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Building The Perfect Beast
TUE October 25, BUSTER PARIS - With Halloween right around the corner I wanted to get in a spooky mood so I popped in my DVD of FrankenThumb. This is from the same brilliant minds that brought us Bat Thumb, Thumbtanic, and The Blair Thumb Project. If you’re unfamiliar with these cinematic gems let me fill you in - they are short films with an all thumb cast. They are the funniest things I’ve ever seen – I highly recommend them.
Anyway -- it got me thinking of playing FrankenBuster and building the perfect boxer.
As we prepare I call up my buddy Igor because building the perfect boxer, the perfect fighting machine, the perfect beast isn’t a one man job.
We are fortunate to have at our fingertips all the ingredients, body parts and intangibles that this creature will need to make him an invincible warrior, the ultimate pugilist – the FrankenBuster.
Come on in to my lab, watch your step and please – for your own protection, don’t touch anything. Let’s start upstairs with the brain.
This is a tricky one as there are so many ring scholars to select from. Among the entire ring learned are various boxer turned trainer that I find extremely appealing to pick from. This piece of the puzzle is a difficult one.
Our creation will need to be a ring mastermind and truly understand the science of the sport. He’ll need to consider his brain his best weapon. He’ll need to rely on it more than he needs a good jab. He’ll need the pugilistic surgery-like intelligence of Lennox Lewis.
Lennox was a master of strategy and even though I found him terribly unexciting you can’t deny his brilliance in making each match like a chess game.
Next up on our list – perception and reaction.
FrankenBuster will need the eyes and reaction time of Muhammad Ali, who in his prime could dodge a punch and counter it before the punch was even thrown. Ali knew you were going to throw a punch before you knew.
Throughout his career Muhammad was constantly criticized for keeping his hands down by his sides, but where most fighters would need to use their gloves to block punches, Ali would somehow wind up an inch out of range, it was as if his head would ride the aura of an oncoming punch and simply be just an inch out of reach. He was a master of avoiding punches and made it look so easy.
So we’ve got the brain and eyes as they relate to reaction time. Next on the list is the chin and again we’re faced with another tricky and difficult decision. Who’s chin do you give to FrankenBuster?
There are so many great noggin’s out there. At first I thought about Randall “Tex” Cobb, after all he could take one hell of a beating and remain upright. There’s also “Irish” Micky Ward and a bouquet of other amazing chinned fighters, but I’ve got to make one choice and so the chin that we’ll be using belongs to Erik Morales.
“El Terrible” has never been on the canvas in his entire professional career and in this case that really speaks volumes as he has fought many wars and has impressively and repeatedly gone toe to toe against some of the most powerful hitters in and around the Bantamweight/Featherweight divisions, all the while staying on his feet.
The next set of body parts were also hard to choose from. Who knew creating the perfect boxer would be so difficult and if you really stop and think about it – somewhat disgusting, but hey - that’s what us mad scientist do.
The Right Arm: We’ll be taking George Foreman’s right arm – Imagine a telephone pole positioned horizontally and being swung towards your face. That’s George’s right arm and it has simply knocked out 68 out of 76 opponents – that’s about 90%.
George’s right will still be capable of knocking people unconscious when he is 101 years old. It’s actually rumored that Big George once smashed a wrecking ball to pieces during training using it as a double end bag.
The Left Arm: We’ll be taking Marvin Hagler’s left arm. Hagler is a Southpaw and that left arm of his was one of the most powerful, persuasive and simply marvelous weapons that boxing has ever seen.
Hands: A boxers hands are his livelihood and so many fighters have broken their hands during bouts. We want to make sure that our creation has indestructible hands as well as being able to punish and obliterate whatever they touch. So we’re going use the more than capable fists of Sonny Liston.
Sonny had huge hands. Gargantuan hands. One of the most unique stories about Liston is that his hands were so big that he had to have his gloves specially made.
Sonny’s hands also carried with them a grueling force that would dent whatever they hit so those are definitely the mitts that we want our FrankenBuster to have.
Legs: There’s only one set of legs that our ultimate fighting machine needs to have. These legs will carry him around the ring like he’s a gentle mist floating across the water. He’ll be able to float like butterfly…need I say more?
So, we have all the physical attributes, the actual body parts picked out. Next we’ll need to give FrankenBuster a set of skills unmatched by anyone.
He’ll need the spectacular defense of an early Mike Tyson, the Peek-A-Boo stance, the hypnotic metronome upper body and head movement and the ominous air of invincibility.
The left hook: This was one of the hardest to pick. There are so many fantastic left hooks out there, but there is one that stands out above all the rest, one that was created by a freak act of nature and then honed in the gym. The left hook I chose belongs to “Smokin’” Joe Frazier.
Here’s an interesting and little known fact about Smokin’ Joe, when he was a kid he busted his left arm and it never healed properly. He couldn’t straighten it. The arm’s new natural shape was bent or slightly bowed. The boxing God’s had designed Joe Frazier’s left arm to deliver the perfect left hook.
The jab: Once again we have another incredibly hard choice to make. I must have changed this selection like 20 times and after each time I changed it I’d go right back to my first pick. This jab changed the direction and the course of boxing and it belongs to Buster Douglas.
Any doubters out there just watch Tyson vs. Douglas and tell me that’s not the most impressive jab you’ve ever seen. On that night it was the ultimate weapon that destroyed a mythical dream and changed the landscape of boxing forever.
Speed: This was the easiest choice to make. There has never been and probably never will be anyone faster than Floyd Mayweather Jr.
His hand speed is currently being studied by NASA – something to do with dismantling the space-time continuum and disproving the laws of thermonuclear dynamics.
Unfortunately at this time Floyd is under investigation by congress for suspicion of being a teleporter, which would explain why he is so un-hitable and rarely at the end of anyone’s punches.
Next, here’s where we need to give our creation some intangible qualities. This could be considered the lightning bolts that brings FrankenBuster to life. These are key characteristics that are essential for our fighter and luckily these crucial elements all come from one source.
FrankenBuster will need to have the relentless fury, the profound malice and the unabashed passionate love of fighting possessed by “El Cholo” himself - Roberto Duran.
I’ve never seen a fighter who loved to mix it up as much as Duran did. Have you ever seen the first fight with him and Sugar Ray Leonard? How about Duran vs. Carlos Palomino or his fight with Pipino Cuevas – Duran takes shot after shot and just smiles as he burrows into his opponent.
The punches he absorbs almost seem to sooth something inside him and at the same time inspire and uplift him.
It’s intoxicating to behold.
Duran absolutely and wholeheartedly loves the game. He loves to fight.
Last on the list and arguably the most important - Heart
Whose heart would you give him?
Buster Paris can be reached at: bparis@talkingboxing.com - Buster posses an advanced degree in Mad Scienticism and always enjoys receiving your thoughts, comments, questions and doing the Monster Mash
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