German Boxing Legend Max Schmeling Dies

Yahoo ^ | 02/04/2005 | ROY KAMMERER

[Monterrosa-24]

"Wow....most pugilists never see 75, much less a rip old age like this. He was one of the greats of the game."

Another champion that had a long life was Jess Willard who died at 87. Willard took lots of punishment from both Jack Johson and Jack Dempsey. In the Johnson fight Willard was losing for the first 15 rounds until Johnson slowed down in the Havana heat. Several of Johnson's punches would have knocked out most fighters but Willard could absorb lots of punishment and he had trained well for backing up out of trouble.

Dempsey had bet on himself to win in the first round but lost that bet as Willard showed up for the 2nd round and then the third before telling his corner "I guess I'm licked".

[fhayek]

People sometimes remember him as a symbol of Nazism, but he truly was one of the good guys. I'll bet him and Joe are sparing right now.

[DMZFrank]

The guy beat one of the greatest fighters of all time while Louis was still in his PRIME and he was slightly over the hill at THAT TIME!!!!

[RightWhale]

A heck of an athlete and a decent man. Too bad he had to live his athletic career during those times. G-d Nazis were in everything.

[RayChuang88]

What I find interesting about Schmeling's life was two aspects:

1. He made an incredibly wise decision to become get a Coca-Cola bottling franchise in (then) West Germany after World War II. (He probably took over one of the many Coca-Cola bottling plants the Americans set up in Europe near the end of World War II as the US Army moved across Europe--the story of how this happened is a very interesting one indeed.) As such, as Coca-Cola became very popular in Europe after the war, Schmeling became very wealthy but still stayed a humble man.

2. Schmeling earned a huge amount of respect for sending over US$1,000 to help defray the cost of Joe Louis' funeral, because Schmeling and Louis became friends after World War II. At the time of Louis' passing, Louis was a "greeter" at Caesars Palace casino in Las Vegas, NV, put there by a member of upper management at that casino who had pity on Louis' sorry financial and physical state and gave Louis a home to live in the Las Vegas area in return for being a "greeter" at the resort. I've read that Louis' funeral was very heavily attended, too.

[Borges]

Crass and Class. (Guess which is which)