus losing its appeal to any young kids) causing there to be a sudden change in WHO is at the top of the sport, Europe has instead finally caught up? nonsense

 

they didnt come into existence, but the HUGE SHITLOADS OF MONEY they were paying IS a relatively NEW phenomenon

for a long time, a heavyweight champ made a lot more money for a couple of fights than any pro athlete did for two or three WHOLE SEASONS

what better incentive for poor kids from the streets, their fighting skills ad toughness honed by necessity to box than the fact that if you made it big, you'd make more money than any team sport athlete ever would?

thats how it was for ages... even into the 1980s, million-salaried team sport athletes were still uncommon... but big name fighters could fetch a million for a single fight... boxing offered riches and the fame of being ALONE in one's accomplishments

no shock that when the salaries of basketball, without question the most accessible and most often played sport for inner city youth started to rocket into the stratosphere along with those of football players while boxing disappeared from american TV sets, kids gravitated towards the ball

 

definitely not me

I think Dempsey was a terrific fighter and an innovator, but I've often criticized him for not fighting a single black heavyweight and I have taken a big mental piece off of his historical standing because of

as for Greb, I have always felt the simple overwhelming volume of his career and the fact that he consistently and fearlessly put himself in the face of peril by fighting much bigger men kind of forgives his lack of ethnic diversity a bit and he DID fight Tiger Flowers, twice ... there isnt much evidence to support the idea that he was in any way reluctant to fight black fighters, unlike Dempsey where the evidence is far more significant and proven by his resume

but Im pretty sure you have me confused with someone else

 

:bears::laughing:

that was classic, my friend

Steward was actually a fully licensed master electrician

 

Ahhhhh......the brass tack, as it were. Consider the Negro Leagues of Baseball being abolished with full integration. Sure, some of the best baseballl players were now blacks, but as long as whitey stayed playing baseball, there would be excellent white players too. Consider further that black legends of the negro leagues found that their home run tallies and pitching averages declined once they came up against a field which was better overall.

Yeah, eh.....what? Haven't you seen Roots? I said that these people were "immigrants, one way or the other" Driven by hunger or dragged into slavery, there was an element of involuntary movement.

Furthermore, calling Joe Louis black is like calling Vitali Klitschko a mongol. Joe Louis, Like Ali, had white fore-bearers, and without those white fore-bearers, he is not Joe Louis. He wasn't called the Black Bomber, he was called the Brown Bomber. Cake ain't cake unless it got white flour.

For openers, nature strives a return to the norm. I already alluded to how interbreeding and selective breeding throws up a very small number of superior athletes. It is simply not accurate to say that this "selective breeding" has created a dominant sub-group. Meiosis is a bitch. You cannot create a dominant and lasting strain in a Human Race which is 200,000 years old, in just 200 years. You might throw up a few good examples, but once the practice is abolished, you are right back where you started.

But there is a stronger argument against the validity of your statement: Natural Selection. The Irish who made it to America in 1850 onwards were the the sole survivors of disease and starvation, both at home, on the coffin ships, and then in the ghetto again. Both of Gene Tunneys parents came from classic famine territory: Kiltimagh, County Mayo. Cooney traces his lineage to the same part of the world.

Hold on a second.....Darwin's {largely rejected at the time} hypotheses on genetics, natural selection etc were published in the mid 1800's.....just when slavery in the States was coming to an end. Did crackers in Alabama know something Charles didn't? :dunno: Furthemore, your hypothesis depends on only the very best African Slaves being used in the first instance as a core bloodstock, and it also excludes the aforementioned inter-breeding.

Ah yes my apologies you got round to it in the end. You are, deliberately or otherwise, confusing social injustices with the core matter at hand. I don't care who sneaked into whose shack and did what to whose woman.......all I am saying is that Ali and Louis, two of the chief buttresses of your theory, were of mixed white-black Lineage. Why abandon your Ayn Rand-inspired reason at the last hurdle Cdogg?

True enough, there have been no Irish 210lb fast heavyweights, just as there have been very few 100% black heavyweights. The Irish had to rely on skinny ass Billy Conn to try and get the job done vs Joe Louis. Conn nearly did it too. That'll be the white in Louis, though.

20 years ago...1990...wall has just only come down. Why not pick 10 years ago...and track it back to the present??


(WBC, WBA, IBF) as of August 15, 1990 from say Lightweight up to Heavyweight. I picked those weights simply because both black americans and european whites tend to be physically bigger and thus are not often found below those weights:

Yes, and a lot of those black people have white ancestry. You cannot embrace a quasi-science of "selective breeding" and then reject the simple genealogical realities. It may have been a crime that these people came to have white blood....but that is irrelevant in this factual context. This is not support group for the victims of historical rape. This is an argument about why a certain group MAY HAVE enjoyed a certain, narrowly defined advantage in a certain sport.




.

Simply not true. Boxing is as popular today as it has ever been. In the 1950's Hollywood was happy to make movies outlining the corruption and inevitable decline in the "so-called sport" of boxing. Boxing was going out. When Ali retired, it was going out again. When Lewis was the champ, oh heck, we're fucked. And then Vitali? Oh well it is obviously dead. It doesn't matter that 2.3 million people watched Klitschko-Arreola in America alone.

Boxing is as popular globally as ever before, and this is where the argument get's messy.

As stated above in a different post, I recognize a dip in American standards which is concomitant with a huge surge in the standards of European exports.

The surge in the quality of the European export has been due to several things, key amongst which are: 1) the advent of a large and hitherto untapped potential in Eastern Europe 2) German economic and social structures which give a lot of these fighters their first start and 3) the maintenance of the amateur programmes across Europe.

 

I fear it may sail over quite a few heads, brother.:shadow::shadow:

 

I agree with this point.

I posted this on another site a week or so ago, when someone talked about the poor quality of today's heavyweights.

I went back and pulled an old issue of KO Magazine (I don't even know if they print it anymore) from August 1980 (30 years ago). I thought I'd do a comparison of the Top 10 then versus the Top 10 today. I pulled today's Top 10 from Fightnews.com, since that is basically "today's" equivalent of KO Magazine. (And I didn't have a 1980 issue of Ring Magazine to compare to their ratings now.)

Anyway, here are the Top 10 heavyweights from 1980 side-by-side with the Top 10 today. Which division was "actually" better if they met head-to-head?

1. Larry Holmes (34-0) vs. Wladimir Klitschko (54-3)
2. Mike Weaver (22-9) vs. Vitali Klitschko (40-2)
3. John Tate (20-1) vs. David Haye (24-1)
4. Gerrie Coetzee (22-1) vs. Tomasz Adamek (41-1)
5. Michael Dokes (17-0) vs. Alexander Povetkin (19-0)
6. Leroy Jones (24-1) vs. Chris Arreola (28-2)
7. Earnie Shavers (59-8-1) vs. Denis Boytsov (27-0)
8. Leon Spinks (8-2-1) vs. Nicolay Valuev (50-2)
9. Gerry Cooney (22-0) vs. Ruslan Chagaev (26-1-1)
10. Jimmy Young (25-9-2) vs. Oldanier Solis (16-0)

To give some background on where the 1980 guys were at this point. (Keep in mind the 1980 ratings were tallied at the end of March 1980 but didn't appear until the August 1980 issue -- because of printing lead times.)

So, at the time of the 1980 ratings:

Larry Holmes had just dominated and stopped the blubbery Leroy Jones in eight rounds. It was Holmes' sixth straight title defense and sixth straight knockout. His other defenses were one-sided defenses (sort of like the Klitschkos have been making) against the likes of Alfredo Evangelista, Lorenzo Zanon, Scott LeDoux and Ossie Ocasio. He won 10 of 11 rounds against Shavers (but he was nearly kayoed by one punch by Shavers in the seventh). The only defense he had that was competitive all the way through came against Weaver, who was a journeyman when he faced Holmes.

Mike Weaver had just knocked out John Tate to win the title, after losing 13 of the 14 rounds in the match. But Weaver was fighting at or near his peak at this point. Unfortunately, Holmes wouldn't give him a rematch until they were about 50 years old.

John Tate had just been knocked cold by Mike Weaver in the 15th round of their fight. He'd get knocked out again by Trevor Berbick in June and never be a top-10 contender again.

Gerrie Coetzee was coming off a 15-round decision loss to Tate for the vacant title and would knock out journeyman Mike Korankicki in one round just after the ratings were compiled. So he was still on the rise.

Michael Dokes would suffer the first "setback" in his career just after the ratings were compiled when he fought to a 10-round draw with contender Ossie Ocasio (14-1). So Dokes was still learning.

Leroy Jones was coming off a one-sided loss to Holmes. He'd fight once more in 1982 and retire.

Earnie Shavers had lost two in row (against Holmes and Mercado).

Leon Spinks (a former champ with only eight wins) had just fought to a 10-round draw with Eddie "The Animal" Lopez.

Gerry Cooney was on the rise.

Jimmy Young had 3 wins and 4 losses in his last 7 fights would be stopped by Gerry Cooney two months after these ratings came out.

Head-to-head, today's heavyweights don't look that bad in comparison.

I'd definitely take Vitali over Weaver, Haye over Tate, Valuev over Spinks, and Cooney over Chagaev. Maybe even Solis over Young (who was fading fast).

And if the Cubans and Soviet fighters from the 1968, 1972 and 1976 Olympics had been allowed to turn pro back then, there likely wouldn't have been as many Americans in 1980 as there were. Felix Savon probably would've been the champ ahead of Holmes.

Once those Soviet and Cuban fighters started turning pro, the pro ratings in the heavyweight division started to mirror the results in the amateur competitions.

All that said, I still don't think Vitali destroys Ken Norton, because Vitali has never defeated any as good as Norton, whereas Norton beat better guys than Vitali, and Vitali doesn't "destroy" anyone, particularly not guys on Norton's level.

But, I agree, that Americans used to dominate the sport because all the top amateurs weren't allowed to turn pro and compete.

I also believe fighters are born, not made. Football, baseball and basketball were all around when other American-born heavyweight champs reigned. And I don't recall any American champ, aside from Rocky Marciano (who was a good baseball player) competing at a high level in other sports. In fact, most of them sucked at other sports. So I don't think the best American fighters today are playing in the NFL or any of that crap.

I just don't think they took up the sport.

 

1) they are 12% of the population so it is not a far fetched conclusion that their league would be on average a little below that of the league made up of players culled from a pool 7 times bigger... a better yardstick is once the sport was integrated, how many of its stars were black americans... you know how many? a percentage that dwarfed their ratio in the country's general population

2) what are you on about, my fine fellow mick? This isnt some new-fangled scientific theory... its simple BREEDING, its been going on for 100s of years with animals and with people... you didnt need to know fuck all about natural selection or evolution to say "hmm, if I take my biggest strongest male slave and I have him mate with that sturdy, big hipped female slave over yonder, I'll probably get a bigger, stronger kid out of it and then I can either sell him for good money or I can keep him and get more work done here on the plantation because of him" ... people had been doing this animals and people for millenia before Charles Darwin was born... people created a species, the DOG all by themselves with no help from "On The Origin Of Species" by simple observation... "hey I want a dog with some athelticism and also a great sense of smell, why dont I breed that fast whippet with that nosy bloodhound?"

3) I picked it as it was 20 years ago, and the young men boxing at that time would have grown up during the last time that A) Boxing was hugely popular in the US, B) The salaries in team sports were finally catching up with it and C) because your theory of the Soviet collapse being the impetus for this renaissance is bogus to me because it neatly coincides with a total disregard for taking up the sport by the black American kids who had long dominated it

4) Stories of the corruption in boxing were compelling to audiences because THE SPORT WAS RELEVANT... it was hugely popular, shown on free TV all the time... even people who had NO INTEREST in boxing knew who the famous fighters were... Do you know how many Americans know who KELLY PAVLIK is? hardly anyone... now, picture this scenario: it's, say, May of 1986 and a white kid from Ohio defeats Marvelous Marvin Hagler to become the undisputed MIddleweight champion of the world, that kid becomes a household name overnight, hes on wheaties boxes, he is on commercials, he is on the late night talk shows, hes a SUPERSTAR, everyone knows him... Kelly Pavlik DID defeat Jermain Taylor to become the undisputed Middleweight champion of the world, the victory made it to the little info crawl at the bottom of ESPN Sportscenter... nobody batted an eyelash, they didnt care, it had ceased to even be slightly relevant... the truth is that boxing in the USA is about as popular right now as Hockey... the overwhelming majority of Americans have no idea who Vitali Klitschko is, they have never heard of even a highly visible loudmouth like Floyd Mayweather... my mother has never watched a boxing match in her life, but she knows who both Sugar Rays are, she knows who Joe Louis is, she knows who Roberto Duran and Marvin Hagler are, she knows who Jack Dempsey was, she wouldnt have a clue who even Roy Jones was, and Jones is seperated from Hagler and Leonard by only about 10 years... thats how quickly boxing fell off in this country... my late Grandfather had zero interest in sports (other than things like gymnastics and running) and he knew who Mickey Walker, Gene Tunney, Louis, Conn, Zale, LaMotta, Robinson were, he knew who Ali was, etc. ... he had no interest at all, never sought out the information but it was nonetheless provided to him by the vast amount of people here who avidly followed the sport... today you see the same thing with basketball and football players and some (though less than it used to be) baseball players... the average american, interested or not, knows that Lebron James is a basketball star, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are football stars, they know who A-Rod is... ask them to name a current boxer and they will say "Is Tyson still fighting?"
this is the reality, people say "Mayweather had 1.2 million PPV buys!!! Boxing is BIG!" which is horseshit, even adjusting for people having folks over to watch the fights , you are at best talking about 4 or 5 million people watching the event, or roughly the same amount of people who watch "The Young And The Restless" on daytime TV... can you name ONE CHARACTER on that show? I can't

 

I cracked up when I saw it:bears:

 

Here is a classic Jerry Quarry shaving cream commercial when he was at his peak.

Enjoy!

Karl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5-vapUmv3U&feature=player_embedded

 

Its sad to think of what happened to him in his last days, he was an articulate guy, good natured and capable of good analysis in the fights I have seen where he was working as a color man

 

It really is as he was a millionaire when he retired after the Norton fight, and he took that fight on only 10 days notice as he was in Hawaii in one of the properties he owned enjoying some partying with his wife Charlie as he was coming off of a hard win over Scrap Iron Johnson a few weeks before and he had hurt his hands in that fight bad.

He had a cushy gig with CBS, and as you indicated, he was very successful and well-liked. Some of the more notable fights he called were the professional debut of Sugar Ray Leonard, the John Conteh - Len Hutchins WBC Light Heavyweight Championship, Earnie Shavers - Howard Smith, several of Carlos Palomino's WBC title defenses, Victor Galindez - Richie Kates 2 WBA Light Heavyweight Title, and many of Roberto Duran's Lightweight title defenses.

I have heard two versions of why he lost that gig: 1. He demanded more money from CBS, they gave him a raise but he rejected it and then hired his ex-manager, Gil Clancy for the now open slot. 2. CBS did not renew his contract because he fought Lorenzo Zanon on ABC and the brass perceived this as a conflict of interest.

He was a great and likable fella that dabbled in acting, was a pitchman for Rise and Miller Lite, and owned lots of businesses. Unfortunately, Jerry made lousy business decisions, and all of his businesses, including a satellite TV service and bar, went belly up. Quarry also had a drinking problem and a bad gambling problem as well, and his third wife, Tina, told me that he was flat broke when they married in Vegas on a marker from one of the casinos he worked as a greeter and drink buyer for.

I have never heard a bad word about the guy as a person, some fighters did take issue with him going all out in the gym with inexperienced fighters, including Mike Weaver who broke a rib of his, and had he stayed in the broadcast booth and away from the ring, would still be around doing fights today on some network.

The second wife, Charlie, a former Miss Indiana winner who appeared with Elvis in several movies, dumped him and took most of his fortune and his real estate, and ran off with Eric Burdon of the Animals, and is still married to this day. Jerry was left holding the bag, and his life went downhill from there, once working as security for Three Dog Night.

I saw him in Vegas at his brother's fight with Tommy Morrison at the Hilton, but didn't approach him as he was signing for two people, but I did get to meet Emile Griffith that day, nicest and most humble champion I ever met.

 

another guy who is living a tragic later life in relative squalor

its fucked up what happens to these guys

 

:bears:
That's a class post...we need more old-school inside info like this. Quarry himself claimed to have never earned more than 750,000 USD, he also quit the ring once, supposedly to get away from a particular manager of his..can you shed any light on that Stinger? :dunno:

 

Cool post, cheers Stinger.

 

Good stuff Karl. Man, I had forgotten the broadcast gig.

 

Thanks, bro.

I know he left LA after the Ali return when his dad was co-manager along with himself, and called Gil Clancy and asked him to take him over. Charlie went through his money like a drunken G.I. on payday in the Phillipines, I know that much, and put Jerry up to the comeback fight against Zanon, where he won as Zanon was a china chin, but took a very bad beating in the process, and Jerry looked so bad, it was shocking to the viewers.

What made it all the more worse was the fight was televised on a huge showcase card on Saturday night on ABC with Leonard fighting first, then Duran, then Zarate vs. Davila, then Quarry with the main event being Ken Norton W15 Jimmy Young, but the NSAC said no way, Mr. Quarry, that's it for you in our state.

He had a very turbulent private life with family issues, an overbearing father who called the management and training shots, he had a slew of brothers and sisters, and a volatile first marriage and walked around and fought stressed out all of the time.

Leaving his father and the rest of his family for New York was the best thing he ever did, but his Pa went to his grave swearing he wasn't responsible for Jerry's condition as he wanted his son to buy a Texaco franchise, and build it up in So Cal, but Jerry was hell bent on moving forward with his fighting career.

Quarry fought Ellis with a broken vertebrae in his back suffered in a bar fight with his older brother, Jimmy, as his father insisted he take the fight for a hundred grand, and spent the next month after the fight in a full body cast. But I'm not sure he would have beaten Jimmy healthy, as Ellis was a counter-puncher like he was and would not stand and trade with him, he basically stunk Quarry out.

I don't know if he was the best heavyweight to never win the title, but he was certainly one of them.

Karl

 

.....the Texaco franchise would have made a LOT of sense.

I wonder how many fight-writers even know about the Texaco thing!!! I bet Bert Sugar doesn't....the useless motherf**ker!