Stalin
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2008
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"..Cuba paid its respects to the late boxer Teofilo Stevenson, one of the greatest Olympians of all time who turned down the chance to fight Muhammad Ali at the height of both fighters' powers.
Stevenson, who won three gold medals as a heavyweight boxer and turned down multi-million dollar offers to turn professional after emerging as a huge talent at the 1972 Munich Games, died of a heart attack at the age of 60.
US boxing promoters tried in the late 1970s to tempt Stevenson to fight then world champion Ali for $5 million in what they said would be the "fight of the century" but it never happened as he rejected the offer.
"What's a million dollars compared to the love of eight million Cubans?" Stevenson was quoted as saying as a 20-year-old after his first Olympic gold in Munich, expressing his loyalty to the Cuban revolution which outlawed professional sport.
"I wouldn't change a piece of Cuban soil for all the money they could give me."
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/other-sports/7094004/Cuba-mourns-boxing-great-Teofilo-Stevenson
Professional boxing is a complete joke, both corrupt and fixed.
Comrade Stalin
Stevenson, who won three gold medals as a heavyweight boxer and turned down multi-million dollar offers to turn professional after emerging as a huge talent at the 1972 Munich Games, died of a heart attack at the age of 60.
US boxing promoters tried in the late 1970s to tempt Stevenson to fight then world champion Ali for $5 million in what they said would be the "fight of the century" but it never happened as he rejected the offer.
"What's a million dollars compared to the love of eight million Cubans?" Stevenson was quoted as saying as a 20-year-old after his first Olympic gold in Munich, expressing his loyalty to the Cuban revolution which outlawed professional sport.
"I wouldn't change a piece of Cuban soil for all the money they could give me."
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/other-sports/7094004/Cuba-mourns-boxing-great-Teofilo-Stevenson
Professional boxing is a complete joke, both corrupt and fixed.
Comrade Stalin