Oh for the humor of yesteryear

By James Blears

There are safecrackers who open the box and take ALL the money, also wisecrackers who emit snappy one liners to garner all the laughs, of which there used to be aplenty in the Golden Era of Boxing, but not so many now?

Perhaps hard times tend to throw up hard minds.  Back in the good old days, when characters fought so hard for their daily crust on the cusp, the humor was deft and daft.

On the wrong side of a battering, when the Referee asked Willie Pastrano if he knew where he was, the croaking replay was: “You`re damn right I do. I`m in Madison Square Garden getting the shit knocked out of me.”

Willie felt much more at home with his own kind: “I look at ordinary people in their suits. Them with no scars…and  I`m different. I don`t fit in with them. I`m  where everyone got scar tissue on their eyes and got noses like saddles.  They talk like me. Like they got rocks in their throats….beautiful!”

Nowadays there`s an inordinate amount of pre fight sap, snap and snarl plus naughty, haughty banter, but… sadly minus the rib ticklers of a bygone era.  Two Ton Tony Galento, so nicknamed not because he was really fat, but: “I`m late because I had two tons of ice to deliver on my way here.”  One erudite/smart arsed reporter asked Tony: “Hey Tone, what do you think of William Shakespeare.”  To which Tony snarled: “I hate those foreign heavyweights.” Asked about what he thought of Joe Louis, who was his next opponent, the man who trained at night, because he fought at night, didn`t bat an eyelash in asking: “Joe who?”

And while we`re on the subject of fat, let`s not judge too harshly. Comedian Jackie Gleason who didn`t recognize cigar chomping heckler Two Ton Tony at the Bucket of Blood Club in New Jersey and was KO`d by that trademark left hook, after inviting him outside, had a soft spot for tubby people.  He enthused: “Thin people are beautiful…but fat people are adorable.”

Let`s not knock the petulant portals of journalism, which can provide some aromatic/ pungent brickbat garlands. As Jimmy Cannon who often kicked off with: “Nobody asked me but,” sweetly observed: “Rocky Marciano stood out like a rose in a garbage dump.”

Sonny Liston growled: “Newspapermen ask dumb questions. They look up at the sun and ask if it`s shining.”  Which brings us to Muhammad Ali, who was witty, brilliant and sometimes engagingly cruel.

“If you want to lose your money, then bet on Sonny.” And: “Yes the crowd did not dream when they laid down their money, they would see a total eclipse of the Sonny!” Because: “It`s hard to be humble when you`re as great as I am!”

“The Bayonne Bleeder” Chuck Wepner, who  was cut down to size by Ali, yet even more brutally by Sonny Liston, altering  his high cheekbone structure, remembers: “I was six feet one inches when I started boxing, but with all the uppercuts I`m up to six feet five inches.”

You could write a book about Willie Pep quotes. My favorite from the man who referred to himself as  ounce for ounce the best, while Sugar Ray Robinson was pound for pound the best, recounts an occasion when a guy asked  if he remembered  him?  “Willie the Wisp,” looked hard and considered before finally answering: “Lie down so I can recognize you.”

Promoter Micky Duff matched: “The Dashing, Crashing, Bashing Paddington Express” Terry Downes against the formidable Richard Ihetu, better known as Dick Tiger.  Terry expletively remembered: “fxxxing hell, they`ve put me in with a giant. Then I realized I was flat on my back looking up!”  Terry was saved after five blistering rounds. Afterwards, an unsympathetic reporter asked badly cut up Terry, who he wanted to take on next. To which Terry instantly replied: “The fuxxer who made this fight!”

And more tongue in cheek jabs at his financially savvy manager Sam Burns, by saying: “He didn`t know a left hook from a meat hook.”

Thank goodness that nowadays the purses for the superstars of boxing are generously stratospheric and most of those talented few are  lucky enough, to hold on to them…after tax, if they`ve hired an accountant.   But there are still and always will be the rags to riches stories which can reverse themselves.  High rolling squandering is not just confined to boxing.  Great Manchester United winger George Best candidly came up with the: “No je ne regrette rien” own goal, by languidly reflecting: “I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered.”

Today, there just doesn`t seem to be the same smattering of battering around, or round per round.  Yet just occasionally the sun momentarily breaks through Rather  more recently excellent and talented reporter Sergio Abarca  Levetty , who has the hairstyle of a silver fox, was asking his tocayo/namesake Sergio “Yeyo” Thompson, some searching questions, to which the fighter grinned: “Hey what`s up with you mapache/raccoon?”

Perhaps it`s not fair to rub it in.  As famous trainer Charlie Goldman concluded: “Good fighters don’t need a massage and bad fighters don’t deserve it.”