Who Is Boxings Best Role-Model?

[Slimey Limey]

Rocky Marciano.


Never said anything bad about any of his opponents or anyone around him. Lived a clean life and always stood up for the little man(often being an underdog himself). Best discipline I've ever heard of, it's why he was unbeaten.
There are a lot of stories about him and I'd advice anyone to read books about him. Marciano the true class act of boxing.

[Kinetic Linking]

bernard hopkins. Totally committed to longterm improvement and it's payed off. No one has ever had a career like his, Ray Robinson is a close second but his weight ballooned after retirement and he got diabetes. Guarantee that doesn't happen to hopkins.

edit - I don't care what you do outside the ring, if you don't have long term success in it you're a bad example to young people.

[StarshipTrooper]

Suprised no one has mentioned Alexis Arguello yet considering.

Classy gesture my friend!

No, he comitted suicide.

You're a pig.

Poet

[Sugarj]

When I talk about drug addiction I generally mean when boxers get addicted to drugs of their own wrongdoing or character weakness. Barney Ross's case is obviously much different.

Hopkins is a great role model in boxing terms. His life story is amazing, that said he does have a big mouth and is prone to saying the odd comment that is a bit too controversial 'I wont let a white man beat me', not a real role model comment.

[Kinetic Linking]

True. To be honest though, I value honesty and genuineness way higher than kindness, generosity, politeness, respect, or especially political correctness. You don't want to encourage phoniness, and everyone is prone to saying things that are innappropriate to say the least.

In this category, I give mike tyson big points. He spoke his mind more freely than most and I give him points for it rather than take them away. George Foreman had a reputation for being a little phony, but he was his own man in a lot of ways and gets credit as well.

going back further, I also give jack johnson big points. He was his own man and did his own thing despite tremendous opposition. You might not like him, but jack johnson didn't pretend to be anyone else.

As for some counterexamples, Muhammad ali and Ray Robinson seemed to be largely full of ****. Rocky Marciano as well.

[MANGLER]

All time, who knows. Ali was gr8 tho. Talked mad ****, but meant what he said and backed it up. Gave up his career and freedom for what he believed in. Made people proud to be his brother. Fought all comers into and even after his prime.

Right now, I'd say Pac. Never talks ****, fights everybody, always excitin, reps his country hard and gives back to em, willin to take crazy risks to show his gr8ness.

[JAB5239]

[QUOTE]

jesus definitely not joe louis, he was dumb as hell.......thought he could go thru life being humble and where did it lead him?.......he gave away his money to the army and the government repaid him by giving him huge tax debts.......he tried to be a symbol for the country but they wouldnt even treat him fairly, he couldnt even step inside the white house....sad to say but he was a sucker....a role model isnt somebody who shuts up and is scared to stand up for himself....

You obviously know little of Louis or how how because of him Jackie Robinson was able to break baseballs color barrier. Don't confuse quiet and humble with fear.

[GJC]

jesus definitely not joe louis, he was dumb as hell.......thought he could go thru life being humble and where did it lead him?.......he gave away his money to the army and the government repaid him by giving him huge tax debts.......he tried to be a symbol for the country but they wouldnt even treat him fairly, he couldnt even step inside the white house....sad to say but he was a sucker....a role model isnt somebody who shuts up and is scared to stand up for himself....

1. ali never changed who he was when he got famous, that i respect....he could have easily folded to the pressure and joined the army to keep his championship belt but he didnt....no one has been successful under as much pressure as ali....

Think it is difficult to judge a mans conduct 70 years later with today's values. More militant black people such as Ali maybe felt Louis didn't assert himself as a black man as much as he should but I think you have to remember the time he lived.
There had been a colour bar in the HW division and others and Louis fighting and overcoming that bar laid the foundations for Ali to maybe go to the next level. The fact that Louis was such an inspirational yet humble man had white people cheering for a black man in the ring against white fighters.
A character such as Ali in the 30's might well have become the Jack Johnson of his day and stopped a coloured fighter challenging for the HW championship for another 30 years.

[GJC]

[QUOTE=JAB5239;5619524]

[/B]


You obviously know little of Louis or how how because of him Jackie Robinson was able to break baseballs color barrier. Don't confuse quiet and humble with fear.

Good post you have made a better point in few words to mine in several!

[StarshipTrooper]

Think it is difficult to judge a mans conduct 70 years later with today's values. More militant black people such as Ali maybe felt Louis didn't assert himself as a black man as much as he should but I think you have to remember the time he lived.
There had been a colour bar in the HW division and others and Louis fighting and overcoming that bar laid the foundations for Ali to maybe go to the next level. The fact that Louis was such an inspirational yet humble man had white people cheering for a black man in the ring against white fighters.
A character such as Ali in the 30's might well have become the Jack Johnson of his day and stopped a coloured fighter challenging for the HW championship for another 30 years.

The way Louis handled himself was classy: A trait found far too seldom these days. The in-your-face militantism (over many issues, not just race) that came into vogue in the 1960s may have appeal on some primitive emotional level but I find the classiness of Louis to be far more admirable and more in keeping with the gentility of a society that purports to civilized as opposed to the decent back into primitive barbarism that the 1960s represents.

Poet