The Measure of Greatness: Courage

By Boxing News - 12/08/2010 - Comments

Image: The Measure of Greatness: CourageBy John F McKenna: A fighter needs to possess not only great skill in the ring, but enormous courage. No matter how many people are rooting for a fighter, or how good his trainer is, he is all alone in the squared circle. He has to have the courage to get up off the canvas when he is getting his head handed to him. It’s easy to say but hard to do. We have all seen examples of fighters who have had total meltdowns in the ring. When King Levinski fought Joe Louis in 1935, he begged the referee to stop the fight in the first round, this before Louis had done any real damage to him. Granted, Louis had the aura of invincibility about him that has not been seen before or since. Many of his opponents were beaten before ever getting into the ring.

Much more recently, in December of 2009 Kevin “The Kingpin” Johnson fought Vitali Klitschko for the heavyweight title. “The Kingpin” showed absolutely no offense, or courage in the fight, being content to hide behind his left shoulder in a defensive posture during the 12 round “snoozefest”. This after all the trash talking Johnson had done about what a shame it was that he was going to have to take Vitali’s title away from him right before Christmas. Evidently the Kingpin’s courage evaporated once he got into the ring with Klitschko. Vitali won all twelve rounds while Kevin was content only to survive.

Audley Harrison’s lack of courage in his recent fight with David Haye was disgusting to the extreme. For the good of the sport and to maintain any kind of credibility, fighters who put on this type of performance should not get paid.

Fights have been won and titles saved on courage alone. When Ezzard Charles fought Rocky Marciano for the Heavyweight Championship on September 17, 1954, Rocky was on the verge of losing his title after Charles opened a huge gash down the middle of Rocky’s nose. The referee came over to look at Rocky between the 7th and 8th rounds to assess the damage and was planning to stop the fight. Rocky begged for just one more round. That was all Rocky needed. He KO’d Charles in the next round. Marciano’s courage and mental toughness was the determining factor in many of his victories. Rocky was 5’10”, his reach was 68 inches (shortest of any heavyweight Champion), he weighed 187 lbs and he had two left feet. Surely he did not achieve his greatness through natural ability. Courage and mental toughness catapulted him to the Heavyweight Title. He frequently told his manager Al Weil that he would “Beat anyone you put in front of me.” Rocky believed this to his core and it was what made him a great fighter. He retired undefeated in 1956 with a record of 49 wins and 0 defeats. The only champion to retire and stay retired with an unblemished record.

Every boxing fan knows what a great fighter Sugar Ray Robinson was. He was Perhaps the greatest pound for pound fighter who ever lived. He could not have achieved what he did without tremendous courage. It is my belief that he displayed his greatest act of courage in a losing effort. He won the Welterweight Championship in 1946 and moved up to the middleweight division to take the title away from Jake Lamotta on February 14, 1951. The fight with Lamotta is regarded by many boxing historians as the greatest fight of all time. The fight is referred to as the St.Valentines’s Day massacre and can be viewed on You Tube (Robinson vs Lamotta 6). The “Bronx Bull” was stopped by a TKO in that fight, although he maintained his record of having never been knocked down. Robert Diniro would play Lamotta’s life story in the 1980 film classic, “Raging Bull”. Lamotta would take his show on the road after his retirement to do a stand up comedy routine, in which he maintained that he had never been knocked down in his career. That claim is bogus. Jake was knocked down in the seventh round by up and coming Danny Nardico in an ill fated attempt by Jake to step up to the light heavyweight division. Lamotta’s corner would not let him come out for the 8th round (Jake Lamotta vs Danny Nardico – You Tube). Sugar Ray would also move up in class to challenge Light Heavyweight Champion Joey Maxim for the title on June 25, 1952. On an incredibly hot and humid evening at Yankee Stadium, a night in which referee Ruby Goldstein would collapse from the heat and have to be replaced by referee Ray Miller, Robinson would win 11 out of 13 rounds, only to collapse from heat exhaustion after the 13th round. Sugar Ray gave everything he had to give. It was literally a near death experience for Robinson who took months to recover from the ordeal. He would retire for the first time after the Maxim fight. Even though he would fight on for another decade when he returned to the ring 2 and a half years later and would continue to win and lose the Middleweight Championship, the great Sugar Ray Robinson was no more. He had lost the greatness that had set him apart from other fighters. After losing to Maxim, Robinson was still a very good fighter, but no longer the dominant fighter he had been in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. Two of Sugar Ray’s opponents would succumb to injuries they suffered in their fights with him during that era.

When speaking of courage in the ring, the classic fight which will be known for all time as “The Thrilla in Manila” comes to mind. The fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier lived up to all the advanced hype, with each fighter attempting to inflict his will on the other fighter. What was at stake for each fighter was enormous. Smokin’ Joe had won a 15 round decision over Ali scoring a knockdown in the last round.
This writer scored it 11 rounds to 4 for Frazier. No wishful thinking here. I was pulling for Ali to win, but realized that he had been outclassed. Ali won the 2nd fight handily although the rematch did not measure up to their first encounter. Frazier had lost the title to George Foreman, while Ali was still attempting to regain his pre exile form. He could never figure out Ken Norton’s awkward style, a fighter that both George Foreman and Gerry Cooney easily demolished. Both Ali and Frazier would train extremely hard for the third fight. Ali was the Heavyweight Champion again after his KO of George Foreman in Zaire. Frazier took it personally when Ali would refer to him as the gorilla he would destroy in Manila. The fight would go into the later rounds with neither fighter having the upper hand as one fighter, than the other would seemingly be on the verge of pulling out a victory. Ali would later refer to the fight as the closest thing to death that he had ever experienced. He was not kidding. When he collapsed in the middle of the ring after Frazier was unable to answer the bell for the 15th round, it was not drama on Ali’s part. He was experiencing what Robinson had when he collapsed in his fight with Joey Maxim. Sheer exhaustion with nothing left to give. Although I was pulling for Ali in that fight, by the time the 14th round came around, I did not want to see either fighter lose. Watching Frazier in his corner at the end of the 14th round, unable to see and unable to continue, I knew what so many other boxing fans knew. We were watching the greatest fight we would ever witness. Many hardcore boxing fans would weep at the greatness of the spectacle they had just witnessed. The fight was that profound.

Frazier’s trainer, the late great Eddie Futch did what in my view is the primary responsibility of a good trainer. He protected his fighter by refusing to allow him to go out for the 15th round, consoling his fighter by telling him that “no one will ever forget what you did here tonight son.”

No current fighter exhibits more courage than Manny Pacquaio. He routinely beats fighters that tower over him and are larger physically than he is. He beats them not by stealing the fight, but by totally dismantling his opponents. What is there not to like about this guy? He is the ultimate warrior who gives of himself in every fight. After all, that is what fight fans want, a fighter who gives of himself in every fight and exhibits huge courage while doing so. Manny is a throwback to the great fighters of the past.

It is not enough for a fighter to have all the qualities that a great fighter must possess. He must also be willing to fight whoever is out there to prove to the world that he is the best fighter. Jive talking and media hype won’t get it done. It is not for a fighter to judge his own greatness, but for his contemporaries, boxing pundits and ultimately the fans.



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