Ranking Rocky Balboa’s toughest opponents

Former world heavyweight champion Rocky Balboa has been involved in some of the most iconic and memorable fights in boxing history

THE pro career of world heavyweight champion Rocky Balboa, also known as The Italian Stallion, was one full of drama and highs and lows and culminated with a points defeat Mason Dixon in 2006.

The Philly legend ended his career with a record of 57-23-1 (54) and won the hearts of fight fans all over the world with his aggressive style and his ability to take one to give one and miraculously rally from the brink of defeat.

To celebrate Balboa, and to inspire you to crack open a Rocky box-set during this festive period, here are the 10 best, toughest or simply most iconic fights of Balboa’s unbelievable pro career.

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10) George McQuilken

Known by true fans all over as “the fight that launched Rocky’s career,” this bout at the Boston Arena led to a controversial split decision for Rocky that had the fans jeering and empty whisky bottles flying from the balcony down  into the ring. Referee Walter “Killer” Kowalaski was barely able to keep the fighters from holding a rematch on the spot.  Both fighters left the ring holding folding chairs over their heads to ward off the missiles. McQuilken’s training partners from Ciboli’s gym, Spenser and Hawk, were able to clear a gauntlet-like path through the crowd for both fighters to escape. No rematch was desired or scheduled.

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9) Tommy Gunn

Known as the Clone Ranger or Rocky’s Robot, Gunn sought Balboa out as a trainer, then let stardom get to his head, and eventually ended up scrapping with his old mentor on the streets. As you do.

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8) Spider Rico

Rico was a Puerto Rican who boxed on the Philadelphia club scene circa 1976. Featured in Rocky I, he was blitzed by Balboa in round two of a scheduled eight-rounder.

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7) Joe Chan

Joe Chan was the best heavyweight contender China had to offer around the time of Rocky III but nowhere near good enough to test a prime Balboa. Two rounds into his title shot, Chan was knocked out by a trademark Balboa hook.

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6) Vito Soto

Soto, a Colombian slugger briefly mentioned during Rocky III, was brutally knocked out by Balboa in round six when attempting to snatch The Italian Stallion’s heavyweight crown.

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5) Mac Lee Green

Green won a gold medal for Canada at the Olympics and rose to the number one contender spot as a pro heavyweight. He was defeated by Balboa in round six of their world heavyweight title fight.

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4) Mason Dixon

Dixon cleared out the heavyweight division in 2006, racking up 33 straight wins and 30 knockouts, yet never got the respect he felt he deserved. Following a video simulation of a bout against Balboa, which saw Dixon come up short, the pair fought for real and the younger man edged the fight, Rocky’s last, on points.

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3) Ivan Drago

Standing at six-foot-five and weighing 260 pounds, Russia’s Drago was an Olympic gold medallist, an Infantry Captain for the Soviet Army, and the machine-like opponent Balboa stopped in round 15 of a heavyweight title fight.

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2) Clubber Lang

‘The Southside Slugger’ accumulated a 28-0 pro record before challenging then-champion Balboa in 1983. Although he stopped Rocky in round two, Lang experienced defeat for the first time in the pair’s rematch when Rocky gained revenge in the third.

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1) Apollo Creed

They started as foes and finished as friends. Creed won the first fight between them, taking a close decision, but Balboa, encouraged by a brave performance, managed to reverse the result in the rematch, stopping Creed in the final round.

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The piece appeared in the Boxing News in Dec. 2018.  This version incorporates minor changes making it more informative for my Facebook Friends.

·        Rocky Balboa (4)

Where have all the Barneys Gone? A Tale of Ye Olde Somerville

Every town has home-grown truisms, sayings that the locals all know and outsiders don’t.  For almost forty years now, “No Barneys in Somerville” has been at times a rallying cry,  a T-shirt, a bumper sticker and even a political campaign slogan. If you are an old Somervillen, you recognize what this slogan means but for some of us it is high time to pass this torch to a new generation.

My introduction to the phrase dates back to the early to mid-seventies. One evening I was drinking beer at the Rosebud in Davis Square with my younger brother Barry and his friends.  I had left Somerville and become a suburban homeowner but Barry lived just around the corner on Cutter Ave. Barry was active in the Ville; he produced a show called “Dead Air”  on Somerville Cable TV, played in a band at the Woodbridge, and led the longest rent strike in the city’s history.

As we discussed weighty issues, a fellow came by wearing a T-shirt, “No Barneys in Somerville.”  I asked, and here is what I was told.

A group of guys from Somerville had walked over to Harvard Square one fine evening.  As they walked through the Harvard Yard, one guy, who had never been there before, asked “where are we, what place is this?

“The Harvard Yard,” he was told.

Looking at the people in the yard, many of whom were dressed and groomed Hippy style, he said “Harvard Yard, this looks more like a Barnyard, and these people here, they’re the Barneys.”

Upon further discussion, these guys decided that Barneys were not to be welcomed to Somerville.

A decade or more later, the ever vigilant Boston Globe covered the story.“Every town has a derogatory word for newcomers who don't fit in with the locals, the outsiders who natives claim threaten the old ways of life and who aren't likely to stick around.

“In Somerville, the word for those outsiders is "Barneys." And with a growing number of students and high-income professionals moving into town, proud natives of the "All-American City" three miles northwest of Boston are making no secret of their disdain for the new arrivals. At evening porch chats, in local pubs and now on bumper stickers, sun visors and T-shirts, the message from Somerville natives is loud and clear: "No Barneys in Somerville!" 

“This usage of the word "Barney" goes back 12 years, to a summer afternoon in Harvard Square, according to Greg Gillis, 26, the Somerville native who is credited with the coinage. "When we had nothing to do we used to go over to Harvard Square and hang around," said Gillis, a warehouse worker. "And we always called the square and Harvard Yard 'the Barnyard' because of all the weird people there. They had kind of a rural look, you know, with different types of clothes and long haircuts. One day, I went up to some gentleman who had a knapsack full of yogurt and literature, probably eating something good for him, and I said, 'Hello there, Barney.' My friends all laughed, and I guess the word stuck."”

The Globe described how the slogan was spreading: “ a new shipment of anti-Barney artillery, 200 "No Barneys in Somerville!" bumper stickers, is expected this week. Joseph Brisbois, 30, a Somerville native who has handed out the bumper stickers free for the past three years, said the stickers are an inside joke among natives and aren't meant to offend the Barneys. 

“"I just give them to friends and people who ask about them," said Brisbois, who works in a plumbing supply house. Last year Brisbois and his pals printed 50 "No Barneys in Somerville" visors, and this past week T-shirts were added to the collection.”

Alas, that was in 1989, and “no Barneys” paraphernalia has gotten scarce.  There is a Facebook group, “No Barneys in the Ville” that has 825 members, but few recent postings. The page description says “If youre from old school-somerville u know exactly what this title means.”

Some current Facebook posts.

From Anthony: “ Dude, I remember growing up you would see the Barneys’ riding their bikes down the street and they would be chased back over the line, back into Cambridge… Somewhere after 1985 somebody dropped the ball and let these Yuppies into the city … and it all went to sh*t from there …:

From Susan Pritchard : “I am a Somerville girl. I graduated from SHS in 1968. I lived in Somerville all my life until 2010, 36yrs on Winter Hill alone and didn't move far away… I am not a Bahney.( a term coined in 1984 for supporters of Sal Albano in the State Senate race against an indicted Vinnie Piro).”

From Gerard: "I think the “Barnies” won their invasion decisively. The majority population of Somerville now is made up of the young scions of families who make their homes in the most posh of American suburbs –  like Weston, Sudbury, Dover, Grosse Pointe, Los Gatos, Westchester County, Bucks County. Or they come from the most elite graduate school campuses – Harvard, Duke, MIT, Tulane, Berkeley, Princeton. Or they come from the “best and the brightest”  talent pool in Bejing, Delhi, Dublin, Seoul, Nairobi, Tel Aviv, Ho Chi Minh City and Warsaw, to name a few.

"So I’d say there have been four “migration waves” to take over Somerville – the Yankees, the Irish, the Italians, the “multi-culturals” (for lack of a better term) and finally – the “Barnies”, to use the term of their denigrators. It’s their city now; let’s see if they decide they want to hold onto it for three generations." 

Maureen Houghton Foster: “There were even several references to the Harvard students as Barneys in Good Will Hunting! I get a kick out of that every time I see it.”

And then we have Joe Hickey  with  a contrarian view.  “I Have worked in Harvard square now for 25 yrs, and grew up in Somerville in the 60's-90's, and will tell you that the term Barney did not come from the people in the square, but from the building known as " the Old Barn " , Memorial Hall , just on the outside of the main yard, on the corner of Oxford and Kirkland streets, it was where students went to eat their meals, thus the people going in and out were referred to as Barneys.”

What do you say? Today, some people call Somerville the Hipster Capital of the Western World.  Is this the formula: Villen + Barney = Hipster, or do they represent a whole new invasion. And never ever call us Townies, they belong in neighboring Charlestown.

Photos contributed by Joe Brisbois.

Len Kleinrock and the theory of packets

What if I proposed to you that the best way to have a phone conversation over the internet would be to break up each voice message into a number of small packets, send them off by different routes, assemble them at the end, and have a conversation in real time?  Does this sound like a nutty idea? Yet this is the way VOIP (voice over internet protocol) works today on your Comcast phone line, or over Skype, or anywhere else where you send voice or video over the internet.
It certainly seemed fanciful back in 1958, when my friend Len Kleinrock developed his theory of packets, which he published as his PhD thesis with the great Claude Shannon as his adviser. Check the video to hear Len's explanation of how he developed and proved his theory.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLHJB2bhmgB7cmeJVqnzHg1pWYOB1z2nLn&v=qsgrtrwydjw#t=57

Happy Birthday, IBM Cambridge Scientific Center

On Feb. 1, 1964, when the CSC was founded, this building was known as 545 Technology Square.At the time, Tech Square consisted of three buildings facing a courtyard.  Since then, others have been added.  The building is practically surrounded by a substantial addition, the courtyard has been replaced by the driveway in the foreground, the building has redesigned windows, and its address appears to be  200 Technology Sq.

Adventure Car Hop, Revered 1950s Monument, Rediscovered.

Should you be constructing a memorial to the Golden Decade of Rock and Roll here in Boston, your temple might closely resemble the Adventure Car Hop in Saugus.

Growing up in Greater Boston during the 1950s and 60s, we were barraged nightly with a jingle which you,  like I, can most surely remember and sing today.

"Adventure Car Hop is the place to go
For food that's always right.
Adventure food is always just so.
(You'll relish every bite!)
Out on Route One in Saugus,
Come dressed just as you are.
Adventure, where the service is tops,
And you never get out of your car."

Adventure was not the only car hop in the area, I recall other ones at Fresh Pond in Cambridge, in Natick, in Medford, and in Hampton Beach, but I am certain there were many more.  The Adventure advantage was the region’s most famous disk jockey, Arnie Ginsburg, whose show on WBOS in 1958 opened with his signature tune.

"Gather 'round, everybody; 'cause you're about to hear

The show that's gonna make you / smile from ear to ear

It's Arnie Ginsburg / on the Night Train show

At 16-hundred...on your radio." 

Arnie dropped the last sentence in 1958, when he moved his show to WMEX, AM 1510. Here is  Freddie Boom boom Cannon from Lynn singing the Arnie Ginsberg theme from WMEX radio, the most popular rock & roll station in Boston in the '50s and early '60s. Freddie appeared on Dick Clark's American Bandstand more times than any other artist. I last saw him play at the Revere Beach Centenary a few short years ago. 

Perhaps his most creative promotion for Adventure Car Hop was the Ginsburger, as recounted by bobstudley01821in a Yahoo Group of formerlynners.

“Hi there, this is Arnie Ginsberg telling you that Adventure Car Hop presents for the first time anywhere the GINSBURGER!  That’s right; the Ginsburger is now being served at Adventure Car Hop.  I designed it, I planned it, I tested it, but you’re going to eat it.  And what a delicious mouthful it is.  And adventure Car Hop is serving the Ginsburger on a record which you get to keep for your very own.  If you say Woo-Woo Ginsberg with your order, you get another Ginsburger free of charge.  So how can you miss, stop by the Adventure Car Hop, Route One in Saugus!”

With these promotions, on a summer night Arnie could draw a couple of thousand teenagers to the place.

A couple of years ago, driving up Route 1 from Boston, I tried to remember exactly where Adventure Car Hop (now long gone) had been located.  No one I asked could recall either. With the advice of Arnie Ginsburg, I recently located the site and recorded the location on my iPhone.  If you copy @42.485481,-71.018295 into Google Maps you find yourself in the parking lot adjacent to the Continental, which is at 266 Broadway (Rt. 1) in Saugus. 

 

I thought I’d give you the coordinates in case the Continental is replaced some day in the future, as have many other Route 1 favorites.  By the way, if you do use these coordinates with Google Maps, the satellite view shows you the parking lot quite clearly.  The street view  points you toward the restaurant, but panning to the right shows you  the correct location

 Woo-Woo Ginsburg!