Pigeons, Bicycles and Paths to Greatness

When the child Tyson’s pet pigeon was deliberately killed by a neighbourhood bully, it set him on the path to becoming Iron Mike, the youngest heavyweight boxing champion of the world. It was, in a sense, Tyson’s cathartic moment: he threw his first punch.

Perhaps his destiny would have laid elsewhere if the neighbourhood bully had chose to victimise somebody else that day; but, in a neighbourhood where you were either the hunter or the hunted, the bully may have simply expedited the inevitable for the young Mike Tyson.

Some years earlier it took another crime, the theft of a bicycle, to set a different boy on the path to greatness. It seems that anger brought about by injustice is the perfect recipe for producing great fighters.

What other moments can you think of that have set a person/fighter on the path to greatness?

Naz? He was fighting with a few kids and they couldn't touch him and Ingle saw him from the upper deck of a bus.

Willie Pep used to shine shoes as a shoe shine boy back in New York I think. One day as he made his way to his station he noticed 2 kids shining shoes on his patch. Pep decided to fight his corner and came up against the much older black boy. Pep took some lumps but held his own.

After he decided to learn how to fight and the rest is...you know.

Cheers for that onetwo - didn't know that about Pep.

Am sure I read somewhere that Tunney started training because he'd run into trouble with some neighbourhood bullies.

The story goes that whilst working as a bouncer, Stanley Ketchel was spotted beating up a trouble maker.

Jack Johnson used to partake in a quite disturbing form of entertainment as a young kid. A group of Afro American boys were pitted against each other in an all out brawl called a royal rumble or rumble royal for the pleasure of white spectators.

Coins were thrown at the boys and bets were made as to who would win.

I think Johnson came out on top most of the time.

I wonder what became of the kids who stole Ali's bike and snapped the neck of Tyson's pigeons. Do they even know they helped shape boxing history?

I gather the girl who snapped the pigeons neck remebers because Tyson got her but no details are known. I'm not sure about alis bike - reckon whoeer nicked it saw an opportunity and took it. If they remembered they could have made money out of it.

ShahenshahG wrote:I gather the girl who snapped the pigeons neck remebers because Tyson got her but no details are known. I'm not sure about alis bike - reckon whoeer nicked it saw an opportunity and took it. If they remembered they could have made money out of it.

I shudder to think what happened to her.

azania wrote:

ShahenshahG wrote:I gather the girl who snapped the pigeons neck remebers because Tyson got her but no details are known. I'm not sure about alis bike - reckon whoeer nicked it saw an opportunity and took it. If they remembered they could have made money out of it.

I shudder to think what happened to her.

ONETWOFOREVER wrote:Jack Johnson used to partake in a quite disturbing form of entertainment as a young kid. A group of Afro American boys were pitted against each other in an all out brawl called a royal rumble or rumble royal for the pleasure of white spectators.

Coins were thrown at the boys and bets were made as to who would win.

I think Johnson came out on top most of the time.

Remember reading a similar story about JJ, slave masters would pull a sack over his head, circle round him and try beat him with sticks or something similar. The article was suggesting that this contributed to his excellent (telepathic?) defensive skills...

a small, shy weedy boy, was cruelly bullied at school for his buck teeth and speech impediment... but rather than take this lying down, he went to the gym for hours on end and came back as 200lbs of pure american beefster, that no man would mess with. I wonder if those bullies ever think of trussy now and what he has become.

milkyboy wrote:a small, shy weedy boy, was cruelly bullied at school for his buck teeth and speech impediment... but rather than take this lying down, he went to the gym for hours on end and came back as 200lbs of pure american beefster, that no man would mess with. I wonder if those bullies ever think of trussy now and what he has become.

Brilliant.

alma wrote:

ShahenshahG wrote:I gather the girl who snapped the pigeons neck remebers because Tyson got her but no details are known. I'm not sure about alis bike - reckon whoeer nicked it saw an opportunity and took it. If they remembered they could have made money out of it.

Surely the bicycle theft is referring to Carl Froch?

Na because Froch never gets on a bike. no point nicking one.