THIS is Rafael's Fight of the Year?

Evidently Brother Dan and I have a very different idea of what constitutes a good fight. He seems to think it involves two borderline retards in pillow-sized gloves throwing off-balance haymakers at each other and connecting once every six tries with punches that have no pop on them because their authors aren't punching so much as just standing there flatfooted and waving their arms around.

And get a load of this shit: "While the fight doesn't quite reach the threshold of greatness achieved by the 2005 first battle between lightweights Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo, it's pretty close. And we rate it ahead of the first Erik Morales-Marco Antonio Barrera war and the first Micky Ward-Arturo Gatti slugfest."

WTF? I mean, WTFF? Does he think we're going to be impressed because he came up with this obscure shitty fight from France as his FOY?

Personally, I've never had any beef with Rafael. He's an average writer at best, and always seemed to me like your above-average dork of fistiana who's never hit a bag a day in his life but has a closetful of Kid Gavilan videos, a stats freak, whatever. But this... this gives me pause about the dude.

Above is the first installment of four on YouTube that give you the fight in its entirety. I openly admit that I only got through the first three rounds. It's just so boring, but maybe it gets better, maybe later on you see the "raw, unvarnished, jaw-dropping brutality" that Rafael loves so much. If you do watch the whole thing, let me know. For what I saw, these two cats (their names, by the way, are Somsak Sithchatchawal and Mahyar Monshipour) are not elite athletes and have next to no boxing skills of any kind. Personally I think I-berg could handle either one of them, and I'm quite sure that I saw twenty fights this year more entertaining than this one.

Sithchatchawal-Monshipour fight best of year (ESPN.com)

It was on in Lyon

On December 31st, 1990, the Ali/Frazier chess rivalry of the 20th century saw its last title bout in Lyon, France, as Garry Kasparov narrowly squeaked by Anatoly Karpov, 12.5 - 11.5 to remain the FIDE world champion. It was their fifth career showdown for the crown, and the two foes would never meet for the world championship again.

Karpov was one of the great prodigies of the 70's and held the world championship from 1975 to 1985. He was initially awarded the world championship by FIDE after then-champion Bobby Fischer refused to play him for the title because FIDE would not meet the eccentric Fischer's laundry list of demands concerning the match.

Kasparov and Karpov first played for the world title in 1984, when Kasparov was only 21 years old. The match ended in controversy when it was stopped by FIDE president Florencio Campomanes after 48 exhausting games. Karpov was ahead 5-3, but Kasparov was surging, having won the 47th and 48th games. As the reason for the stoppage, Campomanes cited the health strain the games had made on the two players, when it was clearly only Karpov, the popular champion, who was suffering from the strain. Most agreed the stoppage was to save Karpov's crown.

Nothing could save him, however, the following year, when Kasparov, then 22, became the youngest FIDE champion ever by beating Karpov 13-11 in a taut contest. Kasparov won another nail-biter, 12.5-11.5, in 1986, and then the two drew, 12-12, in 1987. The '87 match is remembered for its dramatic finish, with Kasparov needing the full point in the last game to retain his title and managing the win on an historic blunder by Karpov.

The two met again for the world championship in 1990, with 12 games held in New York and then the final 12 in Lyon. When they left New York for France, the match was all squared at six points apiece. Kasparov got the decisive win in the 16th game, the margin by which he would retain his title with another 12.5-11.5 victory.

Since that match ended 16 years ago today, these two chess legends have remained fierce rivals, but have never again played for the world title, largely due to the fact that Kasparov broke from FIDE in 1993. In their 235 official matches to date, Kasparov holds the edge at 33 wins, 23 losses, with an amazing 179 draws between them.

Great-zky

Of all of Wayne Gretzky's records - and there are a shitload of them - but of them all, the one that may never ever be broken was set on this day 25 years ago in positively shocking fashion.

The Great One, only 20 years old at the time and already a two-time winner of the Hart Trophy, was well on his way to 50 goals in 50 games in the '81-'82 season when he erupted for four goals in his 38th game, putting him just five shy of 50 with 12 games to play. It was a fait accompli for sure, and yet no one expected what would actually happen, which is that Gretzky would pour in five goals against the Flyers in his very next game, December 30, 1981, to set a mark that will probably stand until the end of time - 50 goals in 39 games.

Just the season before Mike Bossy had become the first player to match Maurice Richard's record from the 1944-45 season of 50 goals in 50 games, a feat that many had thought was impossible in the first place. So for Gretzky to waltz in and do it in 39 games (39 games!... think about that) was just unfathomabo.

Below is a YouTube recap of the record including all of the goals against the Flyers. As an aside for all you Uniwatch fanatics out there and just the rest of our astute No Masian faithful, I'm sure the Flyers leg-wear will not go unremarked upon.

Tyson drives drunk and does blow

Is this news to anyone? I mean, seriously - at this point, doesn't it seem like drunk-driving and cocaine possessing should be legal for our boy Mike given the circumstances? The man is coping as best he can. Shit hasn't exactly gone his way for the last, oh, sixteen years or so.

Tyson arrested on DUI, cocaine possession charges (ESPN.com)

The No Mas Week in Review

12/25
No Mas Book Review - "Tunney"
A Large review of the new bio about the boxing intellectual who twice outpointed Jack Dempsey.

12/26
The Shot Heard Round the World
The anniversary of Jack Johnson defeating Tommy Burns in 1908 to become the first ever black heavyweight champion of the world. "In the 14th, Johnson wearied of clowning and stepped up his attack on Burns with an intent towards ending the fight. The beating he administered was so severe that the police stepped in to stop the contest. Burns was mercifully spared any more punishment, and Jack Johnson was the new heavyweight champion of the world."

Take it back, doo doo doo doo
Large reviews Rocky Balboa. You will perhaps be less than surprised to learn that he likes it.

12/27
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
Lot of infidelity going on down in Philly with their superstars these days. First A.I. sent packing and now we're cheating on DMac? "Our All-World quarterback is on the schneid and suddenly we are goo-goo-eyed, seeing-stars, is that a sausage in your pants or are you just glad to see me in LOVE with a full-on ham-and-egger named Jeff Garcia."

12/28
Game of the Century
The anniversary of the greatest NFL game ever played, the 1958 Championship Game between the Giants and the Colts.

12/29
The No Mas Fight and Fighter of the Year
No Mas gives mad respect to our fight of the year, Pacquiao/Morales II, and our fighter of the year, the living Rocky himself, Carlos Baldomir. "...before 2006, Carlos Baldomir was next to nothing in the fight game, and he may return to that status in the coming year. Nevertheless, we fight fans will remember his name for a long long time, and that is solely because of two bouts in 2006 when he shocked the world."

Last of the player-umpires

Ken Burkhart, a former major leaguer and then a longtime ump in the bigs, died on this day two years ago at the age of 89. He was the last of a dying breed - the major league umpire who had also played major league baseball.

Burkhart was a promising pitcher when he came up with the Cardinals in 1945, and he proved himself instantly by going 18-8 with a 2.90 ERA. Unfortunately, he began having arm troubles that year that would prematurely end his career. Over the next four years, he worked mostly from the bullpen, and left the game at the end of the 1949 season.

He got back to the bigs almost immediately as an umpire and had a distinguished career in blue, working three World Series and four All-Star games.

As an ump, he forever will be remembered for two things. He worked back-to-back no-hitters in September of 1968, first on the 17th when Giant Gaylord Perry blanked the Cardinals, and then the very next day when Ray Washburn of the Cards returned the favor to San Fran.

But unfortunately for Burkhart, his most famous moment was one of infamy. On a bang-bang play in Game One of the 1970 World Series, he got caught up between Orioles' catcher Ellie Hendricks and the Reds' Bernie Carbo, who was sliding into home plate. Burkhart was knocked to the ground when Hendricks dove to make a tag on Carbo. Clearly out of position, he called Carbo out, but replays showed that Hendricks had tagged him with an empty glove. It was the sixth inning, and the score was tied 3-3. The Orioles went on to win the game 4-3, and then the Series in five games. A much loved and respected figure throughout baseball, Ken Burkhart was never much welcome in Cincinnati after that.

The No Mas Fight and Fighter of the Year

NO MAS FIGHT OF THE YEAR
Manny Pacquiao v. Erik Morales
WBC Super Featherweight Title
January 21, 2006
Thomas and Mack Center, Las Vegas

We watched this fight again last week on HBO and it left no doubt in our minds that this was the Fight of the Year. The handspeed, the rapid-fire combinations, the power, and the will on display in this showdown were simply beyond belief. It featured two of the best and most exciting fighters of this era, one of them an aging Mexican legend, and one a rising Filipino superstar, both household names in the boxing world. The legend, Morales, gave it all he had, and led the bout early on the strength of his indefatigable jab and some courageous toe-to-toe pounding. But he lost steam in the middle rounds, at which point Pac Man avenged his only loss of the millennium by handing Morales the first legitimate knockdown of his career, and then his first stoppage with a tenth-round TKO. If we were awarding a No Mas Round of the Year, it would have been a tie, rounds two and six from this bout, in each of which either one of the principals could have been knocked out if he were a lesser man. In the end, it was a punishing fight with two distinct chapters, it was the second leg of an historic trilogy, and it was the beginning of the end for one great warrior, and the beginning of the next phase of mega-stardom for another. For all of these reasons, it is the No Mas Fight of the Year by unanimous decision.

NO MAS FIGHTER OF THE YEAR
Carlos Baldomir

Pacquiao is the obvious choice for Fighter of the Year, and trust us, we have no problem with Pac Man winning that honor from Rafael at ESPN, from SI, and probably from The Ring. But the No Mas Fighter of the Year is Carlos Baldomir. Think of it this way - if you take 2006 away from Pacquiao, what do you have? Still one of the most electrifying, most talented and most recognizable athletes in the sport, still someone who does great PPV numbers every time he laces up his gloves, still someone shaping up to be one of the all-time greats. But before 2006, Carlos Baldomir was next to nothing in the fight game, and he may return to that status in the coming year. Nevertheless, we fight fans will remember his name for a long long time, and that is solely because of two bouts in 2006 when he shocked the world. We all love the Rocky movies, but in our hearts we also know they're a modern fantasy, a Cinderella cartoon of sport. And yet for ten months of this year, Carlos Baldomir was the real deal, Rocky come to life, an Argentinian hack with slow feet and next to no skills, with nothing really but an incredibly hard head and the will of a rhinoceros. On that alone, he went from retired feather duster and human punching bag to welterweight champion of the world and a huge payday against Floyd Mayweather. Of course, Floyd pantsed him - after all, this ain't Hollywood. But still, what a run, what a year, what a story. It's the kind of thing we live for in boxing, a genuine triumph of the spirit, and with that in mind, we are proud to call Carlos Baldomir the No Mas Fighter of the Year.

Game of the Century

On December 28, 1958, the Colts met the Giants in the NFL Championship Game at Yankee Stadium. In a rare occasion, NBC televised the game nationally, a fact that changed the future of the sport and turned Johnny Unitas into an instant legend. Forty-eight years later, this showdown is still referred to as "the greatest game ever played," and cited as the beginning of pro football's boom in popularity.

The game also features prominently in Frederick Exley's epic tale of personal dissolution, A Fan's Notes, a memoir/novel that, although it is far more than a football book, still may be the best football book ever written. The narrator is obsessed with Frank Gifford, and identifies his own fortunes with the Giants' star to the point of insanity.

Of course, this particular game devastates Exley's drunken hero, as two Gifford fumbles figure prominently in the outcome, allowing the Colts to score their two first-half touchdowns.

Down 14-3 at the half, however, the Giants staged a comeback, scoring a touchdown in the third and then another in the fourth quarter (on a Gifford reception). With two minutes to go, New York led by a field goal, and the Colts had the ball on their own 14-yard-line.

That's when Johnny U. went to work on becoming a household name. He deftly led the Colts down the field, connecting three times to his favorite target Raymond Berry to set up a game-tying field goal with seven seconds remaining.

In what was the first sudden death overtime in NFL history, the Giants punted on their first possession and Johnny U. and crew took over at their own 20. Once again, Unitas marched Baltimore down the field, an eighty-yard scoring drive capped off by a one-yard touchdown run by Alan Ameche. The Colts had their first of two consecutive NFL Championship victories over the Giants, although the 1959 affair would be a 31-16 romp, breaking the hearts of Giants' fans like Exley once again.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

You know when you're after some really hot chick for a long time and then you finally get her and you're strutting around all "I am a mack yo a straight-up PLAYA f'real." And then everywhere you go it's like you're carrying around a baseball card of your girlfriend on your arm with All-Star emblazoned across the top. That's what it feels like right there. It's like you have a living All-Star card for a girlfriend.

But then somewhere along the line you realize that for all her obvious All-Star qualities, she's just not doing it for you anymore. It takes a long time for that to sink in. It's hard to admit it to yourself. You meet some not-so-hot paralegal at the bar one night and she presses your buttons and you realize, hey, maybe I don't need an All-Star at girlfriend... maybe what this team needs is a ham-and-egger at the girlfriend position, someone to get in there and muck it up a little, show a little emotion.

It's hard, though, because you got yourself an ALL-STAR yo! You gonna just put her back on the market like that? Some macklicious team will snatch that shit up in a second and then how will you feel?

This is what kind of winter we've been having over here in Philly. First A.I., the flashy chick that's been wrong for us for years but we just kept dating her because damn she is fine... finally, we broke that shit off, and it was the right thing to do, but seeing the man in that fly Nuggets jersey, and just the idea that he and Carmelo might go get a ring... it's tough yo, very very tough.

And now, NOW, we're having an affair behind one of our superstar's back and it feels so right but I'm telling you the guilt is killing us. Our All-World quarterback is on the schneid and suddenly we are goo-goo-eyed, seeing-stars, is that a sausage in your pants or are you just glad to see me in LOVE with a full-on ham-and-egger named Jeff Garcia.

You can hear the shame in people's voices on WIP. They don't want to say it, they're not ready to make the full break yet, but it's in the air: Donovan you are crazy fine, no one is finer... you got all the tools, you got that megawatt smile, you are the next generation QB I know, but yo... yo we think you might be all wrong for us Donovan... we're seeing someone else... we think we might be in love... aw don't cry now... damn DMac this is hard on us too!

Take it back, doo doo doo doo...

I saw Rocky Balboa today with my mom and my girlfriend in a theater just outside of Philly. It was the 2:35 matinee and the place, a veritable airplane hangar of a movie theater, was packed to capacity. Up in the Illadelph, I swear, it's like the man never went away.

I remember we had Antonio Tarver (the former light heavyweight champ who stars in the movie as Mason Dixon) on Classic Now last year just after they'd finished shooting the film. He talked to our host, Josh Elliott, about the movie off camera, and he seemed really proud of it in a way that made me think it was going to be good. And this was at a time when the Geritol Rocky jokes were flying left and right on the tube. I wrote a few of them myself, believe me.

All jokes aside, though, I couldn't wait to see this thing, and given the reviews going in, I was prepared for it to be decent, better at least than Rockys IV and V, which as we all know were travesties. I was hoping for something that ranked with Rocky III, and in fact, I came away thinking it's a little bit better than that movie, in a minor-key sort of way. Tarver is no Clubber Lang, but hey, who is right?

One of the things you're going to dig if you're a Rocky fan is how referential Rocky Balboa is to the first movie. I don't want to spoil too much of the plot, so on that front I'll just leave you with two words - "Spider Rico" - which should say it all.

The movie also does an excellent job of capturing the pathos of the ex-athlete. In this film, the Rock owns his own restaurant in South Philly (where, as Paulie points out, "a bunch of Mexicans cook Italian food") and he spends his nights there working the floor, taking the obligatory pictures, telling the obligatory stories. He's still a hero in the eyes of his clientele, and yet long past that point in his own eyes, now just a working man trading on his past.

At that level, the success of the whole Rocky enterprise lives and dies with Stallone's performance, and in this outing he's right on the mark. Whatever you think of the guy and his whole Rocky/Rambo universe, he's got this one character down perfectly with all the right touches of tragicomic earnestness and punchy insouciance. He breathes real life into the Rock for one last go-round and finishes the story with the quiet dignity it deserves. Also, Philly is once again a living character in the movie, and you know I raise my glass to that. So the No Mas card reads 8 out of 10 boxing gloves for the Rock, a winner by unanimous decision.

Rocky Balboa
In wide release
Rated PG
Starring - Sylvester Stallone, Antonio Tarver, Burt Young

The Shot Heard Round the World

Other than perhaps Joe Louis's first-round KO of Max Schmeling in their 1938 rematch, there is probably no one fight in history with as much cultural significance as the one that took place 98 years ago today in Sydney, Australia. It was there that Jack Johnson, the Galveston Giant, finally got his shot at the heavyweight title, becoming the first black man to vie for that crown and, after stopping Tommy Burns in the 14th round, the first black man to win it. The impact of that victory would continue to be felt throughout the rest of the 20th century.

Johnson had been arguably the best heavyweight in the world for at least five years, but at the time, letting a black boxer fight for the heavyweight belt was considered tantamount to the most diabolical treason against the white race. No upstanding white champion would dare cross that color barrier, least of all the mighty Jim Jeffries, who held the title until he retired undefeated in 1905.

After Jeffries' abdication of the throne, a bout was held for the vacant title between two uninspired duffers of the heavyweight ranks - Marvin Hart and Jack Root. Hart won that contest with a 12th-round stoppage and Jeffries himself was on hand to anoint him the new heavyweight champ. A year later, Burns, a scrappy, 5'7" battler who fought out of Detroit, defeated Hart and became the lineal champion.

For the next two years, Johnson would pursue Burns around the world, ultimately shaming him into becoming the first heavyweight champion ever to grant a black man a shot at his title. Over the course of 14 rounds, Johnson battered the much-smaller Burns, all the while laughing and joking with the audience, as was his style when he was not being tested in the ring, which he rarely was. In the 14th, Johnson wearied of clowning and stepped up his attack on Burns with an intent towards ending the fight. The beating he administered was so severe that the police stepped in to stop the contest. Burns was mercifully spared any more punishment, and Jack Johnson was the new heavyweight champion of the world.

The world would never quite be the same again. To get the proper respect for Johnson and his awesome influence on the American landscape, I can't recommend enough Geoffrey Ward's Unforgivable Blackness, the companion book to the Ken Burns series on PBS. It's the best boxing book you'll ever read about the turn-of-the-century era, the inherent racism that tainted boxing as it tainted everything, and the rampant corruption that made the sport the nationwide province of outlaws and hucksters. It's also a detailed and intimate portrait of the most outrageous, controversial, and courageous athlete of the 20th century.

No Mas Book Review - "Tunney"

Merry merry, fight fans. If you’re a follower of the fistic arts and happen to find yourself holding a little extra holiday coin these days or one of those inevitable Barnes and Noble gift cards, you could do worse for yourself than to blow it on Jack Cavanaugh’s new biography of Gene Tunney, titled “Tunney: Boxing’s Brainiest Champ and His Upset of the Great Jack Dempsey.” It’s a strange book, ultimately unsatisfying, but still a relatively quick and engaging read.

As for its strangeness, the first thing you should know about the book is that to characterize it as a Gene Tunney biography is misleading. The subtitle is closer to the mark, because the book is as much about Dempsey as it is about Tunney. But for a good two thirds of the way through, it’s not really about either of them, or it is, but only in so far as you find them in the midst of a mishmash of boxing stories told in a rambling anecdotal style that often has little rhyme or reason. A description of Dempsey’s early days as a fighter in Colorado leads to a description of the corruption in boxing in the early part of the century which leads to a chronological history of Italian heavyweight Primo Carnera, a titlist in the 30’s known for winning fixed bouts. These types of illogical leaps and sidebars occur everywhere until Cavanaugh reaches the two Dempsey/Tunney fights, at which point he focuses and the story goes from meandering to gripping.

But Cavanaugh is an able boxing yarn-spinner, so even when he strays far off message (almost an entire chapter, for instance, devoted to the trials and tribulations of Battling Levinsky, who Tunney beat for the American light heavyweight title), he is entertaining and does a sound job of bringing the era to life. Which is gratifying for the true fight fan, because this is the golden era of the sweet science. The characters he’s dealing with – Levinsky, Harry Greb, Tex Rickard, Leo Flynn, Doc Kearns, Damon Runyan, Grantland Rice – are some of the biggest and most colorful the sport has ever produced.

Unfortunately, in the midst of this Dickensian cast, the main character gets short shrift, which is disappointing. I’ve always been fascinated by the Tunney myth – fighter as thinker, thinker as fighter – and I was eager for an intimate portrait of the man who twice tamed the true Man Killer of the Gilded Age and in between the two bouts took time off to give a Shakespeare lecture at Yale.

Clearly Cavanaugh is as taken with that myth as I am, and yet he doesn’t penetrate it in the slightest, such that if you know the thumbnail sketch of Tunney’s life going in – fighting Marine, smart, read a lot, a great fighter who beat Dempsey twice, married an heiress and retired young – you aren’t bound to leave the book knowing much more than you did in the first place. I suppose that’s a pretty damning accusation of a biography, but there you are. I enjoyed the book in spite of this glaring fault. In fact, I read it greedily. If you’re as fascinated with this era of boxing as I am, I think you’ll do the same.

No Mas - A Week to Remember

I begin the week's recap by reminding you to please, please, please send in your votes and arguments for The No Mas Fighter of the Year and The No Mas Fight of the Year. Aight. On to the week that was:

12/17
Looked like a right cross
An analysis of the Knicks/Nuggets smackdown along with some Youtube footage and another call for the Carmelo/Al Harrington fight for the Heavyweight championship of the NBA.

Jesus what a fight
Large breaks down the Jason Litzau/Jose Hernandez shocker and gives mad No Mas love to Hernandez for being El Mas Macho.

K.O.W. - Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em
The No Mas Knockout of the Week, with Julian "The Hawk" Jackson laying the heavy on Herol "The Bomber" Graham. "...the Hawk turned the tide like a freakin tsunami. He dropped a bomb on The Bomber in the fourth round that quite literally put his ass to sleep. If you've never seen this one before, brace yourself - it's a mother. Graham did not regain consciousness for more than five minutes after the punch."

12/18
The Mother of All Birthdays
A No Mas birthday celebration that includes shoutouts to luminaries like Cobb, Stone Cold, DMX, and Keith Richards.

12/19
Jarts mate... they're called "jarts"
Large takes you back to the day the jarting died.

The White Shadow is running on YES
Thorpe? Check. Coolidge. Double check? Heyward? Are you kidding me? YES Network is running episodes of The White Shadow. Talk about Christmas coming early.

12/20
Sweet Like Sugar
The 60th anniversary of Sugar Ray Robinson winning his first world title, taking the welterweight crown from Tommy Bell with a unanimous decision.

12/21
"Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser"
The anniversary of Vince Lombardi's last game, a loss, as his Redskins went down 20-10 to the Cowboys.

12/22
Death of a Salesman
No Mas remembers Doug Ault, who committed suicide on this day two years ago. "For all us baseball-card-obsessed sports dorks, he's a sobering reminder that the majority of professional athletes are just normal people having their fifteen minutes on the big stage that fifteen minutes later no one will care much about one way or the other. At which point, they're on their own in the big bad world, just like the rest of us."

No Mas Fight of the Year - The Weigh-in

Here are the No Mas candidates for Fight of the Year. Again, all write-in candidacies will be given due consideration in direct proportion to the fervor of the argument. Roll the tape:



1. Manny Pacquiao/Erik Morales II - Don't let the three-round debacle in November cloud your memory of the second fight in the trilogy back in January, because Pacquiao/Morales II was a great fight. El Terrible owned Pac Man early, but in his true warrior fashion, refused to pace himself for the late rounds and paid a dear price for it. Ahead on all scorecards, he ran out of steam at the midway point, and in many ways, by about the eighth round, it felt as if you were watching a once-great champion's powers dissipating in front of your eyes. At which point, His Pac-ness did what he do, and got the 10th round stoppage.

2. Ricky Hatton/Luis Collazo - The fight in which HBO, Ricky Hatton and all his fans learned that Mr. Manchester ain't no 147. Collazo got caught in the Hatton buzzsaw 10 seconds into the fight and landed on his back, but after the knockdown Luis C. represented his Brooklyn roots and stood toe-to-toe with Hatton for the duration of the fight. It was a bloody affair, and Collazo was robbed when the judges awarded a unanimous decision to Hatton. If anything, the fight should have been ruled a draw, and one couldn't help but imagine that the big contract Ricky had just signed with HBO was weighing on the judges minds a little. Of course, Hatton saw the error of his ways immediately, and vacated the welterweight belt he won from Collazo to head back down to 140, where he'll fight Juan Urango this January.

3. Marco Antonio Barrera/Rocky Juarez I - Another case of the star fighter getting a little more than he bargained for. Of course, unlike Hatton, Barrera has nothing to prove at this stage of his career after the great wars he's been through. But hubris got the better of him in his May bout with Houston's Rocky Juarez. Able to tag Juarez with ease in the early rounds, he clearly thought the stoppage was imminent, and went for it with abandon, standing toe-to-toe and slugging for the fences. As it turned out, Juarez is a slugger of the highest order who could take everything Marco was serving up and give as good as he was getting. Spent in the middle rounds, Barrera found himself in legitimate trouble against an under-appreciated, tough-as-nails puncher. From there, it was a race to the finish, as Juarez started to rack up the points and Barrera hung in for dear life, relying on his considerable guile and heart. When the scorecards were initially read, the bout was ruled a draw, which is probably how it should have stayed. But after the fight it was discovered that one of the judges had incorrectly calculated his scorecard and the bout was awarded to Barrera on a split decision. In September, Barrera erased any spectre of doubt from the first fight by schooling Juarez in a rematch, easily winning a unanimous decision. But it was duly noted that the great Mexican did not stand and trade with Juarez in their second meeting. Lesson learned.

4. Jason Litzau/Jose Hernandez - All's I have to say about this fight I already said, in my post from this past Sunday titled Jesus what a fight. So check that out and then check out the highlights below.



5. Israel Vasquez/Jhonny Gonzalez - Four knockdowns, two for each fighter, a lot of blood, and a seesaw struggle that ended in controversy when Gonzalez's trainer threw in the towel, never something you expect to see in the middle of Mexican-on-Mexican ultraviolence. Both of these guys have crazy skills and heart to match, and this fight had it all. Highlights below aren't that good, but all the knockdowns and the stoppage are included.

Death of a Salesman

Two years ago today, former Ranger and Blue Jay Doug Ault turned a shotgun on himself and committed suicide at his home in Tarpon Springs, Florida. He was 54 years old.

Ault played four seasons in the bigs in which his best was 1977, when he hit .245 with eleven homers for Toronto. He is remembered in baseball lore for one thing, which can never be taken away from him - he hit the first home run in Blue Jays history, and then the second, two dingers on Opening Day of 1977 at Exhibition Stadium.

Cut from the Jays after the 1980 season, Ault hung on with the franchise as an off-and-on minor league coach until 1994, during which time he endured a nasty divorce. He became a car salesman, first in Texas and then in Florida, where he remarried. Not much is known about what was going on with him in his last years. At the time of his suicide, he had recently been let go from a dealership in Tarpon Springs.

We do a lot of fallen angel stuff here on No Mas. We're definitely preoccupied with the guys who fly too close to the sun and then have the all-too-familiar spectacular flameout. But that wasn't Doug Ault. For all us baseball-card-obsessed sports dorks, he's a sobering reminder that the majority of professional athletes are just normal people having their fifteen minutes on the big stage that fifteen minutes later no one will care much about one way or the other. At which point, they're on their own in the big bad world, just like the rest of us.

The No Mas F.O.Y. - Let the Debate Begin

It's that time again people - the time for year-end lists left and right, top ten appendectomies of 2007, top fifty screen passes for a six-yard gain, best double anal, top ten Aerosmith concerts before a sporting event, etc.

We here at No Mas care about two year-end awards and two only:

1. Fighter of the Year
2. Fight of the Year

So we begin with topic one. I'll lay out our candidates for Fight of the Year tomorrow.

We're giving you five choices for Fighter of the Year, but this is definitely a democracy, so if you want to suggest a write-in candidate, by all means, write him (or her, if you absolutely must) on in. Leave your selections and your arguments as a comment or send them to us as an email. We'll publish the winners with some of your best quotes next Friday, December 29th.

Aight. The starting five, in alphapbetical order. Let's go to the videotape:

1. Carlos "Tata" Baldomir - Okay, okay, he finished his boxing year with an all-around pantsing by a one-handed Floyd. But still, this is some serious Rocky shit that transpired right here and should be given legitimate consideration on that front. Holms was a dirt-poor journeyman fighter for most of his life who sold feather dusters on the side in his native Argentina just to feed his family. He gets a shot to fight Zab, presumably to serve as a walking punching bag and give the Brooklyn boy a light workout in front of the hometown Garden crowd as a tune up for Zab's mega-bout with Floyd. Instead, Tata ruins everyone's night by pushing Super Judah all over the ring and winning a much-deserved unanimous decision. Then, seven months later, Tata takes his hard head to A.C. and pounds down Arturo Gatti in front of his home crowd. Yeah, Floyd turned his carriage into a pumpkin in November, but nevertheless, this was hands down the best Cinderella story in boxing since Buster Douglas.

2. Miguel Cotto - Right now you're probably scrolling back over Cotto's 2007 in your mind and saying to yourself, "wait a second... Large wants to give Cotto FOY for shutting up Paulie Malignaggi?" Well yes, that's part of it. But more than anything, I think that by next year at this time Cotto is going to be a superstar. It looks like his summer 2007 bout with Antonio Margarito is on (unless one of them pulls a Zab Judah, that is) and that fight will get some major attention in the boxing universe. This was a big year for Cotto, two defenses of his light welter crown, one a high-profile beatdown of Malignaggi, and then a step up to 147 to win the WBA welterweight title by punishing Carlos Quintana. I think that work, along with what it has set up for his future, all makes this Puerto Rican brawler worthy of FOY consideration.

3. Wladimir Klitschko - Another one that I know has you scratching your head. "But Large, you hate Clinch-ko, straight up hate his ass." Yes. I do. No doubt. Actually he seems like a decent guy, but his ring style is insufferable. But look, I love boxing, and the game is suffering mightily right now for the disheveled nature of the heavyweight class. And whether I like it or not, Wlad made a big move towards proving himself as the true heavyweight champ in '06, and may well be on his way to unifying the belts in '07. Two huge, convincing stoppages on the year for the Klinch - seventh-round destructions of Chris Byrd and my man Calvin Brock. I'm not a fan, I've made that clear. But I give the man his due on a breakthrough year.

4. Pretty Boy Floyd Mayweather - Two fights for Floyd in 2006, and neither really tested him that much. The Zab fight would have had more juice if Zab hadn't already thrown up a turd against Baldomir. Nevertheless, for a fighter of Super Judah's speed and savvy, the ease with which Floyd dispensed with his ass (and don't give me that "he should have knocked him out" shit, because he was well on his way to the stoppage when the melee broke out) was impressive. Ditto what Floyd did to Baldomir - a guy who punished both Judah and Gatti, and Floyd made him look him like one of the Polish numbskulls in my neighborhood trying to find his way home after a long night at the Krakow. Add to that that he made the fight of the millennium with ODLH for '07 and you have a first-rate candidacy for FOY - a great year for the pound-for-pound king and the seeds sown for a legacy-making superfight.

5. Manny Pacquaio - Last but not least. It's gonna be very tough to argue against Pac Man in '06. He fought the last two thirds of an epic trilogy with Erik Morales, both of them knockouts, with a dominant performance against the very competent Oscar Larious sandwiched in the middle. Manny Pacquiao is quite possibly the biggest fighter in the world right now, and he's achieved that kind of star wattage at 130 pounds. When a little guy has that kind of stature, you know he's something special. A Barrera/Pacquiao rematch is a possibility in '07, and for the true fight fan, that is every bit as exciting a bout as Floyd/Oscar. All of these factors make the case airtight for Pac Man as the 2006 FOY.

"Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser"

So said Vince Lombardi, who coached his last football game on this day in 1969. His Redskins lost to the Cowboys 20-10.

A five-time NFL champion with the Packers, Lombardi (pictured right with fellow NFL Hall-of-Famer Bobby Mitchell) had taken over for the Redskins in 1969 after having spent the entire 1968 season in retirement. He led the team to a 7-5-2 record, its first winning season in 14 years. Quarterback Sonny Jurgenson said of Lombardi in training camp, "I learned more from him in five days than I have in the last twelve years combined."

The indefatigable coach planned to return to the Redskins for the 1970 campaign, but in June of that year he was diagnosed with intestinal cancer. He died on September 3, 1970. A week after his death, the Super Bowl trophy was renamed the Vince Lombardi trophy.

Sweet Like Sugar

The greatest pound-for-pound fighter of the 20th century won his first world title on this day 60 years ago. Walker Smith, Jr., a.k.a. Suger Ray Robinson, decisioned Tommy Bell on December 20, 1946, for the world welterweight crown recently vacated by Marty Servo. It was Robinson's 76th fight as a professional, a brutal bout that saw Sugar Ray hit the canvas in the second, and then put Bell down in the 11th en route to a unanimous decision.

In the course of his astonishing career (173-19-6), Robinson never lost an officially sanctioned welterweight fight (he lost his second fight with Jake LaMotta in 1943 when he himself was a welterweight, but LaMotta weighed 160 and no title was at stake in the bout). He would relinquish the welterweight belt in 1950 to move up to middleweight, defending his title at 147 for the last time by decisioning Charlie Fusari in a great fight. At middleweight, Robinson went on to be a five-time titlist, winning the 160 crown for the first time from his old nemesis LaMotta in 1951.

The White Shadow is running on YES

I been spending a lot of time out in Cali lately so I have to ask - has this been going on for a while or did it just start? I was channel surfing last night and almost gave myself whiplash doing a double take when I came to the YES network and saw my man Ken Reeves droppin knowledge on his Carver crew.

The episode they're currently showing is not one of the greats - Collins, a powder-blonde white boy from the rich part of town transfers in to Carver and joins the team. Soon everyone finds out that he left his old school because he's gay and he was getting teased about it all the time and his pops wanted to send him somewhere to toughen him up. Collins and Salami mix it up at one point, which brings the whole thing to a head, prompting Reeves to make a ridiculous speech to the team about homosexuality which seems to basically boil down to "I don't like it any more than you do, but... well, are sure he's gay? are ya? maybe he isn't! ya ever think of that ya bums..." Hey, it was 1979. Will and Grace was a long way off.

No doo-wop shower singing scenes in this episode, no Thorpe in the whole show and very little Coolidge, and a weepy after-school-special speech at the end from Vice Principal Buchanan to the gay dude about how when she was a kid her brothers got teased about being black and they didn't like it either. On the other hand, there's some vintage Heyward, who (and no offense to all you Thorpe-ites and Coolidge-ians out there) was always my favorite character on the show. Coolest 'fro, and then just coolest period, with his quiet air of ladyliciousness and inner menace (wait a minute... maybe I'M gay...). Reeves goes to talk to him about the situation with Collins and Heyward breaks it down for him in no uncertain terms about how things are down in the hood. "It all comes down to your rep," he says, and drops into a very credible boxing stance in case Reeves has misunderstood him. No Mas all the way.

This particular episode next airs on YES at 7 a.m. tomorrow morning, so get your DVR's humming and watch that shit. We'll be tracking every new episode as it runs here at No Mas and holding discussion groups and contests and bake sales and whatnot. Look, it's the freakin White Shadow. In other words, hands down the greatest TV show ever.

Jarts mate... they're called "jarts"

Or lawn darts, whatever. What a great game. We had them back in the day - everybody in the neighborhood did. There was some actual way you were supposed to play jarts with the ring and points and shit, but like all kids when confronted with something pointy, me and my friends just ran around the yard throwing them at each other.

Now, personally I don't know what all the fuss was about, cause I took more than a few lawn darts up the ass and, well, they hurt, but not "banned from sale" hurt. Nevertheless, on December 19, 1988, just in time for the Christmas season, all lawn darts were banned from sale in the U.S. They were evidently the cause of death for several children and were even cited in causing "skull punctures" (obviously some people were playing a different brand of jarts than me and my boys ever did).

I close with this appropriate line from the Wikipedia jarts article - "It should be noted that the specific incident that caused lawn darts to be made illegal also involved beer."

But they couldn't exactly ban beer now, could they? They already tried that. No, jarts, my pointy little friends, that was a battle you were bound to lose.

Lady looks like a dude

Indian runner Santhi Sounderajan won the women's 800 meters at the Asian Games on December 9th but was stripped of the medal yesterday after being informed that immediately after the race she had failed a gender test.

No Mas has managed to acquire a top-secret copy of the test that they administer to women to make sure that they are not men posing as women, which is a huge problem in India these days.

Indian Track and Field Gender Test for "Women"

1. Are you a woman or a man?

2. How big is your cock?

Evidently Santhi got tripped up by question number two.


Indian runner fails gender test, loses medal (ESPN.com)

The Mother of All Birthdays

And yo, the list could have gone on and on. I'm talking people like Bill Holland, Paul Klee and Jose Acevedo I left off here, not to mention Katie Cruise. But I think that even without them this may indeed rank as the Mother of All Birthdays. I leave the ultimate judgment in your capable hands.

K.O.W. - Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em

After Edison Miranda clobbered Willie Gibbs Saturday night with a one-punch lullaby, Max Kellerman invoked the name of Julian "The Hawk" Jackson, and immediately I knew that I had our next No Mas Knockout of the Week. Check out my man's hightop fade over there. He's looking nice. One of the great knockout artists of my lifetime, in 1990 Jackson had already served a three-year tenure as the WBA light middleweight champion when he moved up to 160 to fight the Bomber, Great Britain's Herol Graham. The bout was in Spain, and at stake was the WBC middleweight belt recently vacated by Roberto Duran. The Bomber gave the Hawk a veritable boxing lesson in the first three rounds, closing one of his notoriously bad eyes (in a prior fight, Jackson had suffered a detached retina). It was such a drubbing that the ref gave Jackson just one more round to turn the tide or he would stop the fight.

So the Hawk turned the tide like a freakin tsunami. He dropped a bomb on The Bomber in the fourth round that quite literally put his ass to sleep. If you've never seen this one before, brace yourself - it's a mother. Graham did not regain consciousness for more than five minutes after the punch.

Almost as enjoyable as the KO are the British commentators rooting hard for their native son. "Oh no!" one of them yells when Jackson lays the sandman on Graham. "That's what we were worried about!" Indeed you were, mate. Indeed you were.

Jesus what a fight

If you missed the HBO Boxing After Dark card last night, people, take it from me - you got to see that replay. The Jason Litzau/Jose Hernandez featherweight bout is a serious candidate in Large's book for Fight of the Year.

I mean, what more do you need? You got a highly touted, hard-punching prospect, Litzau (pictured right), going up against a hard-nosed, Mexican-by-way-of-Chicago, former national Golden Gloves champ, Hernandez (and here's how off the radar he is - I scoured the web and did not find a single photo of the guy). You got Litzau bobbing and weaving and landing at will in the first until, WHAMBAM, right uppercut and overhand right catch him flush and he's on his knees with his mouth open trying to remember his name. With ten seconds to go in the round, it was a race to the finish line, as Hernandez jumped in and shoe-shined his ass and Litzau held on for dear life.

From there, the second phase of the fight began, the phase where Litzau bounced back from the first-round knockdown and looked every bit like the big-money-prospect he's been made out to be, loose, long-limbed, and dangerous. He moves beautifully, he throws from all angles, he throws punches in prodigious bunches. From the second to the seventh, Hernandez took a tremendous amount of punishment and got killed in the punchstat numbers. His face was swollen, his nose and eye were bleeding. In the seventh, Kellerman even mentioned that he thought a stoppage was imminent.

Litzau's corner, however, saw something else going on in there. In the breaks after the fifth, sixth AND seventh rounds, his handlers practically begged the kid to start boxing a little, to move to his right to avoid the Hernandez right that continued to pepper Litzau's right eye. The last thing his trainer said to Litzau before he sent him out for the eighth was, "You're winning this thing big, you've done plenty for this HBO crowd, don't stand and trade with this guy."

Suffice it to say, that advice fell on deaf ears. Litzau went into the round looking to mix it up and came out of it on his back. Hernandez, in a positively Gatti-esque performance, went for broke and found it, tattooing Litzau with a series of straight rights before connecting with a HUGE overhand right that rendered Litzau lifeless before he hit the canvas. Prohibitively ahead on all scorecards, The American Boy was down for the count.

A MAMMOTH No Mas props to Jose Hernandez. A lesser man would have lost heart in those middle rounds. This kid never stopped looking for his opening, never stopped believing he had the pop to end the thing, in spite of all those rapid-fire combinations he ate. Here's hoping the KO on an HBO card earns him some street cred and a big payday sometime soon. He earned it.

p.s. The main event was a one-round debacle. Willie Gibbs did not do his Philly roots proud, went in the ring wearing a purple/black fringed skirt-and-trunks abomination, through a few lazy, purposeless jabs, and then did the dance when Edison Miranda snapped his head with a straight right in the first. Goodnight Irene. Can't tell much about Miranda from that outing other than something we already knew - he can knock people out for reals.

Looked like a right cross

No doubt you've seen the big Knicks/Nuggets smackdown from the Garden last night (if you haven't, check out the Trautwig treatment above). Carmelo floors Marty Collins with a lightning-quick right cross, threw it from his waist, very nice-looking punch. Carmelo boxes in the offseason, and for a while here on No Mas we've been calling for an All-NBA Heavyweight Title fight between Melo and the Pacers' Al Harrington, also a skilled fighter. Based on last night's evidence, if that bout ever goes down, our boy Al better not drop his left or paw with that jab or he's gonna get a jawful lickety-split.

Gangsta

Just two days after a search of his house turned up six guns and some weed, Bears' tackle Tank Johnson was back out there kicking ass on the club circuit last night, and it resulted in his bodyguard/associate William Posey taking a bullet at the Ice Club in Chicagoland. Posey was pronounced dead at the hospital around 1:30 a.m. Our Tank, it would appear, is playing a much more dangerous game these days than football. And I quote the august Joni Mitchell:

Acid, booze and ass
Needles, guns and grass
Lots of laughs... lots of laughs

Mobster, boxer, rat

On December 16th, 1985, Gambino family boss Paul Castellano was murdered at Sparks Steakhouse in midtown along with his underboss Thomas Bilotti. Watching from across the street in a parked Lincoln Continental were John Gotti and Sammy "the Bull" Gravano, architects of the murder. Gotti went on to become the Dapper Don of the Gambino family, with Gravano as his savage enforcer.

This has very little to do with sports, I know, but it gives me an opportunity to point out a not terribly well known fact - Sammy Gravano was a boxing nut who used to train at Gleason's in the late 80's, first with Edwin Viruet (who fought Roberto Duran for the lightweight title in 1977 at the Spectrum in Philly) and then with Teddy Atlas.

As Atlas tells the story in his autobiography, he met Gravano at Gleason's in 1988, and Gravano liked him so much that he got Atlas a gold membership at his preferred gym, the Narrows Fitness Club in Bay Ridge. Atlas trained him there for about a year and they became friends, sparring regularly and going to fights together at the Garden. Evidently Gravano had almost no range but could punch like a son of a bitch. Typical of almost all of Teddy's stories about himself, he says that Gravano liked him because of his hard-edged street psychology (bordering, at times, on "ghetto zen") concerning all matters of manhood. Who knows. Whatver kept the relationship going, eventually Gravano mentioned to Atlas that he "and his partners" were interested in getting into boxing and they wanted Teddy to manage their fighters. Atlas tried to say no, but Gravano insisted that he at least have a sitdown with his boys about the matter, so they met at a Brooklyn restaurant called La Tavola. At the place, Sammy the Bull was clearly royalty. Atlas writes, "here's a guy who's never done anything except kill people, yet he's being treated like Frank Sinatra."

There were nine total goombahs at the dinner including Gravano. They gave Teddy the hard sell, but he said no, and with good reason. You don't have to be the street savant that Atlas makes himself out to be to figure that one out.

Later on, when the indictments were rolling in on the Gambino family, Gravano told Teddy that he might have to go away for a while and asked if Atlas would train his son Gerard while he was gone. Then he turned rat on Gotti and went into the Witness Protection Program, humiliating his wife and son and even, it seems, Atlas. Nevertheless, he kept his word and trained Gerard a few times. But it turned out Gerard wasn't that into boxing. Go figure. That was the last Teddy Atlas had anything to do with the Gravano clan.

No Mas - The Week That Was

12/10
Heisman of Troy
A No Mas breakdown of the Ohio State Heisman winners that preceded Troy Smith, from Les Horvath to Eddie George.

Tyson at 147
A recap of Saturday night's HBO card, with particular attention paid to Andre Berto's demolition of the ultra-game Miguel Figueroa. On Berto: "The guy has the whole package - hand-speed and footwork that makes you think he could trade with Floyd, and power that makes you wince even when you're watching at television distance. Throw in the fact that he's handsome and articulate and cut like a bodybuilder and Andre Berto seems like a guaranteed star in the making.

The Maginot Line of All That Is Right and Good
On the anniversary of the A.L.'s decision to institute the desginated hitter, we list the inaugural D.H.'s for all the American League clubs.

12/11
K.O.W. - The Brockton Brainblaster
The No Mas Knockout of the Week is Marciano's pulverizing blow to Jersey Joe Walcott in their 1952 title bout, a selection fueled by me and I-berg's recent viewing of the Marciano SportsCentury.

December 11, 1981
The anniversary of Ali's last bout with Trevor Berbick.

Ali Crap Redux
After the mini-controversy started by my post of the week before, Ali Crap, I revisit the issue having actually seen the show in question. My conclusion is that it's a bunch of crap.

12/12
Babe Ruth Cheated
No Mas exposes BounceGate to the world. Suffice it to say that Barry Bonds is off the hook.

12/13
Born to Be Bad
A birthday bonanza that includes a cross-generational smackdown between Boris Zhukov and the Junkyard Dog.

12/14
Joey Jazzbo
On the anniversary of the Jazz retiring Pistol Pete's number, we look at the other Jazz number retirees and take a look at the coolest Maravich look of all time.

Tiger Tiger
A recap of the careeer of middleweight great Dick Tiger, who died at the age of 42 on December 14, 1971.

12/15
All in a day's work
James Naismith invented basketball 115 years ago today. And then 115 years ago tomorrow, he posts history's first recorded triple double.

All in a day's work

On this very day 115 years ago, James Naismith invented basketball. We know this because of his surviving diary entries:

• "December 15 - woke up, masturbated, took Elmo for a walk, invented basketball, ripped a couple bongs, did a crossword, held gym classes, sushi for dinner..."
• "December 16 - woke up, masturbated, took Elmo for a walk, played basketball all day, had a triple-double with three blocks, no one can guard me cause I'm so nice..."
  

Tiger Tiger

Former middleweight and light heavyweight champion Dick Tiger died on December 14, 1971. He was only 42 years old.

Tiger was born Richard Ihetu in 1929 in Nigeria, still then a British protectorate. He was given his ring name by a Brit who saw him fight as a youngster and proclaimed him tenacious like a tiger. In the 50's he moved to England and became a renowned fighter, and by the 60's he was one of the favorite attractions at Madison Square Garden. He was arguably the best middleweight of that middleweight-rich decade, fighting and defeating all of the era's great 160's, among them Joey Giardello, Emile Griffith and Rubin Carter, whom he destroyed in a 1965 bout at the Garden, knocking the Hurricane down three times en route to a unanimous decision (picture above left).

But by far Tiger's watershed fights were his three contests with legend Gene Fullmer. Tiger won the middleweight crown from Fullmer in a 1962 bloodbath in San Francisco, and then the two fought to a draw in Vegas in February of 1963. This led to their title bout at Liberty Stadium in Ibadan, Nigeria, a rumble in the jungle over a decade before Ali and Foreman ever crossed paths. It was the defining night of Tiger's career. He dominated the leather-tough Morman - Fullmer's manager threw in the towel before the start of the seventh - and the thirty-thousand plus in the stadium went mad for their native hero.

By the end of the decade, Tiger had moved up to 175 and taken the light heavyweight belt away from Cus D'Amato protege, Jose Torres. Tiger decisioned the Puerto Rican twice before losing the belt to Bob Foster. He won the 1968 Ring Magazine Fight of the Year by eking out a decision over Frank DePaula in a bout that saw both fighters on the canvas multiple times. His last fight was a loss by unanimous decision to his old rival Emile Griffith in 1970.

By 1971, Tiger, out of boxing and down on his luck, had taken work as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum in Manhattan. It was while on duty there that he felt a sharp pain in his back. Soon after he was diagnosed with liver cancer. Having involved himself with the Biafran cause in the late 60's, Tiger was at that point banned from his native country, but the ban was immediately lifted with news of his illness. None other than Larry Merchant, then a columnist with the New York Post, bore witness to a formal guarantee of safe passage issued by a Nigerian consulate official in Manhattan. Tiger returned to Nigeria, where he died 35 years ago today.

Beyond his feats in the ring and his trials as a political dissident, Tiger was also striking in his personal style. Here's a passage from a great piece on East Side Boxing that I think paints the picture nicely: "A stocky, sinewy African adorned with tribal markings on both chest and back, yet a softy-spoken British accented gentleman partial to homborg hats and Anthony Eden coats. Bemused and occasionally irritated by asides about 'headhunters' and the cannibalism supposedly practiced on his home continent, a favourite response was to quip that we "quit that years ago when the Governor-General made us sick." In time American sportswriters would go past their shallow prejudices and admire him for his personal qualities, not least of which was the quiet dignity he projected. "