{"id":32425,"date":"2020-05-28T23:03:04","date_gmt":"2020-05-28T23:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wbcboxing.com\/oh-por-el-humor-de-antano\/"},"modified":"2020-05-28T23:06:42","modified_gmt":"2020-05-28T23:06:42","slug":"oh-for-the-humor-of-yesteryear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wbcboxing.com\/en\/oh-for-the-humor-of-yesteryear\/","title":{"rendered":"Oh for the humor of yesteryear"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oh for the humor of yesteryear<\/strong><\/h2>\n

By James Blears<\/p>\n

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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?<\/p>\n

Perhaps hard times tend to throw up hard minds.\u00a0 Back in the good old days, when characters fought so hard for their daily crust on the cusp, the humor was deft and daft.<\/p>\n

On the wrong side of a battering, when the Referee asked Willie Pastrano if he knew where he was, the croaking replay was: \u201cYou`re damn right I do. I`m in Madison Square Garden getting the shit knocked out of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Willie felt much more at home with his own kind: \u201cI look at ordinary people in their suits. Them with no scars\u2026and\u00a0 I`m different. I don`t fit in with them. I`m \u00a0where everyone got scar tissue on their eyes and got noses like saddles.\u00a0 They talk like me. Like they got rocks in their throats\u2026.beautiful!\u201d<\/p>\n

Nowadays there`s an inordinate amount of pre fight sap, snap and snarl plus naughty, haughty banter, but\u2026 sadly minus the rib ticklers of a bygone era.\u00a0 Two Ton Tony Galento, so nicknamed not because he was really fat, but: \u201cI`m late because I had two tons of ice to deliver on my way here.\u201d\u00a0 One erudite\/smart arsed reporter asked Tony: \u201cHey Tone, what do you think of William Shakespeare.\u201d\u00a0 To which Tony snarled: \u201cI hate those foreign heavyweights.\u201d 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: \u201cJoe who?\u201d<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 He enthused: \u201cThin people are beautiful\u2026but fat people are adorable.\u201d<\/p>\n

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: \u201cNobody asked me but,\u201d sweetly observed: \u201cRocky Marciano stood out like a rose in a garbage dump.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sonny Liston growled: \u201cNewspapermen ask dumb questions. They look up at the sun and ask if it`s shining.\u201d\u00a0 Which brings us to Muhammad Ali, who was witty, brilliant and sometimes engagingly cruel.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to lose your money, then bet on Sonny.\u201d And: \u201cYes the crowd did not dream when they laid down their money, they would see a total eclipse of the Sonny!\u201d Because: \u201cIt`s hard to be humble when you`re as great as I am!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bayonne Bleeder\u201d Chuck Wepner, who \u00a0was cut down to size by Ali, yet even more brutally by Sonny Liston, altering \u00a0his high cheekbone structure, remembers: \u201cI was six feet one inches when I started boxing, but with all the uppercuts I`m up to six feet five inches.\u201d<\/p>\n

You could write a book about Willie Pep quotes. My favorite from the man who referred to himself as \u00a0ounce for ounce the best, while Sugar Ray Robinson was pound for pound the best, recounts an occasion when a guy asked \u00a0if he remembered\u00a0 him?\u00a0 \u201cWillie the Wisp,\u201d looked hard and considered before finally answering: \u201cLie down so I can recognize you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Promoter Micky Duff matched: \u201cThe Dashing, Crashing, Bashing Paddington Express\u201d Terry Downes against the formidable Richard Ihetu, better known as Dick Tiger.\u00a0 Terry expletively remembered: \u201cfxxxing hell, they`ve put me in with a giant. Then I realized I was flat on my back looking up!\u201d \u00a0Terry 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: \u201cThe fuxxer who made this fight!\u201d<\/p>\n

And more tongue in cheek jabs at his financially savvy manager Sam Burns, by saying: \u201cHe didn`t know a left hook from a meat hook.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thank goodness that nowadays the purses for the superstars of boxing are generously stratospheric and most of those talented few are\u00a0 lucky enough, to hold on to them\u2026after tax, if they`ve hired an accountant. \u00a0\u00a0But there are still and always will be the rags to riches stories which can reverse themselves.\u00a0 High rolling squandering is not just confined to boxing.\u00a0 Great Manchester United winger George Best candidly came up with the: \u201cNo je ne regrette rien\u201d own goal, by languidly reflecting: \u201cI spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, there just doesn`t seem to be the same smattering of battering around, or round per round.\u00a0 Yet just occasionally the sun momentarily breaks through Rather \u00a0more recently excellent and talented reporter Sergio Abarca\u00a0 Levetty , who has the hairstyle of a silver fox, was asking his tocayo\/namesake Sergio \u201cYeyo\u201d Thompson, some searching questions, to which the fighter grinned: \u201cHey what`s up with you mapache\/raccoon?\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps it`s not fair to rub it in.\u00a0 As famous trainer Charlie Goldman concluded: \u201cGood fighters don\u2019t need a massage and bad fighters don\u2019t deserve it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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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 [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n

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