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Showing posts with label Jersey Joe Walcott. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jersey Joe Walcott. Show all posts

Tuesday, 9 August 2016

Paul McCartney to perform in Detroit at Joe Louis Arena on Oct. 21

The concert will be McCartney's first appearance at Joe Louis Arena and his first visit to the Motor City since 2011, during his On The Run tour.
McCartney has performed 22 shows this year, including stops in Japan, South Korea, Europe, the UK and the US. The Out There tour features popular music from McCartney's entire career, as a solo artist and a member of Wings and the Beatles. The set list also includes material from his most recent studio album, NEW, which was released in 2013.
Some of the most iconic moments from the last 50 years of music will be relived during the concert. McCartney and his band have performed in many impressive venues, including the Coliseum in Rome, Moscow's Red Square, Buckingham Palace, the White House, Mexico and the last ever show at San Francisco's Candlestick Park, where The Beatles played their final concert.
The band of the last 10 or more years includes Paul "Wix" Wickens (keyboards), Brian Ray (bass/guitar), Rusty Anderson (guitar) and Abe Laboriel Jr (drums).
The tour also uses technology and production like massive screens, lasers, fireworks, unique video content and, of course, the music.
McCartney kicked off the year at the 57th Annual GRAMMY Awards with Rihanna and Kanye West, performing "FourFiveSeconds," played a Valentine's Day concert in New York City and appeared on the Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary special.

Tickets

Tickets ($29.50, $69.50, $99.50, $168 and $253) go on sale Monday at 10 a.m. and can be purchased online at OlympiaEntertainment.com or LiveNation.com. They can also be bought at the Fox Theatre and Joe Louis Arena box offices, all Ticketmaster locations and Ticketmaster.com. To charge tickets by phone, call 800-745-3000.
American Express Card Members can buy tickets before the general public, beginning Thursday at 10 a.m. through Sunday at 10 p.m.

Tuesday, 12 April 2016

Longtime heavyweight champ Klitschko takes on Philly's Jennings

NEW YORK - All Wladimir Klitschko needs to do is survey the landscape to get beyond his age's being anything more than a number, not that it has been much of a problem at all.

One week after the 39-year-old heavyweight champion puts his many title belts on the line against Philadelphian Bryant Jennings on Saturday at Madison Square Garden, Manny Pacquiao, 37, and Floyd Mayweather, 38, recognized as the No. 2 and No. 1 pound-for-pound fighters in the world, will fight for the biggest purse in the sport's history.

Philadelphian Bernard Hopkins, 50, lost his multiple light-heavyweight titles to Sergey Kovalev last year but is still rated No. 2 by Ring magazine.
So when Klitschko (63-3, 54 knockouts), fighting in the United States for the first time in seven years, bemoans the fact that his sparring partners are much younger than he is, the fact remains that the 6-foot-6, 245-pounder continues to be the dominant heavyweight on the planet.

"They are just so much younger than I am," Klitschko said. "I remember when I was the young, hungry guy. I see a lot of them in me. I see a lot of Bryant Jennings in me. He's young and he's hungry."

If the script plays out the way it has since Klitschko knocked out Chris Byrd in the seventh round on April 22, 2006, to become heavyweight champ for a second time, the outcome will be of little surprise. Despite his age, he takes into the ring with him a significant power advantage and a stiff jab that most suspect will be problematic for Jennings (19-0, 10 KOs).

The fight will be Klitschko's 18th title defense, third most in heavyweight history behind only Larry Holmes (20) and Joe Louis (25, the all-time record for any weight class).

On Tuesday at the final news conference here, Klitschko appeared genuinely excited to be fighting again on American soil.

Despite being the heavy favorite, Klitschko said he is not taking the North Philly native lightly, which would be understandable. He's not talking about retiring anytime soon, and there is the potential for a very enticing fight in the not-so-distant future against newly crowned WBC heavyweight champ Deontay Wilder.

"There is a certain reflection of the region where the fighter is coming from, of the trainers that he was working with," Klitschko said. "I think that I'm going to expect a Philly fighter. A fighter from Philadelphia that is similar to [Joe] Frazier and [Tim] Witherspoon and many other fighters from the region. I think it's going to be challenge."

A big question for Jennings, 30, is how he will try to fight Klitschko, who is a better puncher on the outside and has one of the highest knockout percentages in boxing.

The older, grizzled champion sounds prepared for whatever Jennings throws at him.

"I understand that we're all limited in our capabilities," Klitschko said. "Bryant Jennings can fight as Bryant Jennings. He cannot fight like Mike Tyson or Muhammad Ali or somebody else."

Keeping Fit U.s. Using The 'Little Guys' To Keep Military In Shape

The great heavyweight fighter Joe Louis once embarked on what was called his "Bum of the Month" tour.

This meant that once a month, or more often, Louis would slap around an unknown pug who wasn't really tough enough or skilled enough to be in the ring with him.

He did it because there were so very few fighters really worthy of fighting Louis.

So, to make money in those pre-TV days, stay in shape, and remind the sporting world that he was the best, Louis took on whomever was available.
He fought more than 100 such fights in places like Topeka, Kan., Waycross, Ga., Odessa, Texas, and Moline, Ill.

Because his opponents were such second-raters - who ever heard of Sugar Lip Anderson? - the fights weren't even official title bouts. They were labeled as exhibitions.

But the crowd had a good time. And the local fighter would be able to brag that he once had the honor of being knocked senseless by Joe Louis.

It seems to me that this country has found itself in a position similar to that of Joe Louis.

Just as Louis had the physical ability to demolish anyone who challenged him, we have the military power to do the same.

We could, if we wished, blow up the entire world and everybody on it, including ourselves. Or we could single out one small part of the world and just erase it.

Who is as strong? The Soviet Union, maybe. But it's not convenient for either of us to settle the question. At least not at the moment.

As strong as we are, though, there seems to be a need in many of us to remind others of our strength. And to remind ourselves.

That's why there was such heartfelt pride and jubilation when we roared into Grenada and defeated a swarm of Cuban construction workers.

And it's the reason there's almost unanimous support in Congress, and probably among the American people, for the way we zapped those Libyan patrol boats last week.

The appealing thing about both these adventures is that they aren't really full-scale wars, which we don't want to get involved in right now.

We're calling the Libyan action a "confrontation." I don't recall what we named the Grenada invasion.
In that way, they're similar to Joe Louis' "Bum of the Month" fights, which were pushover exhibitions. The patrol boats from Libya were pushovers, as were the construction workers on Grenada. There's no risk of our losing, and they serve as military exhibitions.

When you think about it, we said we sent our planes over the Gulf of Sidra as part of a military exercise. What better exercise could there be than actually sinking a few patrol boats and bombing a couple of radar sites?

So, what I'm suggesting is that President Reagan give some thought to adopting the old Joe Louis "Bum of the Month" tour as part of our national policy.

Moammar Khadafy surely isn't the only national leader who has been making a pest of himself. And Libya isn't the only relatively small country that's been unfriendly to us.

Look at a map of the world. They're all over the place. You can't even pronounce many of their names, the foreigners.

I'm not saying that we should just go in and start shooting missiles at them for no reason. Nor should we do anything to provoke them into attacking us. As Larry Speakes, the White House spokesman says, that's not why we went into the Gulf of Sidra. We just needed the exercise. And in this fitness- conscious age, who would deny us our exercise?

But I'm sure there are a lot of little countries who, if we gave them an opportunity, would be willing to do something to provoke us. That's all those pugs were doing when they climbed in the ring with Joe Louis taking advantage of a rare opportunity to go up against the best.

What did it cost them, really. A few cuts and bruises, and a broken nose maybe, all for a lifetime of memories.

And what did it cost Khadafy? A few small boats. A few missiles. A few dozen of his citizens. All for the acclaim of his Arab friends and the world's many crazies.

So I think President Reagan, whether he knows it or not, is on to something that could become quite popular - his version of the old "Bum of the Month" tour.

The crowds will love it. But as a natural-born crowd pleaser, I'm sure he already knows that.

Joe Louis American boxer

Joe Louis, byname of Joseph Louis Barrow, also called the Brown Bomber (born May 13, 1914, Lafayette, Alabama, U.S.—died April 12, 1981, Las Vegas, Nevada), American boxer who was world heavyweight champion from June 22, 1937, when he knocked out James J. Braddock in eight rounds in Chicago, until March 1, 1949, when he briefly retired. During his reign, the longest in the history of any weight division, he successfully defended his title 25 times, more than any other champion in any division, scoring 21 knockouts (his service in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1945 no doubt prevented him from defending his title many more times). He was known as an extremely accurate and economical knockout puncher.

Louis, Joe: with Schmeling in 1938 [Credit: Bettmann/Corbis]
Louis’s father, a sharecropper, was committed to a state mental hospital when Louis was about two years old. After his mother remarried, the family, which included eight children, moved to Detroit, Michigan, where Louis took up amateur boxing. He won the U.S. Amateur Athletic Union 175-pound championship in 1934 and also was a Golden Gloves titleholder; of 54 amateur fights, Louis won 50 and lost 4. His first professional fight took place on July 4, 1934, and within 12 months he had knocked out Primo Carnera, the first of six previous or subsequent heavyweight champions who would become his victims; the others were Max Baer, Jack Sharkey, Braddock, the German champion Max Schmeling, and Jersey Joe Walcott. Louis sustained his first professional loss in 1936 at the hands of Schmeling. In 1938, after having beaten Braddock and taken the title, Louis met Schmeling in a rematch that the American media portrayed as a battle between Nazism and democracy (though Schmeling himself was not a Nazi). Louis’s dramatic knockout victory in the first round made him a national hero. He was perhaps the first black American to be widely admired by whites, a fact attributable not only to his extraordinary pugilistic skills but also to his sportsmanlike behaviour in the ring (he did not gloat over his white opponents), his perceived humility and soft-spoken demeanour, and his discretion in his private life.

Louis was at his peak in the period 1939–42. From December 1940 through June 1941 he defended the championship seven times. After enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1942, he served in a segregated unit with Jackie Robinson, who later became the first African American to play major league baseball. Louis did not see combat but fought in 96 exhibition matches before some two million troops; he also donated more than $100,000 to Army and Navy relief funds. After the war he was less active, and in 1949 he retired as the undefeated champion long enough to allow Ezzard Charles to earn recognition as his successor.

Charles, Ezzard: boxing Joe Louis, 1950 [Credit: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images]
Although Louis earned nearly $5 million as a fighter, he spent or gave away nearly all of it. When the Internal Revenue Service demanded more than $1 million in back taxes and penalties, he was forced to return to the ring to pay off his debts. He fought Charles for the championship on September 27, 1950, but lost a 15-round decision. In his last fight of consequence, against future champion Rocky Marciano on October 26, 1951, he was knocked out in eight rounds. From 1934 to 1951, Louis had 71 bouts, winning 68, 54 by knockouts. A Hollywood movie about his life, The Joe Louis Story, was made in 1953.

After his second retirement Louis continued to be plagued by money problems, and he was briefly forced to work as a professional wrestler. Later he became a greeter for Caesar’s Palace, a resort and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Upon his death in 1981 he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery; one of the pallbearers at his funeral was Schmeling. Louis was inducted to the Ring Magazine Boxing Hall of Fame in 1954 and the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990. He was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1982.