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Originally posted by tino
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More chills, yes. More tears, no. -
I won't bother pointing out that Celine Dion is French Canadian, and who's ancestors are from France. Not that I'm a Celine Dion fan, just putting 2 and 2 together!
Nice picture of Napoleon you have there.Comment
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But Bryan Adams is English, so we can't pin that one on tino and his country.Originally posted by druthComment
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Funny story about Bryan Adams...
My friends and I took a roadtrip up to Windsor, Ontario, and if you've ever sat on that huge bridge in Michigan to get into Canada on a Friday at 4pm, you know it sucks.
Well we were sitting there and on the radio comes Bryan Adams as it was our turn to go through customs. So my buddy Chris gets the brilliant idea to crank it up as loud as he can and sing the Canadian national anthem (in English of course) while we're having our ID's checked.
Guess you had to be there...funny as hell though.Comment
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To answer the question seriously, Nat Fleischer who founded Ring magazine said that Jack Johnson was the best heavyweight he ever saw, for what that's worth. Funny thing, though, Johnson also refused to fight black fighters, on account that they wouldn't draw a gate.
In terms of fighting in a modern style most people would say that Dempsey was the first true great heavyweight champ of the modern era. Though if you're arguing that he doesn't count cause he didn't take on black challengers (valid point of view, of course) then he's out the window. Which leaves probably Joe Louis as the first top-notch champion who took on all comers.Comment
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haha, I've crossed that border a lot and the Canadian border guys are always really friendly. Are you from Michigan?Originally posted by druthComment
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Nah we're all originally from PA. We crossed over on 80 and went north.
As far as them being friendly, here's another ****** story.
When we were coming back down into the US, the customs lady said "declare your residency", so without thinking I said "I'm not a doctor".
She said it again, and we gave her our ID's.
She finally said, "What country are you idiots from?" to which we replied, "We're Americans!" so she said "Go.".
Funny moment.Comment
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I gotta story about American customs but I don't have time to get into it right now. I'll just say that they can be real *******s, pure power trippers.Originally posted by druthComment
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jack johnson didn't necessarily not fight black fighters. he fought quite a few, especially in his younger days and when he traveled doing the vaudville tours(mostlty exhibitions however). among some of the better black fighters of the day, sam langford stands out in my mind.Comment
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Dempsey put his name on the dotted line to fight Harry Wills, but the event was not properly financed and as champion Jack never fought unless the money was right. It did not stem from any fear on the Manassa Maulers part, or even a personal contempt for blacks. Dempsey was good friends with many black fighters.
An important point we are neglecting is that aside from Harry Wills, there simply weren't many good black heavyweights who would have even been competitive with him. In those days, the impoverished irish tended to dominate boxing as much as anyone. People today like to cling to the image of blacks being naturally better at boxing but at the time they were routintely beaten by irish and other white ethnicities at the time. There were just so many poor irish in America, that the talent pool in boxing consisted mostly of them.
In fact you can usually tell which nationalities are being downtrodden by how well they are represented in boxing. Today it's blacks, latinos, asians (in the smaller weight divisions) and a growing number of men from former soviet nations.
As for Sullivan, I'm not going to attempt to defend him. He was an out and out racist and proud of it as well. I will say that he was a tough mother****er who would be a match for anyone in a bareknuckle match where he was allowed to wrestle and hit.Comment
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