January 2002 - October 2006 - The Jerry Quarry Foundation
January 2002 - October 2006 - The Jerry Quarry Foundation
January 2002 - October 2006 - The Jerry Quarry Foundation
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history, for as I believe Frank Deford once wrote, "<strong>The</strong>re were times when Wilt<br />
could dominate in such a way as to be a man playing against boys." If anyone<br />
thinks Shaq dominates the league now (and he certainly does), you should have<br />
seen Wilt. God bless all of you. (What was <strong>Jerry</strong> <strong>Quarry</strong>'s best fight and his<br />
finest hour in the ring, by the way? Anybody have an opinion?)(Oh, and yes,<br />
to the gentleman from La Habra, I know your town well. Between 1957 and 1967,our<br />
Boys Club competed in Fight Nights and smokers with you several times every<br />
year, and you usually came out on top. You always had outstanding Mexican-<br />
American kids who could box their way out of the gym and hurt you in a hundred<br />
ways. <strong>The</strong> best La Habra fighter I knew was a guy named Larry Hughes, who used to<br />
spar with <strong>Jerry</strong> <strong>Quarry</strong>. Larry served in Vietnam as a Green Beret, and afterwards<br />
came close to winning a spot on the USA Pan Am Games team, except a war injury<br />
caused him to be disqualified. His right cross was a real mule kick and I can<br />
still feel it. La Habra and Santa Ana had the best fighters in Orange County in<br />
those days.) |<br />
|8/26/03 04:44:51<br />
PM|Roadscholarette|Chicago||roadscholarette@hotmail.com||||10|Hi Tubby! I'm<br />
going to respond to your other post, but I want to answer this one first.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re's a lot of wishfulness in fights that never were (as well in ones<br />
that ~were~!), to go along with analysis of objective factors, as objective as<br />
we can ever be about such a sport as boxing. Even when a fighter is KOd, or<br />
TKOd, you always hear sentimental cries of "off night" or "luck," or "if this<br />
(or that) hadn't happened," etc., their man would have won.One thing<br />
that's interesting to do is to evaluate fighters based on their best night. I<br />
know this has its flaws, but going with this, best night and all, among heavies,<br />
who could taken Frazier the night he clipped the Butterfly's wings in '71? <strong>The</strong>re<br />
have been more destructive fights, but I can recall none in which the opponents<br />
were not also elite performers (Dempsey-Willard, for example, was more brutal,<br />
but look at the disparity in the fighters). Smokin' Joe was ~more~ than human<br />
for those 15 rounds. I also put this close to Ali's best night, possibly his<br />
best. Keep in mind, he's ~looked~ better, but never against such an opponent,<br />
the likes of which he'd never faced before or after, yet he still kept it<br />
interesting, even close.Foreman never went through the number of<br />
challenges others did (handling himself well when in trouble), though it did<br />
happen. I still look a little fishy eyed at his fight with Ali, but he responded<br />
superbly against Lyle, no soft touch. If George hit someone, they were going,<br />
period. Others might have kept it from happening, and if indeed endurance ~was~<br />
a problem for George in the late rounds, they might have gotten by, if they also<br />
had chin of concrete. Marciano and Foreman? Sorry, Rock fans, George would have<br />
bounced him as easily, or more so, than he did Frazier (though I believe it<br />
would have been a different story if Foreman had fought the Joe who fought Ali<br />
the first time). Unfortunately, the great George Foreman has been subject - or<br />
victim - of the reverse of what many fighters have enjoyed. Some are built into<br />
indestructible gods in retrospect, while Foreman has had to suffer a fair amount<br />
of denigration, in some cases putting him in the class of a deluxe amateur with<br />
a big punch. Yes, staying away from George might have been the recipe for a win<br />
over him, but he was no dummy or stiff, and threw a lot of punches. My guess is<br />
that few could have, and that there wouldn't be ~any~ who would come out ahead<br />
in a theoretical "Best of 10."<strong>The</strong> only sort who might have stood a chance would<br />
be tricky, unorthodox, fast, and unpredictable, hopefully all four (power nice,<br />
but not required), witness Ali and the average Jimmy Young.I've met<br />
Foreman twice, and Frazier once (not Ali), and Foreman's easily 6'4", while<br />
5'11" is stretching it for JF. |<br />
|8/26/03 05:29:01 PM|Massimo|Rome||Wshaq.com||||10|To Tubby: I have watched only<br />
2 Marciano's fights( Walcott I and a synthesis of Ezzard Charles II) so I don't<br />
know him very well. But I know that Joe Louis after their fight said :" Marciano<br />
is the hardest puncher I have ever faced in the ring" ! And Joe had fought good