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on the g that brought a tear 2 my eye
specially dat lil boy part
ali will always be the greatest
couldnt NOONE **** wit em in his primeComment
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I'm not sure if anyone is interested in reading this story, but if they/you are then here is Harry Mullan's writing on that Woodcok/Oma "fight";
'Despite the tight control excercised by the Board of Control, there have been occasional scandals in British boxing. One such was Bruce Wood****'s fourth-round knockout of the American, Lee Oma, in London in September 1948. Wood**** was European and British heavyweight champion, and his promoter Jack Solomons was trying to bring him back from a catastrophic defeat by another American, Joe Baksi. Oma had beaten Baksi, as well as top men like Lou Nova, Tami Mauriello and light heavyweight championGus Lesnevich. He looked a tough proposition for Wood**** and the fight generated so much interest that all 10,600 seats at Harringay Arena were sold out nearly a fortnight before the show.
The rumours began when Oma was seen to be lackadaisical in training and soon they hardened to a specific allegation: that he had been paid 5,000 pounds to take a dive. When the fight got under way, the American was strangely lethargic, scarcely throwing a punch for three rounds. At the end of the third, boos came from all around the arena as the fans showed their displeasure with his lack of effort. Oma made a slight show of agression early in the fourth, but then crashed for the full count when Wood**** landed a right to the jaw. The press were scathing, and the result produced one of the great headlines in British sports journalism: "Oma Coma Aroma".
Wood**** vigorously denied that anything improper had occurred. In his autobiography, he wrote: "So far as I am concerned, I can honestly say that I have never taken part in a fixed fight in my life." And then he added, perhaps significantly, "It would, I suppose, be possible for one man to have agreed to lose without the other knowing about it, but such is the bush-telegraph system of the training camps of boxing that even that possobility is remote."
The truth of the Oma affair will never be ascertained. If the fight was fixed, then only Oma and Solomons need to have known about it. Wood**** was a fighter of blazing honesty and exemplary courage, who would never knowingly have allowed himself to be part of such a shoddy deal, but it would be naive to pretend that such arrangements did not occasionally happen. British libel laws are so strict that they prohibit discussion of other possible fixes involving boxers who are still living, but the number of questionable results in the last 40 years is reasonably low.'Comment
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I have a bunch of stories, but I don't know what you're specifically after, Butterfly...But, as one who is anti-Marciano, here's a quick little quote you can use next time you're in a discussion about him, and it also stays with the "possible fixed fights" theme from around that time;
"We took the Beshore match with the condition that Rocky wouldn't have to fight too hard," Chick Wergeles said. "Frankie Carbo came out to Boston to make sure that things went all right." - from Skeehan's bio on Marciano (page 158)Comment
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Good info Yogi but every good debate needs a counter-arguement, so about a pro-Marciano one for the future?
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