I Love This Guy

In His Own Words

For fans, the greatest thing in sports is the knockout. You can practice a home run, a touchdown run, or a spectacular dunk. You can’t practice a knockout. It is still the ultimate in sports; everyone remembers it and talks about being there to have seen it. Even when it happens in the gym or at training camp, people start calling all around the country to say they saw it.

Among my many recollections of knockout punches are three that involved me. Twice I was on the delivery end. Once I was on the receiving end.

I remember getting ready to fight "Smokin’" Joe Frazier in Jamaica in 1973, and knowing that when the bell rang, he would be coming after me with evil intentions. The same thing that made me good might also have gotten me whupped: I don’t ever quit and will always give it my best. But I got out there and knocked Joe down to be crowned heavyweight champion of the world. It was the happiest moment of my career.

Then, overconfidence set in. I was fighting Muhammad Ali in Zaire in 1974. I was thinking that the $5-million I was making was the easiest money in the world. I was going to whip the guy; he was old and over the hill. And after three or four rounds I was beating him. But by the seventh round, I was tired. I hit him in the stomach and he said, "Is that all you got, George?" And I’m thinking, "Yup." Then I got knocked down and heard the referee count. My life was devastated.

Twenty years later I was in the ring with Michael Moorer, and after about the ninth round I knew he was in territory he didn’t know. I also knew that if I went home without that victory, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself for another 20 years. When I knocked him down and out in the 10th, it was like putting all those skeletons back in the closet for good.

You have to admire a guy who goes 12 rounds and wins or a guy who pulls out a victory after trailing early. Some fighters have the know-how; they’re just good at knocking other fighters out. Still their victims will always call them lucky. In fact, knockouts surprise all of us. You do something in the ring that you did daily in the gym and – BOOM! – all of a sudden the guy is on the ground

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Alrighty Now ....when did they say that female mud wrestling was coming to the Fred?

The Ultimate in Sports

Submitted by muddle on Sun, 09/10/2006 - 6:52am.

Sunny day. The water is crystal clear. Winds are very light, and blowing offshore, cleaning the faces of the waves to a polished glass.

There is a ground swell from a distant storm, sending waves in in sets of six and seven. The waves are about head high or, on occasion, a bit overhead. They are peeling off with perfect precision down the line, leaving a glassy, untroubled wall before you. And...as they break, the lip pitches out from the face and down, forming perfect barrels.

They are mostly rights, so that when you--a standard rider with left foot in front--drop in, you are facing the wall and looking down along it.

A set comes in. You let the first two waves pass. The third looks perfect, likely to be 6' or 7', and you are aligned just to the right of the peak. You paddle in, feeling yourself being pulled up as the wall moves towards a more vertical position.

Just as your board begins to pick up speed and you know you are into the wave, you spring to your feet and drop in, angling down to your right. You can hear the wave breaking behind you, and can even feel the air and spray at your back as the barrel breaks and closes. You are right in the curl. The view down the wall is spectacular, with plenty of room for carving up and down.

At first, you take a leisurely ride, with the board planed off and speeding along at about half the wave's height. Your right hand is trailing along the face, leaving a fan tail.

You want that barrel to catch up with you, so you shoot for the top, then turn to your left, drop straight down, heading for the beach, and do a bottom turn, stalling just enough for that pitching lip to catch up.

Now you plane the board off again and crouch low, leaning into the face, and find yourself inside of the barrel, with the lip pitching over your head. You are looking out of the almond-shaped eye at a still perfect wall aheasd of you. You remain in the "green room" for three or four seconds, before aiming the nose slightly down, picking up just enough speed to outrun the curl once again. As you emerge, you do one more bottom turn, then carve up the wall and kick out over the shoulder.

Your buddies are all hooting and howling as you are paddling back out to do it all over again.

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Horseshoes is better (are better?)

Submitted by dopplerobserver on Sun, 09/10/2006 - 10:05am.

Personally, I prefer to pitch horseshoes than to go into that salty, medical-waste infested sea water and get pounded with the waves for nothing. At least you score points in horseshoes. You will end up in your middle age (didn't you?) with sinus trouble and cancererous skin, too. Anyway, most girls who go to surfing shows, and surf, are ugly as mud-fences and that is why they are there, selling something else other than beauty. Also, I can't understand the language.

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Horseshoes

Submitted by muddle on Sun, 09/10/2006 - 10:10am.

Do the girls who attend horseshoe contests typically have any teeth?

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Horseshoes: An Extreme Sport

Submitted by muddle on Sun, 09/10/2006 - 10:14am.

I should add: I was hit in the head by a pitched horseshoe when I was about 5.

This explains a lot about me.

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