Friday, December 31, 2010

Some Goodbyes...


Cyberboxingzone.com – Image Credit

The end of the year is meant to be cathartic, a symbolic purging of the negatives of the last 12 months, a filing away of everything positive as we look toward what is to come and what must be done.

That requires saying some goodbyes. This last week brought the death of respected Philadelphia middleweight Bennie Briscoe. How respected was he? Let us turn to the Philadelphia Daily News, which this week re-ran an article by Elmer Smith from 1983 following a tribute that year to the retired fighter.

They rang the final bell on Bennie Briscoe's career last night in one of Philadelphia boxing's most decent and dignified hours.

Undisputed world middleweight champion Marvin Hagler, boxing Hall of Fame inductee and five-time world champion Emile Griffith, former light-heavyweight champion Eddie Mustafa Muhammad and a dozen other local and nationally known figures took turns at Palumbo's microphone to recall the wars they fought with Bad Bennie and to wish him the best.

They talked about how hard they had to train to get ready for a night with Bennie during the years when Philadelphia was still a "must" stop on the route to the top of the middleweight rankings and how they tried to build their reputations on Bennie's bald head.

And they told about how a fight with Bennie Briscoe told them more about themselves than it did about him.

The article includes several quotes from Briscoe's opponents. It's worth reading, even 27 years later.

Meanwhile, Murray Greig of the Edmonton Sun takes a look back at someone lost long, long ago: former heavyweight champion Tommy Burns, the man whom Jack Johnson would defeat to gain that crown. Greig's timing is apt, for it was 102 years ago that Greig faced Johnson:

The Little Giant. Hercules of Hanover. The Canadian Crusher.

None of the colourful nicknames Tommy Burns earned in the ring appear on the nondescript bronze plaque that marks his grave at Ocean View Cemetery in Burnaby, B.C.

There’s just a single line proclaiming him, “Heavyweight boxing champion of the world, 1906-1908.”

When I recently visited the cemetery office to ask directions to the champ’s final resting place, the matronly woman behind the desk seemed genuinely impressed.

While checking an oversized diagram of more than 1,000 numbered gravesites in Section B of the sprawling property, she wanted to hear the request again. “A boxing champion? A real world champion is buried here? I had no idea ...”

The past is easily forgotten. After all, each year we purge the negatives of the last 12 months, file away the positives and direct our attention to what is to come.

But history must always be written.

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