‘What You Got, Whitey’

Muhammad Ali gets knocked down by Chuck Wepner

Lynn, I was looking for Chuck [Chuck Wepner biopic] as per Mister Barber’s recommendation and found this.

Chuck Wepner did something great for boxing when he pissed off Ali by actually hurting and embarrassing him and touched that nerve or pride in the arrogant champion which caused him to fight like he could, but rarely would. Ali made his money clowning for sissy white people and bitter black folks.

We are looking here at and extremely tough and athletically above average man fighting a physical genus. Ali probably had the best body ever designed for boxing by God and he spent many of his fights acting the fool instead because he was that much better.

One way of noting the difference is the abandonment of the hand span guard by Chuck. If chuck extends his lead hand off his shoulder and uses it as a stopping check and a gun sight he will be twice fast. The problem is, Ali is still faster, which leads him to abandon the hand span guard and protect his face because he knows that if Ali wants him gone he could be eating five punch combos that he will only be able to answer with two strokes.

Wepner’s body work was good and demonstrates an immense reserve of core body strength and deep well of relaxation in Ali. The heart punch was a sweet shot for a big man. Now, to give you an idea of why Ray Robinson was the best of all time, he had Ali's balance and hand speed but had Wepner’s work ethic and went on the hunt to the body, sending rights to the heart. Ali could have KO’d most of his opponents that matched his stature with heart punches, but that’s hard work.

Chuck did us a hell of a favor by bringing out the beast in Ali. Note how Ali is landing combos while on the balls of both of his feet, doing micro-pivots. This guy was essentially untrained and could not even explain what he did. Imagine if Ali had had the humility to let Archie Moore train him?

One thing to say for Ali is that he fought everybody and fought on heroically to put his family out of economic insecurity even after is brain was known to be separating after a CT-scan in Bermuda.

For a bonus here is Wepner on the show card against Andre the Giant.

God that ring is small—give me a knife!

(c) 2018 James LaFond

Cestus

Roman boxing gloves unearthed by Vindolanda dig

Photo from Vindolanda Trust, refer to link above.

The image from the link, and reproduced above, is a double photo. In the background is an image of the statue of Kleitomachos [Eternally-glorious-fighter] who fought just over a hundred years before the statue was made at Rhegium, in Magna Grecia Italy. The statue shows competition gloves without metal inserts. Only some Roman spectacles included studded or spiked hand gear, and these were manifestly not used in sacred agons.

The two gloves in the foreground are fitted to manikin hands. The article erroneously states that these were both sparring gloves; they were not. These are not gloves but composite leather knuckle dusters, traditionally wound in seven layers of bulls hide. They were described as sharp because they bit like “ants” and were sometimes thus named. These became sharp from sweat salt and dried blood accumulation.

The underparts, clearly evidenced on the statue, are missing, as are the uppers, which were made of soft leather straps and wool, for blocking. Fighters were described as wetting their lips with the sweat accumulated by the woolen band halfway down the forearm. These composite fighting gauntlets required third parties to strap them on. The seven layers of bull’s hide stretched over the boxer’s knuckles—the same number of layers used in archaic shield construction—had both traditional and mythic significance and were known to cause fearsome wounds as described in Virgil’s Aenid, in which one boxer smashed in the skull of a prize bull with his leather-sheathed hand.

The idea of spiked gauntlets comes from late Roman frescoes depicting a type of pugilistic gladiator.

I have found some evidence of padded sparring gloves from the Hellenistic [literature] and Roman [reliefs of boxing-gloved Cherubs] Eras. They surely existed and were in wide use, based on the high skill level of the fighters as depicted in art and the defensive skill required by their competition gear.

The padded knuckle guard on the left would be for sparring and that in the right, with twisted leather inside, for competition, probably not in sacred agons in Roman Britain, but for training and competition among Hellenized Romans or soldiers stationed in Britain.

The sharp hand-straps or cesti, as depicted on the statue of Kleitomachos and described by Virgil [from which Roman boxing took its inspiration] would be reserved for sacred occasions, with expert handlers to affix these complex arrangements to the hand and forearm.

The following is supposition: The twisted leather within the smaller glove is an obvious crude attempt to inflect the same level of damage without the need for a lengthy gearing session, suggesting use in team competitions, or being kept on hand by a unit for member soldiers to quickly don for masculine occasions, alternately suggesting use by slaves for entertaining their masters or by Roman soldiers who might wish to imitate the heroes of legend in a type of competition from which the sacred art of boxing seems to have emerged in earlier antiquity, as a form of dueling likely to draw blood and unlikely to cause death.

(c) 2018 James LaFond