Drew Brees cannot throw with his right arm anymore

craig44

In an interview, he stated that because of the 2005 shoulder injury and the arthritis that came with it, he can only throw with his left arm now. He also said he would probably still be playing if not for that injury.

BillJones

I remember in one of his very last games, the Saints brought in a backup quarterback to throw a long pass. That was when I knew Brees was ready to retire.

erikthredd

That is honestly pretty sad that one of the greatest passers the NFL has ever seen can't normally throw a football anymore. IIRC he has three young boys and there's likely alot of football still left in his future.

That being said,I bet he'll throw a mean lefty spiral when its all said and done.

craig44

i guess it goes to show what a beating NFL players bodies take throughout their careers. it definitely makes one really appreciate the guys who were able to play into their 40s!!

Maywood

As fans who cheer for certain players and complain about a lot of them I don't think we realize how much NFL players sacrifice. To us it's a game, to them it's their job.

stevek

Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Basebal21

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Baseball players arent stealing money, they play basically everyday from February to October. Hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports

tommyrusty7

@Basebal21 said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Baseball players arent stealing money, they play basically everyday from February to October. Hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports

Baseball players play a grueling 162 game schedule plus the playoffs and travel constantly all over the country,
Football players travel only 9 0r 10 times a year and play fewer than 20 games a year.
The travel alone wears the players out !

stevek

@tommyrusty7 said:

@Basebal21 said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Baseball players arent stealing money, they play basically everyday from February to October. Hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports

Baseball players play a grueling 162 game schedule plus the playoffs and travel constantly all over the country,
Football players travel only 9 0r 10 times a year and play fewer than 20 games a year.
The travel alone wears the players out !

I hear ya, but basically every agent tells his client, all things being equal, always choose baseball. Very rarely do you see a star baseball/football player choose football, again, all things being equal.

stevek

@tommyrusty7 said:

@Basebal21 said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Baseball players arent stealing money, they play basically everyday from February to October. Hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports

Baseball players play a grueling 162 game schedule plus the playoffs and travel constantly all over the country,
Football players travel only 9 0r 10 times a year and play fewer than 20 games a year.
The travel alone wears the players out !

I hear ya, but baseball is not even remotely close to grueling as football when it comes to the physical, dangerous, aspect of the game.

JoeBanzai

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

Basebal21

@stevek said:

@tommyrusty7 said:

@Basebal21 said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Baseball players arent stealing money, they play basically everyday from February to October. Hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports

Baseball players play a grueling 162 game schedule plus the playoffs and travel constantly all over the country,
Football players travel only 9 0r 10 times a year and play fewer than 20 games a year.
The travel alone wears the players out !

I hear ya, but basically every agent tells his client, all things being equal, always choose baseball. Very rarely do you see a star baseball/football player choose football, again, all things being equal.

Players pick the sport they are better at. Numerous players have picked football such as Elway, Winston, Murphy, Drew Henson and Winkie goth play minor league baseball and failed and return back to the NFL. You can make 10s of millions being drafted in football in the first round, in baseball you make 9 million at best as the first pick and get white bread sandwiches with peanut butter riding buses around the Carolinas and middle America.

No agent would say to pick baseball unless youre better at it. It would be a much smaller commission

Basebal21

@stevek said:

@tommyrusty7 said:

@Basebal21 said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Baseball players arent stealing money, they play basically everyday from February to October. Hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports

Baseball players play a grueling 162 game schedule plus the playoffs and travel constantly all over the country,
Football players travel only 9 0r 10 times a year and play fewer than 20 games a year.
The travel alone wears the players out !

I hear ya, but baseball is not even remotely close to grueling as football when it comes to the physical, dangerous, aspect of the game.

Its more grueling. You play 8 months and train the other 4. Yes football has catastrophic potential on a play, but so does baseball. A 100 mph fastball breaks bones and if it happened to end up at the head thats serious brain damage. Its more grueling with the long schedule

stevek

@Basebal21 said:

@stevek said:

@tommyrusty7 said:

@Basebal21 said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Baseball players arent stealing money, they play basically everyday from February to October. Hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports

Baseball players play a grueling 162 game schedule plus the playoffs and travel constantly all over the country,
Football players travel only 9 0r 10 times a year and play fewer than 20 games a year.
The travel alone wears the players out !

I hear ya, but basically every agent tells his client, all things being equal, always choose baseball. Very rarely do you see a star baseball/football player choose football, again, all things being equal.

Players pick the sport they are better at. Numerous players have picked football such as Elway, Winston, Murphy, Drew Henson and Winkie goth play minor league baseball and failed and return back to the NFL. You can make 10s of millions being drafted in football in the first round, in baseball you make 9 million at best as the first pick and get white bread sandwiches with peanut butter riding buses around the Carolinas and middle America.

No agent would say to pick baseball unless youre better at it. It would be a much smaller commission

Agents want their clients to have as long a career as possible, so they can milk them for as long as possible.

Actors making 20 million dollars a movie are stealing. Corporate CEO's making hundreds of millions a year are stealing. Hey, take whatever they're willing to pay. I get all that. But they aren't even close to being gladiators as are football players.

stevek

@JoeBanzai said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

When I was younger, I always considered boxing to be the most grueling sport. I mean how can it get worse than being hit in the head countless numbers of times by a strong boxer? Seemed obvious to me.

Then I read an article pointing out how football has that distinction. I can't recall if the article used the word "grueling" or not, but I think it possibly could have been used. I thought about it and wound-up agreeing with the article.

The main reason is that yes, football players are not exposed to as much head trauma as boxers. But football players are exposed to a lot of head trauma, as CTE among long time football players is not uncommon. That being said, football exposes the player to so much more than just head trauma. Overall the damage that's done to the body playing football, yes I believe does equate to being more grueling than boxing.

Frankly, I would still place boxing, along with mixed martial arts in the gladiator category. With football at the top. The other sports mentioned have their toughness about them, I'm not questioning that, but I wouldn't consider those players to be gladiators, and baseball not even remotely close.

So in my view, considering everything, baseball players are stealing money for what they do. They shouldn't be making 1/10th of what they make. Football players in my view deserve every cent.

Steven59

@Basebal21 said:
Baseball players arent stealing money, they play basically everyday from February to October.

Really? Michael Bourn ($48 Mill for 4 yrs) and Nick Swisher ($56 Mill for 4 yrs) should have been thrown in prison for Fraud/Grand Theft when they signed with the Indians in 2013.

stevek

@Steven59 said:

@Basebal21 said:
Baseball players arent stealing money, they play basically everyday from February to October.

Really? Michael Bourn ($48 Mill for 4 yrs) and Nick Swisher ($56 Mill for 4 yrs) should have been thrown in prison for Fraud/Grand Theft when they signed with the Indians in 2013.

"thrown in prison"

Hard labor.

Basebal21

@Steven59 said:

@Basebal21 said:
Baseball players arent stealing money, they play basically everyday from February to October.

Really? Michael Bourn ($48 Mill for 4 yrs) and Nick Swisher ($56 Mill for 4 yrs) should have been thrown in prison for Fraud/Grand Theft when they signed with the Indians in 2013.

Vick went to federal prison for fighting dogs, Ray Rice beating his gf in an elevator. Just as some for what actually went to prison.

Borne and others they may not have been the best signings which Cleveland made a lot of bad decisions. A owner that trades everyone away and doesnt want to puit the money on the field if different

stevek

@Basebal21 said:

@Steven59 said:

@Basebal21 said:
Baseball players arent stealing money, they play basically everyday from February to October.

Really? Michael Bourn ($48 Mill for 4 yrs) and Nick Swisher ($56 Mill for 4 yrs) should have been thrown in prison for Fraud/Grand Theft when they signed with the Indians in 2013.

Vick went to federal prison for fighting dogs, Ray Rice beating his gf in an elevator. Just as some for what actually went to prison.

Borne and others they may not have been the best signings which Cleveland made a lot of bad decisions. A owner that trades everyone away and doesnt want to puit the money on the field if different

I wouldn't be surprised if Roman gladiators from 2,000 years ago, got in all sorts of trouble outside the arena.

I'm not sure of the gladiator salary structure back then. I'd say whatever it was, they were worth every denarius. 😉

Steven59

@Basebal21 said:
Vick went to federal prison for fighting dogs, Ray Rice beating his gf in an elevator. Just as some for what actually went to prison

dog fighting and beatings? Kid stuff! Now, lets talk Ray Carruth and Arron Hernandez

Basebal21

@stevek said:

@Basebal21 said:

@Steven59 said:

@Basebal21 said:
Baseball players arent stealing money, they play basically everyday from February to October.

Really? Michael Bourn ($48 Mill for 4 yrs) and Nick Swisher ($56 Mill for 4 yrs) should have been thrown in prison for Fraud/Grand Theft when they signed with the Indians in 2013.

Vick went to federal prison for fighting dogs, Ray Rice beating his gf in an elevator. Just as some for what actually went to prison.

Borne and others they may not have been the best signings which Cleveland made a lot of bad decisions. A owner that trades everyone away and doesnt want to puit the money on the field if different

I wouldn't be surprised if Roman gladiators from 2,000 years ago, got in all sorts of trouble outside the arena.

I'm not sure of the gladiator salary structure back then. I'd say whatever it was, they were worth every denarius. 😉

Things definitely happened back then. When you look at the sports though the best baseball players of all time fail 60-70 percent of the time its so hard to hit a baseball.

If anything the NBA guys are the ones collecting checks just playing for the last couple minutes a game waiting for the playoffs to start. Its by far the most predictable sport

galaxy27

michael bourn should be awarded the presidential medal of freedom for locating someone in this country stupid enough to offer him 48 million dollars to play baseball

meanwhile whoever slid that contract across the table should be charged with first-degree dumbassery

erikthredd

I don't know how bad Michael Bourn's play was on a 4yr/48M deal but his contract doesn't come close to being the albatross that is Ben Simmons current deal. He's in year 4 of a 5yr/177M contract and has played a total of 106 out of 328 games, not including the playoffs.
This is the guy that let the Atlanta Hawks fanbase get so deep into his head that he was afraid to dunk the ball on a wide open layup and passed to a teammate instead. the Sixers couldn't play their starting PG late in games because he couldn't hit a free throw. He's been a mental case ever since needing to take weeks off at a time to deal with "back issues."

craig44

carl crawfords deal with Boston was about as bad as i can remember.

Basebal21

@craig44 said:
carl crawfords deal with Boston was about as bad as i can remember.

Chris Davis, Russell Wilson, Strasburg, Kyler Murray, Jokim Noah, Gilbert Arenas, Albert Haneysworth, Jamarcus Russel, Carson Wentz, Ellsbury

perkdog

@craig44 said:
carl crawfords deal with Boston was about as bad as i can remember.

Pablo Sandovol?

perkdog

Sam Bradford criminally made over 100 million in NFL deals,

Hard to believe

craig44

@perkdog said:

@craig44 said:
carl crawfords deal with Boston was about as bad as i can remember.

Pablo Sandovol?

there have been so many bad ones

doubledragon

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

When I was younger, I always considered boxing to be the most grueling sport. I mean how can it get worse than being hit in the head countless numbers of times by a strong boxer? Seemed obvious to me.

Then I read an article pointing out how football has that distinction. I can't recall if the article used the word "grueling" or not, but I think it possibly could have been used. I thought about it and wound-up agreeing with the article.

The main reason is that yes, football players are not exposed to as much head trauma as boxers. But football players are exposed to a lot of head trauma, as CTE among long time football players is not uncommon. That being said, football exposes the player to so much more than just head trauma. Overall the damage that's done to the body playing football, yes I believe does equate to being more grueling than boxing.

Frankly, I would still place boxing, along with mixed martial arts in the gladiator category. With football at the top. The other sports mentioned have their toughness about them, I'm not questioning that, but I wouldn't consider those players to be gladiators, and baseball not even remotely close.

So in my view, considering everything, baseball players are stealing money for what they do. They shouldn't be making 1/10th of what they make. Football players in my view deserve every cent.

Boxing is definitely one of the most dangerous sports, around 1500 have died as a result of their injuries in the ring since the 1880s. As far as head trauma, boxing is by far the worst, the concussive force is greater, guys look like they've been hit by a shotgun blast, their bodies going completely limp. You rarely see that in any other sports, happens all the time in boxing. The gloves aren't padded to protect the face, they're padded to protect the fist, allowing guys to really unload on you.

stevek

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

When I was younger, I always considered boxing to be the most grueling sport. I mean how can it get worse than being hit in the head countless numbers of times by a strong boxer? Seemed obvious to me.

Then I read an article pointing out how football has that distinction. I can't recall if the article used the word "grueling" or not, but I think it possibly could have been used. I thought about it and wound-up agreeing with the article.

The main reason is that yes, football players are not exposed to as much head trauma as boxers. But football players are exposed to a lot of head trauma, as CTE among long time football players is not uncommon. That being said, football exposes the player to so much more than just head trauma. Overall the damage that's done to the body playing football, yes I believe does equate to being more grueling than boxing.

Frankly, I would still place boxing, along with mixed martial arts in the gladiator category. With football at the top. The other sports mentioned have their toughness about them, I'm not questioning that, but I wouldn't consider those players to be gladiators, and baseball not even remotely close.

So in my view, considering everything, baseball players are stealing money for what they do. They shouldn't be making 1/10th of what they make. Football players in my view deserve every cent.

Boxing is definitely one of the most dangerous sports, around 1500 have died as a result of their injuries in the ring since the 1880s. As far as head trauma, boxing is by far the worst, the concussive force is greater, guys look like they've been hit by a shotgun blast, their bodies going completely limp. You rarely see that in any other sports, happens all the time in boxing. The gloves aren't padded to protect the face, they're padded to protect the fist, allowing guys to really unload on you.

Cassius Clay, sometimes little known by his other name, is a good example of what you stated. There are a number of interviews with him on Youtube. In the 60's and 70's he is smart, articulate, and even funny with a good sense of humor. In the 80's interviews or around that time, it was obvious how his brain had degraded in slower responses to interview questions, slightly slurred speech, etc.

Upon his retirement from boxing and until his death, I think most of us already know how Ali became sort of like a dementia patient. Yet from what I've read, he technically did not have dementia, and could understand everything going on around him including conversations. He just verbally couldn't respond to it. His physical mechanisms eventually shut down as well. Most will say, and I fully agree, that this gross deterioration was caused by boxing.

I read one time where somebody did a study, and estimated that Ali during his career, including sparing, etc, was subjected to approximately 75,000 blows to the head. Whatever is the number, it's for sure a lot of blows to the head. I mean there are sometimes news stories about someone receiving just one blow to the head in a scuffle of some sort, and dying from it.

It's of course not just Ali. My favorite boxer of all time is Joe Frazier. Joe wasn't as witty as Ali, not too many people are, but Joe was highly intelligent without question. Sadly, Joe as well in retirement suffered in a similar manner as Ali, although it wasn't quite as bad. It was painful to me hearing Joe speak as he got older, slurring the words, etc.

That's an excellent point you make about all the deaths from boxing, which I hadn't thought of when making my initial post about it. Boxers are gladiators, without question, and they well earn every cent that they make. Those fat 50 and 100 million dollar purses or whatever it is, I don't begrudge them one bit making that kind of big money.

doubledragon

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

When I was younger, I always considered boxing to be the most grueling sport. I mean how can it get worse than being hit in the head countless numbers of times by a strong boxer? Seemed obvious to me.

Then I read an article pointing out how football has that distinction. I can't recall if the article used the word "grueling" or not, but I think it possibly could have been used. I thought about it and wound-up agreeing with the article.

The main reason is that yes, football players are not exposed to as much head trauma as boxers. But football players are exposed to a lot of head trauma, as CTE among long time football players is not uncommon. That being said, football exposes the player to so much more than just head trauma. Overall the damage that's done to the body playing football, yes I believe does equate to being more grueling than boxing.

Frankly, I would still place boxing, along with mixed martial arts in the gladiator category. With football at the top. The other sports mentioned have their toughness about them, I'm not questioning that, but I wouldn't consider those players to be gladiators, and baseball not even remotely close.

So in my view, considering everything, baseball players are stealing money for what they do. They shouldn't be making 1/10th of what they make. Football players in my view deserve every cent.

Boxing is definitely one of the most dangerous sports, around 1500 have died as a result of their injuries in the ring since the 1880s. As far as head trauma, boxing is by far the worst, the concussive force is greater, guys look like they've been hit by a shotgun blast, their bodies going completely limp. You rarely see that in any other sports, happens all the time in boxing. The gloves aren't padded to protect the face, they're padded to protect the fist, allowing guys to really unload on you.

Cassius Clay, sometimes little known by his other name, is a good example of what you stated. There are a number of interviews with him on Youtube. In the 60's and 70's he is smart, articulate, and even funny with a good sense of humor. In the 80's interviews or around that time, it was obvious how his brain had degraded in slower responses to interview questions, slightly slurred speech, etc.

Upon his retirement from boxing and until his death, I think most of us already know how Ali became sort of like a dementia patient. Yet from what I've read, he technically did not have dementia, and could understand everything going on around him including conversations. He just verbally couldn't respond to it. His physical mechanisms eventually shut down as well. Most will say, and I fully agree, that this gross deterioration was caused by boxing.

I read one time where somebody did a study, and estimated that Ali during his career, including sparing, etc, was subjected to approximately 75,000 blows to the head. Whatever is the number, it's for sure a lot of blows to the head. I mean there are sometimes news stories about someone receiving just one blow to the head in a scuffle of some sort, and dying from it.

It's of course not just Ali. My favorite boxer of all time is Joe Frazier. Joe wasn't as witty as Ali, not too many people are, but Joe was highly intelligent without question. Sadly, Joe as well in retirement suffered in a similar manner as Ali, although it wasn't quite as bad. It was painful to me hearing Joe speak as he got older, slurring the words, etc.

That's an excellent point you make about all the deaths from boxing, which I hadn't thought of when making my initial post about it. Boxers are gladiators, without question, and they well earn every cent that they make. Those fat 50 and 100 million dollar purses or whatever it is, I don't begrudge them one bit making that kind of big money.

It is sad to see a lot of boxers later in life with the slurred speech, Larry Holmes, Riddick Bowe, a lot of them show the signs you are talking about. I love Joe Frazier as well, one of my all-time favorites, a great guy and fighter, it was heart breaking listening to him talk in his later years, and of course Ali, who had such an outgoing personality in his younger days, and couldn't even speak as he got older. Football is a very violent sport as well, just look at Joe Montana, all the damage he took in the 80s when defenders could just lay waste to the quarterback. I was reading an article about Montana recently and he's had so many surgeries all over his body it's ridiculous, dozens, he's in constant pain all the time, and his wife said sometimes the pain gets so bad that he just gets out of bed in the middle of the night and lays in the floor in agony. Football is brutal on your overall body. Take this for example, Christian McCaffrey's wife posted these pics online the other day, she was a bit surprised by the beating his body took in their game on Thanksgiving. You can see the bruises and blood on his arm, and it left blood stains on the bed covers.

stevek

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

When I was younger, I always considered boxing to be the most grueling sport. I mean how can it get worse than being hit in the head countless numbers of times by a strong boxer? Seemed obvious to me.

Then I read an article pointing out how football has that distinction. I can't recall if the article used the word "grueling" or not, but I think it possibly could have been used. I thought about it and wound-up agreeing with the article.

The main reason is that yes, football players are not exposed to as much head trauma as boxers. But football players are exposed to a lot of head trauma, as CTE among long time football players is not uncommon. That being said, football exposes the player to so much more than just head trauma. Overall the damage that's done to the body playing football, yes I believe does equate to being more grueling than boxing.

Frankly, I would still place boxing, along with mixed martial arts in the gladiator category. With football at the top. The other sports mentioned have their toughness about them, I'm not questioning that, but I wouldn't consider those players to be gladiators, and baseball not even remotely close.

So in my view, considering everything, baseball players are stealing money for what they do. They shouldn't be making 1/10th of what they make. Football players in my view deserve every cent.

Boxing is definitely one of the most dangerous sports, around 1500 have died as a result of their injuries in the ring since the 1880s. As far as head trauma, boxing is by far the worst, the concussive force is greater, guys look like they've been hit by a shotgun blast, their bodies going completely limp. You rarely see that in any other sports, happens all the time in boxing. The gloves aren't padded to protect the face, they're padded to protect the fist, allowing guys to really unload on you.

Cassius Clay, sometimes little known by his other name, is a good example of what you stated. There are a number of interviews with him on Youtube. In the 60's and 70's he is smart, articulate, and even funny with a good sense of humor. In the 80's interviews or around that time, it was obvious how his brain had degraded in slower responses to interview questions, slightly slurred speech, etc.

Upon his retirement from boxing and until his death, I think most of us already know how Ali became sort of like a dementia patient. Yet from what I've read, he technically did not have dementia, and could understand everything going on around him including conversations. He just verbally couldn't respond to it. His physical mechanisms eventually shut down as well. Most will say, and I fully agree, that this gross deterioration was caused by boxing.

I read one time where somebody did a study, and estimated that Ali during his career, including sparing, etc, was subjected to approximately 75,000 blows to the head. Whatever is the number, it's for sure a lot of blows to the head. I mean there are sometimes news stories about someone receiving just one blow to the head in a scuffle of some sort, and dying from it.

It's of course not just Ali. My favorite boxer of all time is Joe Frazier. Joe wasn't as witty as Ali, not too many people are, but Joe was highly intelligent without question. Sadly, Joe as well in retirement suffered in a similar manner as Ali, although it wasn't quite as bad. It was painful to me hearing Joe speak as he got older, slurring the words, etc.

That's an excellent point you make about all the deaths from boxing, which I hadn't thought of when making my initial post about it. Boxers are gladiators, without question, and they well earn every cent that they make. Those fat 50 and 100 million dollar purses or whatever it is, I don't begrudge them one bit making that kind of big money.

It is sad to see a lot of boxers later in life with the slurred speech, Larry Holmes, Riddick Bowe, a lot of them show the signs you are talking about. I love Joe Frazier as well, one of my all-time favorites, a great guy and fighter, it was heart breaking listening to him talk in his later years, and of course Ali, who had such an outgoing personality in his younger days, and couldn't even speak as he got older. Football is a very violent sport as well, just look at Joe Montana, all the damage he took in the 80s when defenders could just lay waste to the quarterback. I was reading an article about Montana recently and he's had so many surgeries all over his body it's ridiculous, dozens, he's in constant pain all the time, and his wife said sometimes the pain gets so bad that he just gets out of bed in the middle of the night and lays in the floor in agony. Football is brutal on your overall body. Take this for example, Christian McCaffrey's wife posted these pics online the other day, she was a bit surprised by the beating his body took in their game on Thanksgiving. You can see the bruises and blood on his arm, and it left blood stains on the bed covers.

Yea, it's sort of like a form of morbid fun when you're young. Ya get banged up and figure your body will heal up fine and recover. In high school football, I was too stupid to wear an arm pad, and both my arms were almost one continuous bruise during football season. I actually enjoyed showing it off - sick, i admit it.

The only long term casualty I suffered from playing football was during a game this MFer clipped me for really no reason, as the play was on the other side of the field. To this day my one knee is a bit gimpy when i start walking long distances such as hunting. No pain, it just gives out so to speak. No complaints, but frankly, I'm glad as yell I decided not to even try college football, and I was tempted to try out.

Our fraternity used to party with the football fraternity up at Penn State, and of course when we all got drunk, we'd wind-up arm wrestling for the yell of it. At that time the football players shared the same weight room with the other students, and I was in there regularly every other day. So the football players knew my face, as it's usually the same people in there all the time. I'd outlift most of them. And during the arm wrestling sessions, I'd beat most of them. Some of them said to me why don't you try out for the team as a walk-on? I told them I thought about it, but the problem is in the 40, you can time me with an hourglass. Paterno or his staff would have cut me quickly because of that, so I figured why bother. Even if I had somehow made the team, I'd be no better than a third team tackling dummy. I knew I'd never play in a game, so I just didn't want to do that.

You probably know about and perhaps have seen the video on Jim Otto? I didn't realize that about Montana. I'll have to check out Youtube and see if there's a video on it about his hardship.

doubledragon

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

When I was younger, I always considered boxing to be the most grueling sport. I mean how can it get worse than being hit in the head countless numbers of times by a strong boxer? Seemed obvious to me.

Then I read an article pointing out how football has that distinction. I can't recall if the article used the word "grueling" or not, but I think it possibly could have been used. I thought about it and wound-up agreeing with the article.

The main reason is that yes, football players are not exposed to as much head trauma as boxers. But football players are exposed to a lot of head trauma, as CTE among long time football players is not uncommon. That being said, football exposes the player to so much more than just head trauma. Overall the damage that's done to the body playing football, yes I believe does equate to being more grueling than boxing.

Frankly, I would still place boxing, along with mixed martial arts in the gladiator category. With football at the top. The other sports mentioned have their toughness about them, I'm not questioning that, but I wouldn't consider those players to be gladiators, and baseball not even remotely close.

So in my view, considering everything, baseball players are stealing money for what they do. They shouldn't be making 1/10th of what they make. Football players in my view deserve every cent.

Boxing is definitely one of the most dangerous sports, around 1500 have died as a result of their injuries in the ring since the 1880s. As far as head trauma, boxing is by far the worst, the concussive force is greater, guys look like they've been hit by a shotgun blast, their bodies going completely limp. You rarely see that in any other sports, happens all the time in boxing. The gloves aren't padded to protect the face, they're padded to protect the fist, allowing guys to really unload on you.

Cassius Clay, sometimes little known by his other name, is a good example of what you stated. There are a number of interviews with him on Youtube. In the 60's and 70's he is smart, articulate, and even funny with a good sense of humor. In the 80's interviews or around that time, it was obvious how his brain had degraded in slower responses to interview questions, slightly slurred speech, etc.

Upon his retirement from boxing and until his death, I think most of us already know how Ali became sort of like a dementia patient. Yet from what I've read, he technically did not have dementia, and could understand everything going on around him including conversations. He just verbally couldn't respond to it. His physical mechanisms eventually shut down as well. Most will say, and I fully agree, that this gross deterioration was caused by boxing.

I read one time where somebody did a study, and estimated that Ali during his career, including sparing, etc, was subjected to approximately 75,000 blows to the head. Whatever is the number, it's for sure a lot of blows to the head. I mean there are sometimes news stories about someone receiving just one blow to the head in a scuffle of some sort, and dying from it.

It's of course not just Ali. My favorite boxer of all time is Joe Frazier. Joe wasn't as witty as Ali, not too many people are, but Joe was highly intelligent without question. Sadly, Joe as well in retirement suffered in a similar manner as Ali, although it wasn't quite as bad. It was painful to me hearing Joe speak as he got older, slurring the words, etc.

That's an excellent point you make about all the deaths from boxing, which I hadn't thought of when making my initial post about it. Boxers are gladiators, without question, and they well earn every cent that they make. Those fat 50 and 100 million dollar purses or whatever it is, I don't begrudge them one bit making that kind of big money.

It is sad to see a lot of boxers later in life with the slurred speech, Larry Holmes, Riddick Bowe, a lot of them show the signs you are talking about. I love Joe Frazier as well, one of my all-time favorites, a great guy and fighter, it was heart breaking listening to him talk in his later years, and of course Ali, who had such an outgoing personality in his younger days, and couldn't even speak as he got older. Football is a very violent sport as well, just look at Joe Montana, all the damage he took in the 80s when defenders could just lay waste to the quarterback. I was reading an article about Montana recently and he's had so many surgeries all over his body it's ridiculous, dozens, he's in constant pain all the time, and his wife said sometimes the pain gets so bad that he just gets out of bed in the middle of the night and lays in the floor in agony. Football is brutal on your overall body. Take this for example, Christian McCaffrey's wife posted these pics online the other day, she was a bit surprised by the beating his body took in their game on Thanksgiving. You can see the bruises and blood on his arm, and it left blood stains on the bed covers.

Yea, it's sort of like a form of morbid fun when you're young. Ya get banged up and figure your body will heal up fine and recover. In high school football, I was too stupid to wear an arm pad, and both my arms were almost one continuous bruise during football season. I actually enjoyed showing it off - sick, i admit it.

The only long term casualty I suffered from playing football was during a game this MFer clipped me for really no reason, as the play was on the other side of the field. To this day my one knee is a bit gimpy when i start walking long distances such as hunting. No pain, it just gives out so to speak. No complaints, but frankly, I'm glad as yell I decided not to even try college football, and I was tempted to try out.

Our fraternity used to party with the football fraternity up at Penn State, and of course when we all got drunk, we'd wind-up arm wrestling for the yell of it. At that time the football players shared the same weight room with the other students, and I was in there regularly every other day. So the football players knew my face, as it's usually the same people in there all the time. I'd outlift most of them. And during the arm wrestling sessions, I'd beat most of them. Some of them said to me why don't you try out for the team as a walk-on? I told them I thought about it, but the problem is in the 40, you can time me with an hourglass. Paterno or his staff would have cut me quickly because of that, so I figured why bother. Even if I had somehow made the team, I'd be no better than a third team tackling dummy. I knew I'd never play in a game, so I just didn't want to do that.

You probably know about and perhaps have seen the video on Jim Otto? I didn't realize that about Montana. I'll have to check out Youtube and see if there's a video on it about his hardship.

Interesting about the arm wrestling, I used to be obsessed with arm wrestling back in my younger days and I would challenge everyone and their brother to a match. Anyway, a while back I was poking around on YouTube, just looking at various videos, and I came across a video of two guys arm wrestling and the force of the pulling caused the guys arm to just snap like a stick, it was the first time I had ever seen anything like that happening in an arm wrestling match, and from that moment on I have never arm wrestled again, nor will I ever do it again period. It makes me cringe when I think about all of those arm wrestling matches I participated in, they were intense and I was lucky not to have broken my arm in half. I haven't seen the Jim Otto video you refer to, I'll check it out when I get a chance. 👍

stevek

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

When I was younger, I always considered boxing to be the most grueling sport. I mean how can it get worse than being hit in the head countless numbers of times by a strong boxer? Seemed obvious to me.

Then I read an article pointing out how football has that distinction. I can't recall if the article used the word "grueling" or not, but I think it possibly could have been used. I thought about it and wound-up agreeing with the article.

The main reason is that yes, football players are not exposed to as much head trauma as boxers. But football players are exposed to a lot of head trauma, as CTE among long time football players is not uncommon. That being said, football exposes the player to so much more than just head trauma. Overall the damage that's done to the body playing football, yes I believe does equate to being more grueling than boxing.

Frankly, I would still place boxing, along with mixed martial arts in the gladiator category. With football at the top. The other sports mentioned have their toughness about them, I'm not questioning that, but I wouldn't consider those players to be gladiators, and baseball not even remotely close.

So in my view, considering everything, baseball players are stealing money for what they do. They shouldn't be making 1/10th of what they make. Football players in my view deserve every cent.

Boxing is definitely one of the most dangerous sports, around 1500 have died as a result of their injuries in the ring since the 1880s. As far as head trauma, boxing is by far the worst, the concussive force is greater, guys look like they've been hit by a shotgun blast, their bodies going completely limp. You rarely see that in any other sports, happens all the time in boxing. The gloves aren't padded to protect the face, they're padded to protect the fist, allowing guys to really unload on you.

Cassius Clay, sometimes little known by his other name, is a good example of what you stated. There are a number of interviews with him on Youtube. In the 60's and 70's he is smart, articulate, and even funny with a good sense of humor. In the 80's interviews or around that time, it was obvious how his brain had degraded in slower responses to interview questions, slightly slurred speech, etc.

Upon his retirement from boxing and until his death, I think most of us already know how Ali became sort of like a dementia patient. Yet from what I've read, he technically did not have dementia, and could understand everything going on around him including conversations. He just verbally couldn't respond to it. His physical mechanisms eventually shut down as well. Most will say, and I fully agree, that this gross deterioration was caused by boxing.

I read one time where somebody did a study, and estimated that Ali during his career, including sparing, etc, was subjected to approximately 75,000 blows to the head. Whatever is the number, it's for sure a lot of blows to the head. I mean there are sometimes news stories about someone receiving just one blow to the head in a scuffle of some sort, and dying from it.

It's of course not just Ali. My favorite boxer of all time is Joe Frazier. Joe wasn't as witty as Ali, not too many people are, but Joe was highly intelligent without question. Sadly, Joe as well in retirement suffered in a similar manner as Ali, although it wasn't quite as bad. It was painful to me hearing Joe speak as he got older, slurring the words, etc.

That's an excellent point you make about all the deaths from boxing, which I hadn't thought of when making my initial post about it. Boxers are gladiators, without question, and they well earn every cent that they make. Those fat 50 and 100 million dollar purses or whatever it is, I don't begrudge them one bit making that kind of big money.

It is sad to see a lot of boxers later in life with the slurred speech, Larry Holmes, Riddick Bowe, a lot of them show the signs you are talking about. I love Joe Frazier as well, one of my all-time favorites, a great guy and fighter, it was heart breaking listening to him talk in his later years, and of course Ali, who had such an outgoing personality in his younger days, and couldn't even speak as he got older. Football is a very violent sport as well, just look at Joe Montana, all the damage he took in the 80s when defenders could just lay waste to the quarterback. I was reading an article about Montana recently and he's had so many surgeries all over his body it's ridiculous, dozens, he's in constant pain all the time, and his wife said sometimes the pain gets so bad that he just gets out of bed in the middle of the night and lays in the floor in agony. Football is brutal on your overall body. Take this for example, Christian McCaffrey's wife posted these pics online the other day, she was a bit surprised by the beating his body took in their game on Thanksgiving. You can see the bruises and blood on his arm, and it left blood stains on the bed covers.

Yea, it's sort of like a form of morbid fun when you're young. Ya get banged up and figure your body will heal up fine and recover. In high school football, I was too stupid to wear an arm pad, and both my arms were almost one continuous bruise during football season. I actually enjoyed showing it off - sick, i admit it.

The only long term casualty I suffered from playing football was during a game this MFer clipped me for really no reason, as the play was on the other side of the field. To this day my one knee is a bit gimpy when i start walking long distances such as hunting. No pain, it just gives out so to speak. No complaints, but frankly, I'm glad as yell I decided not to even try college football, and I was tempted to try out.

Our fraternity used to party with the football fraternity up at Penn State, and of course when we all got drunk, we'd wind-up arm wrestling for the yell of it. At that time the football players shared the same weight room with the other students, and I was in there regularly every other day. So the football players knew my face, as it's usually the same people in there all the time. I'd outlift most of them. And during the arm wrestling sessions, I'd beat most of them. Some of them said to me why don't you try out for the team as a walk-on? I told them I thought about it, but the problem is in the 40, you can time me with an hourglass. Paterno or his staff would have cut me quickly because of that, so I figured why bother. Even if I had somehow made the team, I'd be no better than a third team tackling dummy. I knew I'd never play in a game, so I just didn't want to do that.

You probably know about and perhaps have seen the video on Jim Otto? I didn't realize that about Montana. I'll have to check out Youtube and see if there's a video on it about his hardship.

Interesting about the arm wrestling, I used to be obsessed with arm wrestling back in my younger days and I would challenge everyone and their brother to a match. Anyway, a while back I was poking around on YouTube, just looking at various videos, and I came across a video of two guys arm wrestling and the force of the pulling caused the guys arm to just snap like a stick, it was the first time I had ever seen anything like that happening in an arm wrestling match, and from that moment on I have never arm wrestled again, nor will I ever do it again period. It makes me cringe when I think about all of those arm wrestling matches I participated in, they were intense and I was lucky not to have broken my arm in half. I haven't seen the Jim Otto video you refer to, I'll check it out when I get a chance. 👍

The last time I ever arm wrestled, and it will be the last time, was around 20 years ago. I was attending this good customer's employee wedding. The employee was my main contact there for orders, etc, but I also knew the owner well. Did a ton of business with him.

Anyway so at the reception, we're all sitting at the same table with the owner, and other business associates of the groom. I always knew the owner was a bull, very strong, but we never discussed any of that during business. But you see it coming, we're drinking a lot, and sure enough the subject of arm wrestling came up. I stated not in a bragging way, but I think the owner took it that way, that nobody, and I mean nobody has ever beaten me in arm wrestling who was close to my weight class. I recall at the mentioned frat parties, those who beat me outweighed me by at least 50 or 100 pounds, basically the linemen. This owner may have outweighed me by perhaps 10 or 15 pounds, and he took umbrage to what I said, in a fun way. Admittedly i did it intentionally as we all knew he was a tough guy. So we agreed to arm wrestle right there at the table, right in front of the ladies. Toughest match I ever had, it must have lasted one to two minutes, both of us going full out, and it was still a stalemate. Finally he acquiesced and let go, and I'm sure glad he did because I was shot.

Well the next day I had the worst tendinitis in my right elbow, I ever had in my life. And it must have lasted close to two weeks before it finally went away. It was brutal. Certainly wasn't worth the silly fooling around to see who's the best arm wrestler. You might think it was kinda stupid beating a guy in arm wresting who was a great customer. But we knew each other over a decade, and had a good laugh about it after it was over. I sure wasn't laughing about it the next day. I've had a kidney stone, and I'd rather have the kidney stone than have that severe tendinitis again - LOL

doubledragon

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

When I was younger, I always considered boxing to be the most grueling sport. I mean how can it get worse than being hit in the head countless numbers of times by a strong boxer? Seemed obvious to me.

Then I read an article pointing out how football has that distinction. I can't recall if the article used the word "grueling" or not, but I think it possibly could have been used. I thought about it and wound-up agreeing with the article.

The main reason is that yes, football players are not exposed to as much head trauma as boxers. But football players are exposed to a lot of head trauma, as CTE among long time football players is not uncommon. That being said, football exposes the player to so much more than just head trauma. Overall the damage that's done to the body playing football, yes I believe does equate to being more grueling than boxing.

Frankly, I would still place boxing, along with mixed martial arts in the gladiator category. With football at the top. The other sports mentioned have their toughness about them, I'm not questioning that, but I wouldn't consider those players to be gladiators, and baseball not even remotely close.

So in my view, considering everything, baseball players are stealing money for what they do. They shouldn't be making 1/10th of what they make. Football players in my view deserve every cent.

Boxing is definitely one of the most dangerous sports, around 1500 have died as a result of their injuries in the ring since the 1880s. As far as head trauma, boxing is by far the worst, the concussive force is greater, guys look like they've been hit by a shotgun blast, their bodies going completely limp. You rarely see that in any other sports, happens all the time in boxing. The gloves aren't padded to protect the face, they're padded to protect the fist, allowing guys to really unload on you.

Cassius Clay, sometimes little known by his other name, is a good example of what you stated. There are a number of interviews with him on Youtube. In the 60's and 70's he is smart, articulate, and even funny with a good sense of humor. In the 80's interviews or around that time, it was obvious how his brain had degraded in slower responses to interview questions, slightly slurred speech, etc.

Upon his retirement from boxing and until his death, I think most of us already know how Ali became sort of like a dementia patient. Yet from what I've read, he technically did not have dementia, and could understand everything going on around him including conversations. He just verbally couldn't respond to it. His physical mechanisms eventually shut down as well. Most will say, and I fully agree, that this gross deterioration was caused by boxing.

I read one time where somebody did a study, and estimated that Ali during his career, including sparing, etc, was subjected to approximately 75,000 blows to the head. Whatever is the number, it's for sure a lot of blows to the head. I mean there are sometimes news stories about someone receiving just one blow to the head in a scuffle of some sort, and dying from it.

It's of course not just Ali. My favorite boxer of all time is Joe Frazier. Joe wasn't as witty as Ali, not too many people are, but Joe was highly intelligent without question. Sadly, Joe as well in retirement suffered in a similar manner as Ali, although it wasn't quite as bad. It was painful to me hearing Joe speak as he got older, slurring the words, etc.

That's an excellent point you make about all the deaths from boxing, which I hadn't thought of when making my initial post about it. Boxers are gladiators, without question, and they well earn every cent that they make. Those fat 50 and 100 million dollar purses or whatever it is, I don't begrudge them one bit making that kind of big money.

It is sad to see a lot of boxers later in life with the slurred speech, Larry Holmes, Riddick Bowe, a lot of them show the signs you are talking about. I love Joe Frazier as well, one of my all-time favorites, a great guy and fighter, it was heart breaking listening to him talk in his later years, and of course Ali, who had such an outgoing personality in his younger days, and couldn't even speak as he got older. Football is a very violent sport as well, just look at Joe Montana, all the damage he took in the 80s when defenders could just lay waste to the quarterback. I was reading an article about Montana recently and he's had so many surgeries all over his body it's ridiculous, dozens, he's in constant pain all the time, and his wife said sometimes the pain gets so bad that he just gets out of bed in the middle of the night and lays in the floor in agony. Football is brutal on your overall body. Take this for example, Christian McCaffrey's wife posted these pics online the other day, she was a bit surprised by the beating his body took in their game on Thanksgiving. You can see the bruises and blood on his arm, and it left blood stains on the bed covers.

Yea, it's sort of like a form of morbid fun when you're young. Ya get banged up and figure your body will heal up fine and recover. In high school football, I was too stupid to wear an arm pad, and both my arms were almost one continuous bruise during football season. I actually enjoyed showing it off - sick, i admit it.

The only long term casualty I suffered from playing football was during a game this MFer clipped me for really no reason, as the play was on the other side of the field. To this day my one knee is a bit gimpy when i start walking long distances such as hunting. No pain, it just gives out so to speak. No complaints, but frankly, I'm glad as yell I decided not to even try college football, and I was tempted to try out.

Our fraternity used to party with the football fraternity up at Penn State, and of course when we all got drunk, we'd wind-up arm wrestling for the yell of it. At that time the football players shared the same weight room with the other students, and I was in there regularly every other day. So the football players knew my face, as it's usually the same people in there all the time. I'd outlift most of them. And during the arm wrestling sessions, I'd beat most of them. Some of them said to me why don't you try out for the team as a walk-on? I told them I thought about it, but the problem is in the 40, you can time me with an hourglass. Paterno or his staff would have cut me quickly because of that, so I figured why bother. Even if I had somehow made the team, I'd be no better than a third team tackling dummy. I knew I'd never play in a game, so I just didn't want to do that.

You probably know about and perhaps have seen the video on Jim Otto? I didn't realize that about Montana. I'll have to check out Youtube and see if there's a video on it about his hardship.

Interesting about the arm wrestling, I used to be obsessed with arm wrestling back in my younger days and I would challenge everyone and their brother to a match. Anyway, a while back I was poking around on YouTube, just looking at various videos, and I came across a video of two guys arm wrestling and the force of the pulling caused the guys arm to just snap like a stick, it was the first time I had ever seen anything like that happening in an arm wrestling match, and from that moment on I have never arm wrestled again, nor will I ever do it again period. It makes me cringe when I think about all of those arm wrestling matches I participated in, they were intense and I was lucky not to have broken my arm in half. I haven't seen the Jim Otto video you refer to, I'll check it out when I get a chance. 👍

The last time I ever arm wrestled, and it will be the last time, was around 20 years ago. I was attending this good customer's employee wedding. The employee was my main contact there for orders, etc, but I also knew the owner well. Did a ton of business with him.

Anyway so at the reception, we're all sitting at the same table with the owner, and other business associates of the groom. I always knew the owner was a bull, very strong, but we never discussed any of that during business. But you see it coming, we're drinking a lot, and sure enough the subject of arm wrestling came up. I stated not in a bragging way, but I think the owner took it that way, that nobody, and I mean nobody has ever beaten me in arm wrestling who was close to my weight class. I recall at the mentioned frat parties, those who beat me outweighed me by at least 50 or 100 pounds, basically the linemen. This owner may have outweighed me by perhaps 10 or 15 pounds, and he took umbrage to what I said, in a fun way. Admittedly i did it intentionally as we all knew he was a tough guy. So we agreed to arm wrestle right there at the table, right in front of the ladies. Toughest match I ever had, it must have lasted one to two minutes, both of us going full out, and it was still a stalemate. Finally he acquiesced and let go, and I'm sure glad he did because I was shot.

Well the next day I had the worst tendinitis in my right elbow, I ever had in my life. And it must have lasted close to two weeks before it finally went away. It was brutal. Certainly wasn't worth the silly fooling around to see who's the best arm wrestler. You might think it was kinda stupid beating a guy in arm wresting who was a great customer. But we knew each other over a decade, and had a good laugh about it after it was over. I sure wasn't laughing about it the next day. I've had a kidney stone, and I'd rather have the kidney stone than have that severe tendinitis again - LOL

I've heard of tendinitis before but didn't realize it was that painful, worse than a kidney stone, I'm definitely never arm wrestling again!

Basebal21

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

When I was younger, I always considered boxing to be the most grueling sport. I mean how can it get worse than being hit in the head countless numbers of times by a strong boxer? Seemed obvious to me.

Then I read an article pointing out how football has that distinction. I can't recall if the article used the word "grueling" or not, but I think it possibly could have been used. I thought about it and wound-up agreeing with the article.

The main reason is that yes, football players are not exposed to as much head trauma as boxers. But football players are exposed to a lot of head trauma, as CTE among long time football players is not uncommon. That being said, football exposes the player to so much more than just head trauma. Overall the damage that's done to the body playing football, yes I believe does equate to being more grueling than boxing.

Frankly, I would still place boxing, along with mixed martial arts in the gladiator category. With football at the top. The other sports mentioned have their toughness about them, I'm not questioning that, but I wouldn't consider those players to be gladiators, and baseball not even remotely close.

So in my view, considering everything, baseball players are stealing money for what they do. They shouldn't be making 1/10th of what they make. Football players in my view deserve every cent.

Boxing is definitely one of the most dangerous sports, around 1500 have died as a result of their injuries in the ring since the 1880s. As far as head trauma, boxing is by far the worst, the concussive force is greater, guys look like they've been hit by a shotgun blast, their bodies going completely limp. You rarely see that in any other sports, happens all the time in boxing. The gloves aren't padded to protect the face, they're padded to protect the fist, allowing guys to really unload on you.

The football hits are harder and equal to a 35 to 40 mph car crash, but boxing is definitely worse from the repetitive trauma. MMA is more brutal overall but with the smaller gloves guys get knocked out quicker saving some of the trauma and obviously they go a lot more than just throw hands. For the most part we havent really seen the same type of brain damage other than some of the original guys like Chuck Lidell who started to get knocked out at the drop of the hat and even with him you wouldn't be able to tell if you didnt know who he was

doubledragon

@Basebal21 said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

When I was younger, I always considered boxing to be the most grueling sport. I mean how can it get worse than being hit in the head countless numbers of times by a strong boxer? Seemed obvious to me.

Then I read an article pointing out how football has that distinction. I can't recall if the article used the word "grueling" or not, but I think it possibly could have been used. I thought about it and wound-up agreeing with the article.

The main reason is that yes, football players are not exposed to as much head trauma as boxers. But football players are exposed to a lot of head trauma, as CTE among long time football players is not uncommon. That being said, football exposes the player to so much more than just head trauma. Overall the damage that's done to the body playing football, yes I believe does equate to being more grueling than boxing.

Frankly, I would still place boxing, along with mixed martial arts in the gladiator category. With football at the top. The other sports mentioned have their toughness about them, I'm not questioning that, but I wouldn't consider those players to be gladiators, and baseball not even remotely close.

So in my view, considering everything, baseball players are stealing money for what they do. They shouldn't be making 1/10th of what they make. Football players in my view deserve every cent.

Boxing is definitely one of the most dangerous sports, around 1500 have died as a result of their injuries in the ring since the 1880s. As far as head trauma, boxing is by far the worst, the concussive force is greater, guys look like they've been hit by a shotgun blast, their bodies going completely limp. You rarely see that in any other sports, happens all the time in boxing. The gloves aren't padded to protect the face, they're padded to protect the fist, allowing guys to really unload on you.

The football hits are harder and equal to a 35 to 40 mph car crash, but boxing is definitely worse from the repetitive trauma. MMA is more brutal overall but with the smaller gloves guys get knocked out quicker saving some of the trauma and obviously they go a lot more than just throw hands. For the most part we havent really seen the same type of brain damage other than some of the original guys like Chuck Lidell who started to get knocked out at the drop of the hat and even with him you wouldn't be able to tell if you didnt know who he was

I honestly think boxing hits are worse than them all, I've seen some terrifying knockouts over the years, these guys really unload on each other, I remember when Manny got sparked by Marquez, I thought Manny was dead, he was out cold, not moving at all.

https://youtu.be/FNPmChbMsZQ?si=wzFbmqFgiYYCoUf7

stevek

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

When I was younger, I always considered boxing to be the most grueling sport. I mean how can it get worse than being hit in the head countless numbers of times by a strong boxer? Seemed obvious to me.

Then I read an article pointing out how football has that distinction. I can't recall if the article used the word "grueling" or not, but I think it possibly could have been used. I thought about it and wound-up agreeing with the article.

The main reason is that yes, football players are not exposed to as much head trauma as boxers. But football players are exposed to a lot of head trauma, as CTE among long time football players is not uncommon. That being said, football exposes the player to so much more than just head trauma. Overall the damage that's done to the body playing football, yes I believe does equate to being more grueling than boxing.

Frankly, I would still place boxing, along with mixed martial arts in the gladiator category. With football at the top. The other sports mentioned have their toughness about them, I'm not questioning that, but I wouldn't consider those players to be gladiators, and baseball not even remotely close.

So in my view, considering everything, baseball players are stealing money for what they do. They shouldn't be making 1/10th of what they make. Football players in my view deserve every cent.

Boxing is definitely one of the most dangerous sports, around 1500 have died as a result of their injuries in the ring since the 1880s. As far as head trauma, boxing is by far the worst, the concussive force is greater, guys look like they've been hit by a shotgun blast, their bodies going completely limp. You rarely see that in any other sports, happens all the time in boxing. The gloves aren't padded to protect the face, they're padded to protect the fist, allowing guys to really unload on you.

Cassius Clay, sometimes little known by his other name, is a good example of what you stated. There are a number of interviews with him on Youtube. In the 60's and 70's he is smart, articulate, and even funny with a good sense of humor. In the 80's interviews or around that time, it was obvious how his brain had degraded in slower responses to interview questions, slightly slurred speech, etc.

Upon his retirement from boxing and until his death, I think most of us already know how Ali became sort of like a dementia patient. Yet from what I've read, he technically did not have dementia, and could understand everything going on around him including conversations. He just verbally couldn't respond to it. His physical mechanisms eventually shut down as well. Most will say, and I fully agree, that this gross deterioration was caused by boxing.

I read one time where somebody did a study, and estimated that Ali during his career, including sparing, etc, was subjected to approximately 75,000 blows to the head. Whatever is the number, it's for sure a lot of blows to the head. I mean there are sometimes news stories about someone receiving just one blow to the head in a scuffle of some sort, and dying from it.

It's of course not just Ali. My favorite boxer of all time is Joe Frazier. Joe wasn't as witty as Ali, not too many people are, but Joe was highly intelligent without question. Sadly, Joe as well in retirement suffered in a similar manner as Ali, although it wasn't quite as bad. It was painful to me hearing Joe speak as he got older, slurring the words, etc.

That's an excellent point you make about all the deaths from boxing, which I hadn't thought of when making my initial post about it. Boxers are gladiators, without question, and they well earn every cent that they make. Those fat 50 and 100 million dollar purses or whatever it is, I don't begrudge them one bit making that kind of big money.

It is sad to see a lot of boxers later in life with the slurred speech, Larry Holmes, Riddick Bowe, a lot of them show the signs you are talking about. I love Joe Frazier as well, one of my all-time favorites, a great guy and fighter, it was heart breaking listening to him talk in his later years, and of course Ali, who had such an outgoing personality in his younger days, and couldn't even speak as he got older. Football is a very violent sport as well, just look at Joe Montana, all the damage he took in the 80s when defenders could just lay waste to the quarterback. I was reading an article about Montana recently and he's had so many surgeries all over his body it's ridiculous, dozens, he's in constant pain all the time, and his wife said sometimes the pain gets so bad that he just gets out of bed in the middle of the night and lays in the floor in agony. Football is brutal on your overall body. Take this for example, Christian McCaffrey's wife posted these pics online the other day, she was a bit surprised by the beating his body took in their game on Thanksgiving. You can see the bruises and blood on his arm, and it left blood stains on the bed covers.

Yea, it's sort of like a form of morbid fun when you're young. Ya get banged up and figure your body will heal up fine and recover. In high school football, I was too stupid to wear an arm pad, and both my arms were almost one continuous bruise during football season. I actually enjoyed showing it off - sick, i admit it.

The only long term casualty I suffered from playing football was during a game this MFer clipped me for really no reason, as the play was on the other side of the field. To this day my one knee is a bit gimpy when i start walking long distances such as hunting. No pain, it just gives out so to speak. No complaints, but frankly, I'm glad as yell I decided not to even try college football, and I was tempted to try out.

Our fraternity used to party with the football fraternity up at Penn State, and of course when we all got drunk, we'd wind-up arm wrestling for the yell of it. At that time the football players shared the same weight room with the other students, and I was in there regularly every other day. So the football players knew my face, as it's usually the same people in there all the time. I'd outlift most of them. And during the arm wrestling sessions, I'd beat most of them. Some of them said to me why don't you try out for the team as a walk-on? I told them I thought about it, but the problem is in the 40, you can time me with an hourglass. Paterno or his staff would have cut me quickly because of that, so I figured why bother. Even if I had somehow made the team, I'd be no better than a third team tackling dummy. I knew I'd never play in a game, so I just didn't want to do that.

You probably know about and perhaps have seen the video on Jim Otto? I didn't realize that about Montana. I'll have to check out Youtube and see if there's a video on it about his hardship.

Interesting about the arm wrestling, I used to be obsessed with arm wrestling back in my younger days and I would challenge everyone and their brother to a match. Anyway, a while back I was poking around on YouTube, just looking at various videos, and I came across a video of two guys arm wrestling and the force of the pulling caused the guys arm to just snap like a stick, it was the first time I had ever seen anything like that happening in an arm wrestling match, and from that moment on I have never arm wrestled again, nor will I ever do it again period. It makes me cringe when I think about all of those arm wrestling matches I participated in, they were intense and I was lucky not to have broken my arm in half. I haven't seen the Jim Otto video you refer to, I'll check it out when I get a chance. 👍

The last time I ever arm wrestled, and it will be the last time, was around 20 years ago. I was attending this good customer's employee wedding. The employee was my main contact there for orders, etc, but I also knew the owner well. Did a ton of business with him.

Anyway so at the reception, we're all sitting at the same table with the owner, and other business associates of the groom. I always knew the owner was a bull, very strong, but we never discussed any of that during business. But you see it coming, we're drinking a lot, and sure enough the subject of arm wrestling came up. I stated not in a bragging way, but I think the owner took it that way, that nobody, and I mean nobody has ever beaten me in arm wrestling who was close to my weight class. I recall at the mentioned frat parties, those who beat me outweighed me by at least 50 or 100 pounds, basically the linemen. This owner may have outweighed me by perhaps 10 or 15 pounds, and he took umbrage to what I said, in a fun way. Admittedly i did it intentionally as we all knew he was a tough guy. So we agreed to arm wrestle right there at the table, right in front of the ladies. Toughest match I ever had, it must have lasted one to two minutes, both of us going full out, and it was still a stalemate. Finally he acquiesced and let go, and I'm sure glad he did because I was shot.

Well the next day I had the worst tendinitis in my right elbow, I ever had in my life. And it must have lasted close to two weeks before it finally went away. It was brutal. Certainly wasn't worth the silly fooling around to see who's the best arm wrestler. You might think it was kinda stupid beating a guy in arm wresting who was a great customer. But we knew each other over a decade, and had a good laugh about it after it was over. I sure wasn't laughing about it the next day. I've had a kidney stone, and I'd rather have the kidney stone than have that severe tendinitis again - LOL

I've heard of tendinitis before but didn't realize it was that painful, worse than a kidney stone, I'm definitely never arm wrestling again!

It's a different sort of pain. Not sharp pain like a kidney stone, but a dull throbbing pain, agonizingly uncomfortable.

doubledragon

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

When I was younger, I always considered boxing to be the most grueling sport. I mean how can it get worse than being hit in the head countless numbers of times by a strong boxer? Seemed obvious to me.

Then I read an article pointing out how football has that distinction. I can't recall if the article used the word "grueling" or not, but I think it possibly could have been used. I thought about it and wound-up agreeing with the article.

The main reason is that yes, football players are not exposed to as much head trauma as boxers. But football players are exposed to a lot of head trauma, as CTE among long time football players is not uncommon. That being said, football exposes the player to so much more than just head trauma. Overall the damage that's done to the body playing football, yes I believe does equate to being more grueling than boxing.

Frankly, I would still place boxing, along with mixed martial arts in the gladiator category. With football at the top. The other sports mentioned have their toughness about them, I'm not questioning that, but I wouldn't consider those players to be gladiators, and baseball not even remotely close.

So in my view, considering everything, baseball players are stealing money for what they do. They shouldn't be making 1/10th of what they make. Football players in my view deserve every cent.

Boxing is definitely one of the most dangerous sports, around 1500 have died as a result of their injuries in the ring since the 1880s. As far as head trauma, boxing is by far the worst, the concussive force is greater, guys look like they've been hit by a shotgun blast, their bodies going completely limp. You rarely see that in any other sports, happens all the time in boxing. The gloves aren't padded to protect the face, they're padded to protect the fist, allowing guys to really unload on you.

Cassius Clay, sometimes little known by his other name, is a good example of what you stated. There are a number of interviews with him on Youtube. In the 60's and 70's he is smart, articulate, and even funny with a good sense of humor. In the 80's interviews or around that time, it was obvious how his brain had degraded in slower responses to interview questions, slightly slurred speech, etc.

Upon his retirement from boxing and until his death, I think most of us already know how Ali became sort of like a dementia patient. Yet from what I've read, he technically did not have dementia, and could understand everything going on around him including conversations. He just verbally couldn't respond to it. His physical mechanisms eventually shut down as well. Most will say, and I fully agree, that this gross deterioration was caused by boxing.

I read one time where somebody did a study, and estimated that Ali during his career, including sparing, etc, was subjected to approximately 75,000 blows to the head. Whatever is the number, it's for sure a lot of blows to the head. I mean there are sometimes news stories about someone receiving just one blow to the head in a scuffle of some sort, and dying from it.

It's of course not just Ali. My favorite boxer of all time is Joe Frazier. Joe wasn't as witty as Ali, not too many people are, but Joe was highly intelligent without question. Sadly, Joe as well in retirement suffered in a similar manner as Ali, although it wasn't quite as bad. It was painful to me hearing Joe speak as he got older, slurring the words, etc.

That's an excellent point you make about all the deaths from boxing, which I hadn't thought of when making my initial post about it. Boxers are gladiators, without question, and they well earn every cent that they make. Those fat 50 and 100 million dollar purses or whatever it is, I don't begrudge them one bit making that kind of big money.

It is sad to see a lot of boxers later in life with the slurred speech, Larry Holmes, Riddick Bowe, a lot of them show the signs you are talking about. I love Joe Frazier as well, one of my all-time favorites, a great guy and fighter, it was heart breaking listening to him talk in his later years, and of course Ali, who had such an outgoing personality in his younger days, and couldn't even speak as he got older. Football is a very violent sport as well, just look at Joe Montana, all the damage he took in the 80s when defenders could just lay waste to the quarterback. I was reading an article about Montana recently and he's had so many surgeries all over his body it's ridiculous, dozens, he's in constant pain all the time, and his wife said sometimes the pain gets so bad that he just gets out of bed in the middle of the night and lays in the floor in agony. Football is brutal on your overall body. Take this for example, Christian McCaffrey's wife posted these pics online the other day, she was a bit surprised by the beating his body took in their game on Thanksgiving. You can see the bruises and blood on his arm, and it left blood stains on the bed covers.

Yea, it's sort of like a form of morbid fun when you're young. Ya get banged up and figure your body will heal up fine and recover. In high school football, I was too stupid to wear an arm pad, and both my arms were almost one continuous bruise during football season. I actually enjoyed showing it off - sick, i admit it.

The only long term casualty I suffered from playing football was during a game this MFer clipped me for really no reason, as the play was on the other side of the field. To this day my one knee is a bit gimpy when i start walking long distances such as hunting. No pain, it just gives out so to speak. No complaints, but frankly, I'm glad as yell I decided not to even try college football, and I was tempted to try out.

Our fraternity used to party with the football fraternity up at Penn State, and of course when we all got drunk, we'd wind-up arm wrestling for the yell of it. At that time the football players shared the same weight room with the other students, and I was in there regularly every other day. So the football players knew my face, as it's usually the same people in there all the time. I'd outlift most of them. And during the arm wrestling sessions, I'd beat most of them. Some of them said to me why don't you try out for the team as a walk-on? I told them I thought about it, but the problem is in the 40, you can time me with an hourglass. Paterno or his staff would have cut me quickly because of that, so I figured why bother. Even if I had somehow made the team, I'd be no better than a third team tackling dummy. I knew I'd never play in a game, so I just didn't want to do that.

You probably know about and perhaps have seen the video on Jim Otto? I didn't realize that about Montana. I'll have to check out Youtube and see if there's a video on it about his hardship.

Interesting about the arm wrestling, I used to be obsessed with arm wrestling back in my younger days and I would challenge everyone and their brother to a match. Anyway, a while back I was poking around on YouTube, just looking at various videos, and I came across a video of two guys arm wrestling and the force of the pulling caused the guys arm to just snap like a stick, it was the first time I had ever seen anything like that happening in an arm wrestling match, and from that moment on I have never arm wrestled again, nor will I ever do it again period. It makes me cringe when I think about all of those arm wrestling matches I participated in, they were intense and I was lucky not to have broken my arm in half. I haven't seen the Jim Otto video you refer to, I'll check it out when I get a chance. 👍

The last time I ever arm wrestled, and it will be the last time, was around 20 years ago. I was attending this good customer's employee wedding. The employee was my main contact there for orders, etc, but I also knew the owner well. Did a ton of business with him.

Anyway so at the reception, we're all sitting at the same table with the owner, and other business associates of the groom. I always knew the owner was a bull, very strong, but we never discussed any of that during business. But you see it coming, we're drinking a lot, and sure enough the subject of arm wrestling came up. I stated not in a bragging way, but I think the owner took it that way, that nobody, and I mean nobody has ever beaten me in arm wrestling who was close to my weight class. I recall at the mentioned frat parties, those who beat me outweighed me by at least 50 or 100 pounds, basically the linemen. This owner may have outweighed me by perhaps 10 or 15 pounds, and he took umbrage to what I said, in a fun way. Admittedly i did it intentionally as we all knew he was a tough guy. So we agreed to arm wrestle right there at the table, right in front of the ladies. Toughest match I ever had, it must have lasted one to two minutes, both of us going full out, and it was still a stalemate. Finally he acquiesced and let go, and I'm sure glad he did because I was shot.

Well the next day I had the worst tendinitis in my right elbow, I ever had in my life. And it must have lasted close to two weeks before it finally went away. It was brutal. Certainly wasn't worth the silly fooling around to see who's the best arm wrestler. You might think it was kinda stupid beating a guy in arm wresting who was a great customer. But we knew each other over a decade, and had a good laugh about it after it was over. I sure wasn't laughing about it the next day. I've had a kidney stone, and I'd rather have the kidney stone than have that severe tendinitis again - LOL

I've heard of tendinitis before but didn't realize it was that painful, worse than a kidney stone, I'm definitely never arm wrestling again!

It's a different sort of pain. Not sharp pain like a kidney stone, but a dull throbbing pain, agonizingly uncomfortable.

Not something I want to experience, I'm sure of that!

stevek

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

When I was younger, I always considered boxing to be the most grueling sport. I mean how can it get worse than being hit in the head countless numbers of times by a strong boxer? Seemed obvious to me.

Then I read an article pointing out how football has that distinction. I can't recall if the article used the word "grueling" or not, but I think it possibly could have been used. I thought about it and wound-up agreeing with the article.

The main reason is that yes, football players are not exposed to as much head trauma as boxers. But football players are exposed to a lot of head trauma, as CTE among long time football players is not uncommon. That being said, football exposes the player to so much more than just head trauma. Overall the damage that's done to the body playing football, yes I believe does equate to being more grueling than boxing.

Frankly, I would still place boxing, along with mixed martial arts in the gladiator category. With football at the top. The other sports mentioned have their toughness about them, I'm not questioning that, but I wouldn't consider those players to be gladiators, and baseball not even remotely close.

So in my view, considering everything, baseball players are stealing money for what they do. They shouldn't be making 1/10th of what they make. Football players in my view deserve every cent.

Boxing is definitely one of the most dangerous sports, around 1500 have died as a result of their injuries in the ring since the 1880s. As far as head trauma, boxing is by far the worst, the concussive force is greater, guys look like they've been hit by a shotgun blast, their bodies going completely limp. You rarely see that in any other sports, happens all the time in boxing. The gloves aren't padded to protect the face, they're padded to protect the fist, allowing guys to really unload on you.

Cassius Clay, sometimes little known by his other name, is a good example of what you stated. There are a number of interviews with him on Youtube. In the 60's and 70's he is smart, articulate, and even funny with a good sense of humor. In the 80's interviews or around that time, it was obvious how his brain had degraded in slower responses to interview questions, slightly slurred speech, etc.

Upon his retirement from boxing and until his death, I think most of us already know how Ali became sort of like a dementia patient. Yet from what I've read, he technically did not have dementia, and could understand everything going on around him including conversations. He just verbally couldn't respond to it. His physical mechanisms eventually shut down as well. Most will say, and I fully agree, that this gross deterioration was caused by boxing.

I read one time where somebody did a study, and estimated that Ali during his career, including sparing, etc, was subjected to approximately 75,000 blows to the head. Whatever is the number, it's for sure a lot of blows to the head. I mean there are sometimes news stories about someone receiving just one blow to the head in a scuffle of some sort, and dying from it.

It's of course not just Ali. My favorite boxer of all time is Joe Frazier. Joe wasn't as witty as Ali, not too many people are, but Joe was highly intelligent without question. Sadly, Joe as well in retirement suffered in a similar manner as Ali, although it wasn't quite as bad. It was painful to me hearing Joe speak as he got older, slurring the words, etc.

That's an excellent point you make about all the deaths from boxing, which I hadn't thought of when making my initial post about it. Boxers are gladiators, without question, and they well earn every cent that they make. Those fat 50 and 100 million dollar purses or whatever it is, I don't begrudge them one bit making that kind of big money.

It is sad to see a lot of boxers later in life with the slurred speech, Larry Holmes, Riddick Bowe, a lot of them show the signs you are talking about. I love Joe Frazier as well, one of my all-time favorites, a great guy and fighter, it was heart breaking listening to him talk in his later years, and of course Ali, who had such an outgoing personality in his younger days, and couldn't even speak as he got older. Football is a very violent sport as well, just look at Joe Montana, all the damage he took in the 80s when defenders could just lay waste to the quarterback. I was reading an article about Montana recently and he's had so many surgeries all over his body it's ridiculous, dozens, he's in constant pain all the time, and his wife said sometimes the pain gets so bad that he just gets out of bed in the middle of the night and lays in the floor in agony. Football is brutal on your overall body. Take this for example, Christian McCaffrey's wife posted these pics online the other day, she was a bit surprised by the beating his body took in their game on Thanksgiving. You can see the bruises and blood on his arm, and it left blood stains on the bed covers.

Yea, it's sort of like a form of morbid fun when you're young. Ya get banged up and figure your body will heal up fine and recover. In high school football, I was too stupid to wear an arm pad, and both my arms were almost one continuous bruise during football season. I actually enjoyed showing it off - sick, i admit it.

The only long term casualty I suffered from playing football was during a game this MFer clipped me for really no reason, as the play was on the other side of the field. To this day my one knee is a bit gimpy when i start walking long distances such as hunting. No pain, it just gives out so to speak. No complaints, but frankly, I'm glad as yell I decided not to even try college football, and I was tempted to try out.

Our fraternity used to party with the football fraternity up at Penn State, and of course when we all got drunk, we'd wind-up arm wrestling for the yell of it. At that time the football players shared the same weight room with the other students, and I was in there regularly every other day. So the football players knew my face, as it's usually the same people in there all the time. I'd outlift most of them. And during the arm wrestling sessions, I'd beat most of them. Some of them said to me why don't you try out for the team as a walk-on? I told them I thought about it, but the problem is in the 40, you can time me with an hourglass. Paterno or his staff would have cut me quickly because of that, so I figured why bother. Even if I had somehow made the team, I'd be no better than a third team tackling dummy. I knew I'd never play in a game, so I just didn't want to do that.

You probably know about and perhaps have seen the video on Jim Otto? I didn't realize that about Montana. I'll have to check out Youtube and see if there's a video on it about his hardship.

Interesting about the arm wrestling, I used to be obsessed with arm wrestling back in my younger days and I would challenge everyone and their brother to a match. Anyway, a while back I was poking around on YouTube, just looking at various videos, and I came across a video of two guys arm wrestling and the force of the pulling caused the guys arm to just snap like a stick, it was the first time I had ever seen anything like that happening in an arm wrestling match, and from that moment on I have never arm wrestled again, nor will I ever do it again period. It makes me cringe when I think about all of those arm wrestling matches I participated in, they were intense and I was lucky not to have broken my arm in half. I haven't seen the Jim Otto video you refer to, I'll check it out when I get a chance. 👍

The last time I ever arm wrestled, and it will be the last time, was around 20 years ago. I was attending this good customer's employee wedding. The employee was my main contact there for orders, etc, but I also knew the owner well. Did a ton of business with him.

Anyway so at the reception, we're all sitting at the same table with the owner, and other business associates of the groom. I always knew the owner was a bull, very strong, but we never discussed any of that during business. But you see it coming, we're drinking a lot, and sure enough the subject of arm wrestling came up. I stated not in a bragging way, but I think the owner took it that way, that nobody, and I mean nobody has ever beaten me in arm wrestling who was close to my weight class. I recall at the mentioned frat parties, those who beat me outweighed me by at least 50 or 100 pounds, basically the linemen. This owner may have outweighed me by perhaps 10 or 15 pounds, and he took umbrage to what I said, in a fun way. Admittedly i did it intentionally as we all knew he was a tough guy. So we agreed to arm wrestle right there at the table, right in front of the ladies. Toughest match I ever had, it must have lasted one to two minutes, both of us going full out, and it was still a stalemate. Finally he acquiesced and let go, and I'm sure glad he did because I was shot.

Well the next day I had the worst tendinitis in my right elbow, I ever had in my life. And it must have lasted close to two weeks before it finally went away. It was brutal. Certainly wasn't worth the silly fooling around to see who's the best arm wrestler. You might think it was kinda stupid beating a guy in arm wresting who was a great customer. But we knew each other over a decade, and had a good laugh about it after it was over. I sure wasn't laughing about it the next day. I've had a kidney stone, and I'd rather have the kidney stone than have that severe tendinitis again - LOL

I've heard of tendinitis before but didn't realize it was that painful, worse than a kidney stone, I'm definitely never arm wrestling again!

It's a different sort of pain. Not sharp pain like a kidney stone, but a dull throbbing pain, agonizingly uncomfortable.

Not something I want to experience, I'm sure of that!

Also be careful as ya get older with things such as shoveling snow. I think most everyone is aware about the heart attack angle, but getting tendinitis from it is no fun either.

doubledragon

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

When I was younger, I always considered boxing to be the most grueling sport. I mean how can it get worse than being hit in the head countless numbers of times by a strong boxer? Seemed obvious to me.

Then I read an article pointing out how football has that distinction. I can't recall if the article used the word "grueling" or not, but I think it possibly could have been used. I thought about it and wound-up agreeing with the article.

The main reason is that yes, football players are not exposed to as much head trauma as boxers. But football players are exposed to a lot of head trauma, as CTE among long time football players is not uncommon. That being said, football exposes the player to so much more than just head trauma. Overall the damage that's done to the body playing football, yes I believe does equate to being more grueling than boxing.

Frankly, I would still place boxing, along with mixed martial arts in the gladiator category. With football at the top. The other sports mentioned have their toughness about them, I'm not questioning that, but I wouldn't consider those players to be gladiators, and baseball not even remotely close.

So in my view, considering everything, baseball players are stealing money for what they do. They shouldn't be making 1/10th of what they make. Football players in my view deserve every cent.

Boxing is definitely one of the most dangerous sports, around 1500 have died as a result of their injuries in the ring since the 1880s. As far as head trauma, boxing is by far the worst, the concussive force is greater, guys look like they've been hit by a shotgun blast, their bodies going completely limp. You rarely see that in any other sports, happens all the time in boxing. The gloves aren't padded to protect the face, they're padded to protect the fist, allowing guys to really unload on you.

Cassius Clay, sometimes little known by his other name, is a good example of what you stated. There are a number of interviews with him on Youtube. In the 60's and 70's he is smart, articulate, and even funny with a good sense of humor. In the 80's interviews or around that time, it was obvious how his brain had degraded in slower responses to interview questions, slightly slurred speech, etc.

Upon his retirement from boxing and until his death, I think most of us already know how Ali became sort of like a dementia patient. Yet from what I've read, he technically did not have dementia, and could understand everything going on around him including conversations. He just verbally couldn't respond to it. His physical mechanisms eventually shut down as well. Most will say, and I fully agree, that this gross deterioration was caused by boxing.

I read one time where somebody did a study, and estimated that Ali during his career, including sparing, etc, was subjected to approximately 75,000 blows to the head. Whatever is the number, it's for sure a lot of blows to the head. I mean there are sometimes news stories about someone receiving just one blow to the head in a scuffle of some sort, and dying from it.

It's of course not just Ali. My favorite boxer of all time is Joe Frazier. Joe wasn't as witty as Ali, not too many people are, but Joe was highly intelligent without question. Sadly, Joe as well in retirement suffered in a similar manner as Ali, although it wasn't quite as bad. It was painful to me hearing Joe speak as he got older, slurring the words, etc.

That's an excellent point you make about all the deaths from boxing, which I hadn't thought of when making my initial post about it. Boxers are gladiators, without question, and they well earn every cent that they make. Those fat 50 and 100 million dollar purses or whatever it is, I don't begrudge them one bit making that kind of big money.

It is sad to see a lot of boxers later in life with the slurred speech, Larry Holmes, Riddick Bowe, a lot of them show the signs you are talking about. I love Joe Frazier as well, one of my all-time favorites, a great guy and fighter, it was heart breaking listening to him talk in his later years, and of course Ali, who had such an outgoing personality in his younger days, and couldn't even speak as he got older. Football is a very violent sport as well, just look at Joe Montana, all the damage he took in the 80s when defenders could just lay waste to the quarterback. I was reading an article about Montana recently and he's had so many surgeries all over his body it's ridiculous, dozens, he's in constant pain all the time, and his wife said sometimes the pain gets so bad that he just gets out of bed in the middle of the night and lays in the floor in agony. Football is brutal on your overall body. Take this for example, Christian McCaffrey's wife posted these pics online the other day, she was a bit surprised by the beating his body took in their game on Thanksgiving. You can see the bruises and blood on his arm, and it left blood stains on the bed covers.

Yea, it's sort of like a form of morbid fun when you're young. Ya get banged up and figure your body will heal up fine and recover. In high school football, I was too stupid to wear an arm pad, and both my arms were almost one continuous bruise during football season. I actually enjoyed showing it off - sick, i admit it.

The only long term casualty I suffered from playing football was during a game this MFer clipped me for really no reason, as the play was on the other side of the field. To this day my one knee is a bit gimpy when i start walking long distances such as hunting. No pain, it just gives out so to speak. No complaints, but frankly, I'm glad as yell I decided not to even try college football, and I was tempted to try out.

Our fraternity used to party with the football fraternity up at Penn State, and of course when we all got drunk, we'd wind-up arm wrestling for the yell of it. At that time the football players shared the same weight room with the other students, and I was in there regularly every other day. So the football players knew my face, as it's usually the same people in there all the time. I'd outlift most of them. And during the arm wrestling sessions, I'd beat most of them. Some of them said to me why don't you try out for the team as a walk-on? I told them I thought about it, but the problem is in the 40, you can time me with an hourglass. Paterno or his staff would have cut me quickly because of that, so I figured why bother. Even if I had somehow made the team, I'd be no better than a third team tackling dummy. I knew I'd never play in a game, so I just didn't want to do that.

You probably know about and perhaps have seen the video on Jim Otto? I didn't realize that about Montana. I'll have to check out Youtube and see if there's a video on it about his hardship.

Interesting about the arm wrestling, I used to be obsessed with arm wrestling back in my younger days and I would challenge everyone and their brother to a match. Anyway, a while back I was poking around on YouTube, just looking at various videos, and I came across a video of two guys arm wrestling and the force of the pulling caused the guys arm to just snap like a stick, it was the first time I had ever seen anything like that happening in an arm wrestling match, and from that moment on I have never arm wrestled again, nor will I ever do it again period. It makes me cringe when I think about all of those arm wrestling matches I participated in, they were intense and I was lucky not to have broken my arm in half. I haven't seen the Jim Otto video you refer to, I'll check it out when I get a chance. 👍

The last time I ever arm wrestled, and it will be the last time, was around 20 years ago. I was attending this good customer's employee wedding. The employee was my main contact there for orders, etc, but I also knew the owner well. Did a ton of business with him.

Anyway so at the reception, we're all sitting at the same table with the owner, and other business associates of the groom. I always knew the owner was a bull, very strong, but we never discussed any of that during business. But you see it coming, we're drinking a lot, and sure enough the subject of arm wrestling came up. I stated not in a bragging way, but I think the owner took it that way, that nobody, and I mean nobody has ever beaten me in arm wrestling who was close to my weight class. I recall at the mentioned frat parties, those who beat me outweighed me by at least 50 or 100 pounds, basically the linemen. This owner may have outweighed me by perhaps 10 or 15 pounds, and he took umbrage to what I said, in a fun way. Admittedly i did it intentionally as we all knew he was a tough guy. So we agreed to arm wrestle right there at the table, right in front of the ladies. Toughest match I ever had, it must have lasted one to two minutes, both of us going full out, and it was still a stalemate. Finally he acquiesced and let go, and I'm sure glad he did because I was shot.

Well the next day I had the worst tendinitis in my right elbow, I ever had in my life. And it must have lasted close to two weeks before it finally went away. It was brutal. Certainly wasn't worth the silly fooling around to see who's the best arm wrestler. You might think it was kinda stupid beating a guy in arm wresting who was a great customer. But we knew each other over a decade, and had a good laugh about it after it was over. I sure wasn't laughing about it the next day. I've had a kidney stone, and I'd rather have the kidney stone than have that severe tendinitis again - LOL

I've heard of tendinitis before but didn't realize it was that painful, worse than a kidney stone, I'm definitely never arm wrestling again!

It's a different sort of pain. Not sharp pain like a kidney stone, but a dull throbbing pain, agonizingly uncomfortable.

Not something I want to experience, I'm sure of that!

Also be careful as ya get older with things such as shoveling snow. I think most everyone is aware about the heart attack angle, but getting tendinitis from it is no fun either.

I actually have heart issues already, my heart beats way too fast after I eat, so my doctor put me on atenelol and it slows my heart down to a normal pace, so I'm always careful not to exert myself too much with my heart. I have pushed it too hard in the past and had chest pains that resulted in trips to the emergency room, they never found anything wrong though, just told me to take it easy. I still don't know why it beats too fast after I eat, but at least the atenelol slows it down

stevek

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

When I was younger, I always considered boxing to be the most grueling sport. I mean how can it get worse than being hit in the head countless numbers of times by a strong boxer? Seemed obvious to me.

Then I read an article pointing out how football has that distinction. I can't recall if the article used the word "grueling" or not, but I think it possibly could have been used. I thought about it and wound-up agreeing with the article.

The main reason is that yes, football players are not exposed to as much head trauma as boxers. But football players are exposed to a lot of head trauma, as CTE among long time football players is not uncommon. That being said, football exposes the player to so much more than just head trauma. Overall the damage that's done to the body playing football, yes I believe does equate to being more grueling than boxing.

Frankly, I would still place boxing, along with mixed martial arts in the gladiator category. With football at the top. The other sports mentioned have their toughness about them, I'm not questioning that, but I wouldn't consider those players to be gladiators, and baseball not even remotely close.

So in my view, considering everything, baseball players are stealing money for what they do. They shouldn't be making 1/10th of what they make. Football players in my view deserve every cent.

Boxing is definitely one of the most dangerous sports, around 1500 have died as a result of their injuries in the ring since the 1880s. As far as head trauma, boxing is by far the worst, the concussive force is greater, guys look like they've been hit by a shotgun blast, their bodies going completely limp. You rarely see that in any other sports, happens all the time in boxing. The gloves aren't padded to protect the face, they're padded to protect the fist, allowing guys to really unload on you.

Cassius Clay, sometimes little known by his other name, is a good example of what you stated. There are a number of interviews with him on Youtube. In the 60's and 70's he is smart, articulate, and even funny with a good sense of humor. In the 80's interviews or around that time, it was obvious how his brain had degraded in slower responses to interview questions, slightly slurred speech, etc.

Upon his retirement from boxing and until his death, I think most of us already know how Ali became sort of like a dementia patient. Yet from what I've read, he technically did not have dementia, and could understand everything going on around him including conversations. He just verbally couldn't respond to it. His physical mechanisms eventually shut down as well. Most will say, and I fully agree, that this gross deterioration was caused by boxing.

I read one time where somebody did a study, and estimated that Ali during his career, including sparing, etc, was subjected to approximately 75,000 blows to the head. Whatever is the number, it's for sure a lot of blows to the head. I mean there are sometimes news stories about someone receiving just one blow to the head in a scuffle of some sort, and dying from it.

It's of course not just Ali. My favorite boxer of all time is Joe Frazier. Joe wasn't as witty as Ali, not too many people are, but Joe was highly intelligent without question. Sadly, Joe as well in retirement suffered in a similar manner as Ali, although it wasn't quite as bad. It was painful to me hearing Joe speak as he got older, slurring the words, etc.

That's an excellent point you make about all the deaths from boxing, which I hadn't thought of when making my initial post about it. Boxers are gladiators, without question, and they well earn every cent that they make. Those fat 50 and 100 million dollar purses or whatever it is, I don't begrudge them one bit making that kind of big money.

It is sad to see a lot of boxers later in life with the slurred speech, Larry Holmes, Riddick Bowe, a lot of them show the signs you are talking about. I love Joe Frazier as well, one of my all-time favorites, a great guy and fighter, it was heart breaking listening to him talk in his later years, and of course Ali, who had such an outgoing personality in his younger days, and couldn't even speak as he got older. Football is a very violent sport as well, just look at Joe Montana, all the damage he took in the 80s when defenders could just lay waste to the quarterback. I was reading an article about Montana recently and he's had so many surgeries all over his body it's ridiculous, dozens, he's in constant pain all the time, and his wife said sometimes the pain gets so bad that he just gets out of bed in the middle of the night and lays in the floor in agony. Football is brutal on your overall body. Take this for example, Christian McCaffrey's wife posted these pics online the other day, she was a bit surprised by the beating his body took in their game on Thanksgiving. You can see the bruises and blood on his arm, and it left blood stains on the bed covers.

Yea, it's sort of like a form of morbid fun when you're young. Ya get banged up and figure your body will heal up fine and recover. In high school football, I was too stupid to wear an arm pad, and both my arms were almost one continuous bruise during football season. I actually enjoyed showing it off - sick, i admit it.

The only long term casualty I suffered from playing football was during a game this MFer clipped me for really no reason, as the play was on the other side of the field. To this day my one knee is a bit gimpy when i start walking long distances such as hunting. No pain, it just gives out so to speak. No complaints, but frankly, I'm glad as yell I decided not to even try college football, and I was tempted to try out.

Our fraternity used to party with the football fraternity up at Penn State, and of course when we all got drunk, we'd wind-up arm wrestling for the yell of it. At that time the football players shared the same weight room with the other students, and I was in there regularly every other day. So the football players knew my face, as it's usually the same people in there all the time. I'd outlift most of them. And during the arm wrestling sessions, I'd beat most of them. Some of them said to me why don't you try out for the team as a walk-on? I told them I thought about it, but the problem is in the 40, you can time me with an hourglass. Paterno or his staff would have cut me quickly because of that, so I figured why bother. Even if I had somehow made the team, I'd be no better than a third team tackling dummy. I knew I'd never play in a game, so I just didn't want to do that.

You probably know about and perhaps have seen the video on Jim Otto? I didn't realize that about Montana. I'll have to check out Youtube and see if there's a video on it about his hardship.

Interesting about the arm wrestling, I used to be obsessed with arm wrestling back in my younger days and I would challenge everyone and their brother to a match. Anyway, a while back I was poking around on YouTube, just looking at various videos, and I came across a video of two guys arm wrestling and the force of the pulling caused the guys arm to just snap like a stick, it was the first time I had ever seen anything like that happening in an arm wrestling match, and from that moment on I have never arm wrestled again, nor will I ever do it again period. It makes me cringe when I think about all of those arm wrestling matches I participated in, they were intense and I was lucky not to have broken my arm in half. I haven't seen the Jim Otto video you refer to, I'll check it out when I get a chance. 👍

The last time I ever arm wrestled, and it will be the last time, was around 20 years ago. I was attending this good customer's employee wedding. The employee was my main contact there for orders, etc, but I also knew the owner well. Did a ton of business with him.

Anyway so at the reception, we're all sitting at the same table with the owner, and other business associates of the groom. I always knew the owner was a bull, very strong, but we never discussed any of that during business. But you see it coming, we're drinking a lot, and sure enough the subject of arm wrestling came up. I stated not in a bragging way, but I think the owner took it that way, that nobody, and I mean nobody has ever beaten me in arm wrestling who was close to my weight class. I recall at the mentioned frat parties, those who beat me outweighed me by at least 50 or 100 pounds, basically the linemen. This owner may have outweighed me by perhaps 10 or 15 pounds, and he took umbrage to what I said, in a fun way. Admittedly i did it intentionally as we all knew he was a tough guy. So we agreed to arm wrestle right there at the table, right in front of the ladies. Toughest match I ever had, it must have lasted one to two minutes, both of us going full out, and it was still a stalemate. Finally he acquiesced and let go, and I'm sure glad he did because I was shot.

Well the next day I had the worst tendinitis in my right elbow, I ever had in my life. And it must have lasted close to two weeks before it finally went away. It was brutal. Certainly wasn't worth the silly fooling around to see who's the best arm wrestler. You might think it was kinda stupid beating a guy in arm wresting who was a great customer. But we knew each other over a decade, and had a good laugh about it after it was over. I sure wasn't laughing about it the next day. I've had a kidney stone, and I'd rather have the kidney stone than have that severe tendinitis again - LOL

I've heard of tendinitis before but didn't realize it was that painful, worse than a kidney stone, I'm definitely never arm wrestling again!

It's a different sort of pain. Not sharp pain like a kidney stone, but a dull throbbing pain, agonizingly uncomfortable.

Not something I want to experience, I'm sure of that!

Also be careful as ya get older with things such as shoveling snow. I think most everyone is aware about the heart attack angle, but getting tendinitis from it is no fun either.

I actually have heart issues already, my heart beats way too fast after I eat, so my doctor put me on atenelol and it slows my heart down to a normal pace, so I'm always careful not to exert myself too much with my heart. I have pushed it too hard in the past and had chest pains that resulted in trips to the emergency room, they never found anything wrong though, just told me to take it easy. I still don't know why it beats too fast after I eat, but at least the atenelol slows it down

Sorry to hear that.

What is one of your typical meals if you don't mind me asking, and snacks, etc. Also outside of eating, do you have any "bad habits" as far as what could affect your physical well being?

No problem if ya don't wish to discuss it further.

doubledragon

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

When I was younger, I always considered boxing to be the most grueling sport. I mean how can it get worse than being hit in the head countless numbers of times by a strong boxer? Seemed obvious to me.

Then I read an article pointing out how football has that distinction. I can't recall if the article used the word "grueling" or not, but I think it possibly could have been used. I thought about it and wound-up agreeing with the article.

The main reason is that yes, football players are not exposed to as much head trauma as boxers. But football players are exposed to a lot of head trauma, as CTE among long time football players is not uncommon. That being said, football exposes the player to so much more than just head trauma. Overall the damage that's done to the body playing football, yes I believe does equate to being more grueling than boxing.

Frankly, I would still place boxing, along with mixed martial arts in the gladiator category. With football at the top. The other sports mentioned have their toughness about them, I'm not questioning that, but I wouldn't consider those players to be gladiators, and baseball not even remotely close.

So in my view, considering everything, baseball players are stealing money for what they do. They shouldn't be making 1/10th of what they make. Football players in my view deserve every cent.

Boxing is definitely one of the most dangerous sports, around 1500 have died as a result of their injuries in the ring since the 1880s. As far as head trauma, boxing is by far the worst, the concussive force is greater, guys look like they've been hit by a shotgun blast, their bodies going completely limp. You rarely see that in any other sports, happens all the time in boxing. The gloves aren't padded to protect the face, they're padded to protect the fist, allowing guys to really unload on you.

Cassius Clay, sometimes little known by his other name, is a good example of what you stated. There are a number of interviews with him on Youtube. In the 60's and 70's he is smart, articulate, and even funny with a good sense of humor. In the 80's interviews or around that time, it was obvious how his brain had degraded in slower responses to interview questions, slightly slurred speech, etc.

Upon his retirement from boxing and until his death, I think most of us already know how Ali became sort of like a dementia patient. Yet from what I've read, he technically did not have dementia, and could understand everything going on around him including conversations. He just verbally couldn't respond to it. His physical mechanisms eventually shut down as well. Most will say, and I fully agree, that this gross deterioration was caused by boxing.

I read one time where somebody did a study, and estimated that Ali during his career, including sparing, etc, was subjected to approximately 75,000 blows to the head. Whatever is the number, it's for sure a lot of blows to the head. I mean there are sometimes news stories about someone receiving just one blow to the head in a scuffle of some sort, and dying from it.

It's of course not just Ali. My favorite boxer of all time is Joe Frazier. Joe wasn't as witty as Ali, not too many people are, but Joe was highly intelligent without question. Sadly, Joe as well in retirement suffered in a similar manner as Ali, although it wasn't quite as bad. It was painful to me hearing Joe speak as he got older, slurring the words, etc.

That's an excellent point you make about all the deaths from boxing, which I hadn't thought of when making my initial post about it. Boxers are gladiators, without question, and they well earn every cent that they make. Those fat 50 and 100 million dollar purses or whatever it is, I don't begrudge them one bit making that kind of big money.

It is sad to see a lot of boxers later in life with the slurred speech, Larry Holmes, Riddick Bowe, a lot of them show the signs you are talking about. I love Joe Frazier as well, one of my all-time favorites, a great guy and fighter, it was heart breaking listening to him talk in his later years, and of course Ali, who had such an outgoing personality in his younger days, and couldn't even speak as he got older. Football is a very violent sport as well, just look at Joe Montana, all the damage he took in the 80s when defenders could just lay waste to the quarterback. I was reading an article about Montana recently and he's had so many surgeries all over his body it's ridiculous, dozens, he's in constant pain all the time, and his wife said sometimes the pain gets so bad that he just gets out of bed in the middle of the night and lays in the floor in agony. Football is brutal on your overall body. Take this for example, Christian McCaffrey's wife posted these pics online the other day, she was a bit surprised by the beating his body took in their game on Thanksgiving. You can see the bruises and blood on his arm, and it left blood stains on the bed covers.

Yea, it's sort of like a form of morbid fun when you're young. Ya get banged up and figure your body will heal up fine and recover. In high school football, I was too stupid to wear an arm pad, and both my arms were almost one continuous bruise during football season. I actually enjoyed showing it off - sick, i admit it.

The only long term casualty I suffered from playing football was during a game this MFer clipped me for really no reason, as the play was on the other side of the field. To this day my one knee is a bit gimpy when i start walking long distances such as hunting. No pain, it just gives out so to speak. No complaints, but frankly, I'm glad as yell I decided not to even try college football, and I was tempted to try out.

Our fraternity used to party with the football fraternity up at Penn State, and of course when we all got drunk, we'd wind-up arm wrestling for the yell of it. At that time the football players shared the same weight room with the other students, and I was in there regularly every other day. So the football players knew my face, as it's usually the same people in there all the time. I'd outlift most of them. And during the arm wrestling sessions, I'd beat most of them. Some of them said to me why don't you try out for the team as a walk-on? I told them I thought about it, but the problem is in the 40, you can time me with an hourglass. Paterno or his staff would have cut me quickly because of that, so I figured why bother. Even if I had somehow made the team, I'd be no better than a third team tackling dummy. I knew I'd never play in a game, so I just didn't want to do that.

You probably know about and perhaps have seen the video on Jim Otto? I didn't realize that about Montana. I'll have to check out Youtube and see if there's a video on it about his hardship.

Interesting about the arm wrestling, I used to be obsessed with arm wrestling back in my younger days and I would challenge everyone and their brother to a match. Anyway, a while back I was poking around on YouTube, just looking at various videos, and I came across a video of two guys arm wrestling and the force of the pulling caused the guys arm to just snap like a stick, it was the first time I had ever seen anything like that happening in an arm wrestling match, and from that moment on I have never arm wrestled again, nor will I ever do it again period. It makes me cringe when I think about all of those arm wrestling matches I participated in, they were intense and I was lucky not to have broken my arm in half. I haven't seen the Jim Otto video you refer to, I'll check it out when I get a chance. 👍

The last time I ever arm wrestled, and it will be the last time, was around 20 years ago. I was attending this good customer's employee wedding. The employee was my main contact there for orders, etc, but I also knew the owner well. Did a ton of business with him.

Anyway so at the reception, we're all sitting at the same table with the owner, and other business associates of the groom. I always knew the owner was a bull, very strong, but we never discussed any of that during business. But you see it coming, we're drinking a lot, and sure enough the subject of arm wrestling came up. I stated not in a bragging way, but I think the owner took it that way, that nobody, and I mean nobody has ever beaten me in arm wrestling who was close to my weight class. I recall at the mentioned frat parties, those who beat me outweighed me by at least 50 or 100 pounds, basically the linemen. This owner may have outweighed me by perhaps 10 or 15 pounds, and he took umbrage to what I said, in a fun way. Admittedly i did it intentionally as we all knew he was a tough guy. So we agreed to arm wrestle right there at the table, right in front of the ladies. Toughest match I ever had, it must have lasted one to two minutes, both of us going full out, and it was still a stalemate. Finally he acquiesced and let go, and I'm sure glad he did because I was shot.

Well the next day I had the worst tendinitis in my right elbow, I ever had in my life. And it must have lasted close to two weeks before it finally went away. It was brutal. Certainly wasn't worth the silly fooling around to see who's the best arm wrestler. You might think it was kinda stupid beating a guy in arm wresting who was a great customer. But we knew each other over a decade, and had a good laugh about it after it was over. I sure wasn't laughing about it the next day. I've had a kidney stone, and I'd rather have the kidney stone than have that severe tendinitis again - LOL

I've heard of tendinitis before but didn't realize it was that painful, worse than a kidney stone, I'm definitely never arm wrestling again!

It's a different sort of pain. Not sharp pain like a kidney stone, but a dull throbbing pain, agonizingly uncomfortable.

Not something I want to experience, I'm sure of that!

Also be careful as ya get older with things such as shoveling snow. I think most everyone is aware about the heart attack angle, but getting tendinitis from it is no fun either.

I actually have heart issues already, my heart beats way too fast after I eat, so my doctor put me on atenelol and it slows my heart down to a normal pace, so I'm always careful not to exert myself too much with my heart. I have pushed it too hard in the past and had chest pains that resulted in trips to the emergency room, they never found anything wrong though, just told me to take it easy. I still don't know why it beats too fast after I eat, but at least the atenelol slows it down

Sorry to hear that.

What is one of your typical meals if you don't mind me asking, and snacks, etc. Also outside of eating, do you have any "bad habits" as far as what could affect your physical well being?

No problem if ya don't wish to discuss it further.

Well, I smoked cigarettes for over a decade, but now I chew nicotine gum like it's going out of style, I'm chewing it right now as we speak. I'm sure that doesn't help my blood pressure, but I can't kick nicotine completely, I never will be able to kick the habit, I tried going cold turkey but the cravings are just overwhelming. I chew way too much, more than the recommended dose, that's probably my problem, I'm chewing too much of the stuff. Don't ever start smoking Steve, you'll regret it if you do

stevek

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

When I was younger, I always considered boxing to be the most grueling sport. I mean how can it get worse than being hit in the head countless numbers of times by a strong boxer? Seemed obvious to me.

Then I read an article pointing out how football has that distinction. I can't recall if the article used the word "grueling" or not, but I think it possibly could have been used. I thought about it and wound-up agreeing with the article.

The main reason is that yes, football players are not exposed to as much head trauma as boxers. But football players are exposed to a lot of head trauma, as CTE among long time football players is not uncommon. That being said, football exposes the player to so much more than just head trauma. Overall the damage that's done to the body playing football, yes I believe does equate to being more grueling than boxing.

Frankly, I would still place boxing, along with mixed martial arts in the gladiator category. With football at the top. The other sports mentioned have their toughness about them, I'm not questioning that, but I wouldn't consider those players to be gladiators, and baseball not even remotely close.

So in my view, considering everything, baseball players are stealing money for what they do. They shouldn't be making 1/10th of what they make. Football players in my view deserve every cent.

Boxing is definitely one of the most dangerous sports, around 1500 have died as a result of their injuries in the ring since the 1880s. As far as head trauma, boxing is by far the worst, the concussive force is greater, guys look like they've been hit by a shotgun blast, their bodies going completely limp. You rarely see that in any other sports, happens all the time in boxing. The gloves aren't padded to protect the face, they're padded to protect the fist, allowing guys to really unload on you.

Cassius Clay, sometimes little known by his other name, is a good example of what you stated. There are a number of interviews with him on Youtube. In the 60's and 70's he is smart, articulate, and even funny with a good sense of humor. In the 80's interviews or around that time, it was obvious how his brain had degraded in slower responses to interview questions, slightly slurred speech, etc.

Upon his retirement from boxing and until his death, I think most of us already know how Ali became sort of like a dementia patient. Yet from what I've read, he technically did not have dementia, and could understand everything going on around him including conversations. He just verbally couldn't respond to it. His physical mechanisms eventually shut down as well. Most will say, and I fully agree, that this gross deterioration was caused by boxing.

I read one time where somebody did a study, and estimated that Ali during his career, including sparing, etc, was subjected to approximately 75,000 blows to the head. Whatever is the number, it's for sure a lot of blows to the head. I mean there are sometimes news stories about someone receiving just one blow to the head in a scuffle of some sort, and dying from it.

It's of course not just Ali. My favorite boxer of all time is Joe Frazier. Joe wasn't as witty as Ali, not too many people are, but Joe was highly intelligent without question. Sadly, Joe as well in retirement suffered in a similar manner as Ali, although it wasn't quite as bad. It was painful to me hearing Joe speak as he got older, slurring the words, etc.

That's an excellent point you make about all the deaths from boxing, which I hadn't thought of when making my initial post about it. Boxers are gladiators, without question, and they well earn every cent that they make. Those fat 50 and 100 million dollar purses or whatever it is, I don't begrudge them one bit making that kind of big money.

It is sad to see a lot of boxers later in life with the slurred speech, Larry Holmes, Riddick Bowe, a lot of them show the signs you are talking about. I love Joe Frazier as well, one of my all-time favorites, a great guy and fighter, it was heart breaking listening to him talk in his later years, and of course Ali, who had such an outgoing personality in his younger days, and couldn't even speak as he got older. Football is a very violent sport as well, just look at Joe Montana, all the damage he took in the 80s when defenders could just lay waste to the quarterback. I was reading an article about Montana recently and he's had so many surgeries all over his body it's ridiculous, dozens, he's in constant pain all the time, and his wife said sometimes the pain gets so bad that he just gets out of bed in the middle of the night and lays in the floor in agony. Football is brutal on your overall body. Take this for example, Christian McCaffrey's wife posted these pics online the other day, she was a bit surprised by the beating his body took in their game on Thanksgiving. You can see the bruises and blood on his arm, and it left blood stains on the bed covers.

Yea, it's sort of like a form of morbid fun when you're young. Ya get banged up and figure your body will heal up fine and recover. In high school football, I was too stupid to wear an arm pad, and both my arms were almost one continuous bruise during football season. I actually enjoyed showing it off - sick, i admit it.

The only long term casualty I suffered from playing football was during a game this MFer clipped me for really no reason, as the play was on the other side of the field. To this day my one knee is a bit gimpy when i start walking long distances such as hunting. No pain, it just gives out so to speak. No complaints, but frankly, I'm glad as yell I decided not to even try college football, and I was tempted to try out.

Our fraternity used to party with the football fraternity up at Penn State, and of course when we all got drunk, we'd wind-up arm wrestling for the yell of it. At that time the football players shared the same weight room with the other students, and I was in there regularly every other day. So the football players knew my face, as it's usually the same people in there all the time. I'd outlift most of them. And during the arm wrestling sessions, I'd beat most of them. Some of them said to me why don't you try out for the team as a walk-on? I told them I thought about it, but the problem is in the 40, you can time me with an hourglass. Paterno or his staff would have cut me quickly because of that, so I figured why bother. Even if I had somehow made the team, I'd be no better than a third team tackling dummy. I knew I'd never play in a game, so I just didn't want to do that.

You probably know about and perhaps have seen the video on Jim Otto? I didn't realize that about Montana. I'll have to check out Youtube and see if there's a video on it about his hardship.

Interesting about the arm wrestling, I used to be obsessed with arm wrestling back in my younger days and I would challenge everyone and their brother to a match. Anyway, a while back I was poking around on YouTube, just looking at various videos, and I came across a video of two guys arm wrestling and the force of the pulling caused the guys arm to just snap like a stick, it was the first time I had ever seen anything like that happening in an arm wrestling match, and from that moment on I have never arm wrestled again, nor will I ever do it again period. It makes me cringe when I think about all of those arm wrestling matches I participated in, they were intense and I was lucky not to have broken my arm in half. I haven't seen the Jim Otto video you refer to, I'll check it out when I get a chance. 👍

The last time I ever arm wrestled, and it will be the last time, was around 20 years ago. I was attending this good customer's employee wedding. The employee was my main contact there for orders, etc, but I also knew the owner well. Did a ton of business with him.

Anyway so at the reception, we're all sitting at the same table with the owner, and other business associates of the groom. I always knew the owner was a bull, very strong, but we never discussed any of that during business. But you see it coming, we're drinking a lot, and sure enough the subject of arm wrestling came up. I stated not in a bragging way, but I think the owner took it that way, that nobody, and I mean nobody has ever beaten me in arm wrestling who was close to my weight class. I recall at the mentioned frat parties, those who beat me outweighed me by at least 50 or 100 pounds, basically the linemen. This owner may have outweighed me by perhaps 10 or 15 pounds, and he took umbrage to what I said, in a fun way. Admittedly i did it intentionally as we all knew he was a tough guy. So we agreed to arm wrestle right there at the table, right in front of the ladies. Toughest match I ever had, it must have lasted one to two minutes, both of us going full out, and it was still a stalemate. Finally he acquiesced and let go, and I'm sure glad he did because I was shot.

Well the next day I had the worst tendinitis in my right elbow, I ever had in my life. And it must have lasted close to two weeks before it finally went away. It was brutal. Certainly wasn't worth the silly fooling around to see who's the best arm wrestler. You might think it was kinda stupid beating a guy in arm wresting who was a great customer. But we knew each other over a decade, and had a good laugh about it after it was over. I sure wasn't laughing about it the next day. I've had a kidney stone, and I'd rather have the kidney stone than have that severe tendinitis again - LOL

I've heard of tendinitis before but didn't realize it was that painful, worse than a kidney stone, I'm definitely never arm wrestling again!

It's a different sort of pain. Not sharp pain like a kidney stone, but a dull throbbing pain, agonizingly uncomfortable.

Not something I want to experience, I'm sure of that!

Also be careful as ya get older with things such as shoveling snow. I think most everyone is aware about the heart attack angle, but getting tendinitis from it is no fun either.

I actually have heart issues already, my heart beats way too fast after I eat, so my doctor put me on atenelol and it slows my heart down to a normal pace, so I'm always careful not to exert myself too much with my heart. I have pushed it too hard in the past and had chest pains that resulted in trips to the emergency room, they never found anything wrong though, just told me to take it easy. I still don't know why it beats too fast after I eat, but at least the atenelol slows it down

Sorry to hear that.

What is one of your typical meals if you don't mind me asking, and snacks, etc. Also outside of eating, do you have any "bad habits" as far as what could affect your physical well being?

No problem if ya don't wish to discuss it further.

Well, I smoked cigarettes for over a decade, but now I chew nicotine gum like it's going out of style, I'm chewing it right now as we speak. I'm sure that doesn't help my blood pressure, but I can't kick nicotine completely, I never will be able to kick the habit, I tried going cold turkey but the cravings are just overwhelming. I chew way too much, more than the recommended dose, that's probably my problem, I'm chewing too much of the stuff. Don't ever start smoking Steve, you'll regret it if you do

I've smoked maybe one or two packs of cigarettes total in my entire life. Always OP's.

I've never actually bought a pack. I have bought a few packs of cigars. Neither one though in a long time. I just never liked smoking, not just for health reasons.

doubledragon

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

When I was younger, I always considered boxing to be the most grueling sport. I mean how can it get worse than being hit in the head countless numbers of times by a strong boxer? Seemed obvious to me.

Then I read an article pointing out how football has that distinction. I can't recall if the article used the word "grueling" or not, but I think it possibly could have been used. I thought about it and wound-up agreeing with the article.

The main reason is that yes, football players are not exposed to as much head trauma as boxers. But football players are exposed to a lot of head trauma, as CTE among long time football players is not uncommon. That being said, football exposes the player to so much more than just head trauma. Overall the damage that's done to the body playing football, yes I believe does equate to being more grueling than boxing.

Frankly, I would still place boxing, along with mixed martial arts in the gladiator category. With football at the top. The other sports mentioned have their toughness about them, I'm not questioning that, but I wouldn't consider those players to be gladiators, and baseball not even remotely close.

So in my view, considering everything, baseball players are stealing money for what they do. They shouldn't be making 1/10th of what they make. Football players in my view deserve every cent.

Boxing is definitely one of the most dangerous sports, around 1500 have died as a result of their injuries in the ring since the 1880s. As far as head trauma, boxing is by far the worst, the concussive force is greater, guys look like they've been hit by a shotgun blast, their bodies going completely limp. You rarely see that in any other sports, happens all the time in boxing. The gloves aren't padded to protect the face, they're padded to protect the fist, allowing guys to really unload on you.

Cassius Clay, sometimes little known by his other name, is a good example of what you stated. There are a number of interviews with him on Youtube. In the 60's and 70's he is smart, articulate, and even funny with a good sense of humor. In the 80's interviews or around that time, it was obvious how his brain had degraded in slower responses to interview questions, slightly slurred speech, etc.

Upon his retirement from boxing and until his death, I think most of us already know how Ali became sort of like a dementia patient. Yet from what I've read, he technically did not have dementia, and could understand everything going on around him including conversations. He just verbally couldn't respond to it. His physical mechanisms eventually shut down as well. Most will say, and I fully agree, that this gross deterioration was caused by boxing.

I read one time where somebody did a study, and estimated that Ali during his career, including sparing, etc, was subjected to approximately 75,000 blows to the head. Whatever is the number, it's for sure a lot of blows to the head. I mean there are sometimes news stories about someone receiving just one blow to the head in a scuffle of some sort, and dying from it.

It's of course not just Ali. My favorite boxer of all time is Joe Frazier. Joe wasn't as witty as Ali, not too many people are, but Joe was highly intelligent without question. Sadly, Joe as well in retirement suffered in a similar manner as Ali, although it wasn't quite as bad. It was painful to me hearing Joe speak as he got older, slurring the words, etc.

That's an excellent point you make about all the deaths from boxing, which I hadn't thought of when making my initial post about it. Boxers are gladiators, without question, and they well earn every cent that they make. Those fat 50 and 100 million dollar purses or whatever it is, I don't begrudge them one bit making that kind of big money.

It is sad to see a lot of boxers later in life with the slurred speech, Larry Holmes, Riddick Bowe, a lot of them show the signs you are talking about. I love Joe Frazier as well, one of my all-time favorites, a great guy and fighter, it was heart breaking listening to him talk in his later years, and of course Ali, who had such an outgoing personality in his younger days, and couldn't even speak as he got older. Football is a very violent sport as well, just look at Joe Montana, all the damage he took in the 80s when defenders could just lay waste to the quarterback. I was reading an article about Montana recently and he's had so many surgeries all over his body it's ridiculous, dozens, he's in constant pain all the time, and his wife said sometimes the pain gets so bad that he just gets out of bed in the middle of the night and lays in the floor in agony. Football is brutal on your overall body. Take this for example, Christian McCaffrey's wife posted these pics online the other day, she was a bit surprised by the beating his body took in their game on Thanksgiving. You can see the bruises and blood on his arm, and it left blood stains on the bed covers.

Yea, it's sort of like a form of morbid fun when you're young. Ya get banged up and figure your body will heal up fine and recover. In high school football, I was too stupid to wear an arm pad, and both my arms were almost one continuous bruise during football season. I actually enjoyed showing it off - sick, i admit it.

The only long term casualty I suffered from playing football was during a game this MFer clipped me for really no reason, as the play was on the other side of the field. To this day my one knee is a bit gimpy when i start walking long distances such as hunting. No pain, it just gives out so to speak. No complaints, but frankly, I'm glad as yell I decided not to even try college football, and I was tempted to try out.

Our fraternity used to party with the football fraternity up at Penn State, and of course when we all got drunk, we'd wind-up arm wrestling for the yell of it. At that time the football players shared the same weight room with the other students, and I was in there regularly every other day. So the football players knew my face, as it's usually the same people in there all the time. I'd outlift most of them. And during the arm wrestling sessions, I'd beat most of them. Some of them said to me why don't you try out for the team as a walk-on? I told them I thought about it, but the problem is in the 40, you can time me with an hourglass. Paterno or his staff would have cut me quickly because of that, so I figured why bother. Even if I had somehow made the team, I'd be no better than a third team tackling dummy. I knew I'd never play in a game, so I just didn't want to do that.

You probably know about and perhaps have seen the video on Jim Otto? I didn't realize that about Montana. I'll have to check out Youtube and see if there's a video on it about his hardship.

Interesting about the arm wrestling, I used to be obsessed with arm wrestling back in my younger days and I would challenge everyone and their brother to a match. Anyway, a while back I was poking around on YouTube, just looking at various videos, and I came across a video of two guys arm wrestling and the force of the pulling caused the guys arm to just snap like a stick, it was the first time I had ever seen anything like that happening in an arm wrestling match, and from that moment on I have never arm wrestled again, nor will I ever do it again period. It makes me cringe when I think about all of those arm wrestling matches I participated in, they were intense and I was lucky not to have broken my arm in half. I haven't seen the Jim Otto video you refer to, I'll check it out when I get a chance. 👍

The last time I ever arm wrestled, and it will be the last time, was around 20 years ago. I was attending this good customer's employee wedding. The employee was my main contact there for orders, etc, but I also knew the owner well. Did a ton of business with him.

Anyway so at the reception, we're all sitting at the same table with the owner, and other business associates of the groom. I always knew the owner was a bull, very strong, but we never discussed any of that during business. But you see it coming, we're drinking a lot, and sure enough the subject of arm wrestling came up. I stated not in a bragging way, but I think the owner took it that way, that nobody, and I mean nobody has ever beaten me in arm wrestling who was close to my weight class. I recall at the mentioned frat parties, those who beat me outweighed me by at least 50 or 100 pounds, basically the linemen. This owner may have outweighed me by perhaps 10 or 15 pounds, and he took umbrage to what I said, in a fun way. Admittedly i did it intentionally as we all knew he was a tough guy. So we agreed to arm wrestle right there at the table, right in front of the ladies. Toughest match I ever had, it must have lasted one to two minutes, both of us going full out, and it was still a stalemate. Finally he acquiesced and let go, and I'm sure glad he did because I was shot.

Well the next day I had the worst tendinitis in my right elbow, I ever had in my life. And it must have lasted close to two weeks before it finally went away. It was brutal. Certainly wasn't worth the silly fooling around to see who's the best arm wrestler. You might think it was kinda stupid beating a guy in arm wresting who was a great customer. But we knew each other over a decade, and had a good laugh about it after it was over. I sure wasn't laughing about it the next day. I've had a kidney stone, and I'd rather have the kidney stone than have that severe tendinitis again - LOL

I've heard of tendinitis before but didn't realize it was that painful, worse than a kidney stone, I'm definitely never arm wrestling again!

It's a different sort of pain. Not sharp pain like a kidney stone, but a dull throbbing pain, agonizingly uncomfortable.

Not something I want to experience, I'm sure of that!

Also be careful as ya get older with things such as shoveling snow. I think most everyone is aware about the heart attack angle, but getting tendinitis from it is no fun either.

I actually have heart issues already, my heart beats way too fast after I eat, so my doctor put me on atenelol and it slows my heart down to a normal pace, so I'm always careful not to exert myself too much with my heart. I have pushed it too hard in the past and had chest pains that resulted in trips to the emergency room, they never found anything wrong though, just told me to take it easy. I still don't know why it beats too fast after I eat, but at least the atenelol slows it down

Sorry to hear that.

What is one of your typical meals if you don't mind me asking, and snacks, etc. Also outside of eating, do you have any "bad habits" as far as what could affect your physical well being?

No problem if ya don't wish to discuss it further.

Well, I smoked cigarettes for over a decade, but now I chew nicotine gum like it's going out of style, I'm chewing it right now as we speak. I'm sure that doesn't help my blood pressure, but I can't kick nicotine completely, I never will be able to kick the habit, I tried going cold turkey but the cravings are just overwhelming. I chew way too much, more than the recommended dose, that's probably my problem, I'm chewing too much of the stuff. Don't ever start smoking Steve, you'll regret it if you do

I've smoked maybe one or two packs of cigarettes total in my entire life. Always OP's.

I've never actually bought a pack. I have bought a few packs of cigars. Neither one though in a long time. I just never liked smoking, not just for health reasons.

That's good to hear, nasty habit. 👍

stevek

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

When I was younger, I always considered boxing to be the most grueling sport. I mean how can it get worse than being hit in the head countless numbers of times by a strong boxer? Seemed obvious to me.

Then I read an article pointing out how football has that distinction. I can't recall if the article used the word "grueling" or not, but I think it possibly could have been used. I thought about it and wound-up agreeing with the article.

The main reason is that yes, football players are not exposed to as much head trauma as boxers. But football players are exposed to a lot of head trauma, as CTE among long time football players is not uncommon. That being said, football exposes the player to so much more than just head trauma. Overall the damage that's done to the body playing football, yes I believe does equate to being more grueling than boxing.

Frankly, I would still place boxing, along with mixed martial arts in the gladiator category. With football at the top. The other sports mentioned have their toughness about them, I'm not questioning that, but I wouldn't consider those players to be gladiators, and baseball not even remotely close.

So in my view, considering everything, baseball players are stealing money for what they do. They shouldn't be making 1/10th of what they make. Football players in my view deserve every cent.

Boxing is definitely one of the most dangerous sports, around 1500 have died as a result of their injuries in the ring since the 1880s. As far as head trauma, boxing is by far the worst, the concussive force is greater, guys look like they've been hit by a shotgun blast, their bodies going completely limp. You rarely see that in any other sports, happens all the time in boxing. The gloves aren't padded to protect the face, they're padded to protect the fist, allowing guys to really unload on you.

Cassius Clay, sometimes little known by his other name, is a good example of what you stated. There are a number of interviews with him on Youtube. In the 60's and 70's he is smart, articulate, and even funny with a good sense of humor. In the 80's interviews or around that time, it was obvious how his brain had degraded in slower responses to interview questions, slightly slurred speech, etc.

Upon his retirement from boxing and until his death, I think most of us already know how Ali became sort of like a dementia patient. Yet from what I've read, he technically did not have dementia, and could understand everything going on around him including conversations. He just verbally couldn't respond to it. His physical mechanisms eventually shut down as well. Most will say, and I fully agree, that this gross deterioration was caused by boxing.

I read one time where somebody did a study, and estimated that Ali during his career, including sparing, etc, was subjected to approximately 75,000 blows to the head. Whatever is the number, it's for sure a lot of blows to the head. I mean there are sometimes news stories about someone receiving just one blow to the head in a scuffle of some sort, and dying from it.

It's of course not just Ali. My favorite boxer of all time is Joe Frazier. Joe wasn't as witty as Ali, not too many people are, but Joe was highly intelligent without question. Sadly, Joe as well in retirement suffered in a similar manner as Ali, although it wasn't quite as bad. It was painful to me hearing Joe speak as he got older, slurring the words, etc.

That's an excellent point you make about all the deaths from boxing, which I hadn't thought of when making my initial post about it. Boxers are gladiators, without question, and they well earn every cent that they make. Those fat 50 and 100 million dollar purses or whatever it is, I don't begrudge them one bit making that kind of big money.

It is sad to see a lot of boxers later in life with the slurred speech, Larry Holmes, Riddick Bowe, a lot of them show the signs you are talking about. I love Joe Frazier as well, one of my all-time favorites, a great guy and fighter, it was heart breaking listening to him talk in his later years, and of course Ali, who had such an outgoing personality in his younger days, and couldn't even speak as he got older. Football is a very violent sport as well, just look at Joe Montana, all the damage he took in the 80s when defenders could just lay waste to the quarterback. I was reading an article about Montana recently and he's had so many surgeries all over his body it's ridiculous, dozens, he's in constant pain all the time, and his wife said sometimes the pain gets so bad that he just gets out of bed in the middle of the night and lays in the floor in agony. Football is brutal on your overall body. Take this for example, Christian McCaffrey's wife posted these pics online the other day, she was a bit surprised by the beating his body took in their game on Thanksgiving. You can see the bruises and blood on his arm, and it left blood stains on the bed covers.

Yea, it's sort of like a form of morbid fun when you're young. Ya get banged up and figure your body will heal up fine and recover. In high school football, I was too stupid to wear an arm pad, and both my arms were almost one continuous bruise during football season. I actually enjoyed showing it off - sick, i admit it.

The only long term casualty I suffered from playing football was during a game this MFer clipped me for really no reason, as the play was on the other side of the field. To this day my one knee is a bit gimpy when i start walking long distances such as hunting. No pain, it just gives out so to speak. No complaints, but frankly, I'm glad as yell I decided not to even try college football, and I was tempted to try out.

Our fraternity used to party with the football fraternity up at Penn State, and of course when we all got drunk, we'd wind-up arm wrestling for the yell of it. At that time the football players shared the same weight room with the other students, and I was in there regularly every other day. So the football players knew my face, as it's usually the same people in there all the time. I'd outlift most of them. And during the arm wrestling sessions, I'd beat most of them. Some of them said to me why don't you try out for the team as a walk-on? I told them I thought about it, but the problem is in the 40, you can time me with an hourglass. Paterno or his staff would have cut me quickly because of that, so I figured why bother. Even if I had somehow made the team, I'd be no better than a third team tackling dummy. I knew I'd never play in a game, so I just didn't want to do that.

You probably know about and perhaps have seen the video on Jim Otto? I didn't realize that about Montana. I'll have to check out Youtube and see if there's a video on it about his hardship.

Interesting about the arm wrestling, I used to be obsessed with arm wrestling back in my younger days and I would challenge everyone and their brother to a match. Anyway, a while back I was poking around on YouTube, just looking at various videos, and I came across a video of two guys arm wrestling and the force of the pulling caused the guys arm to just snap like a stick, it was the first time I had ever seen anything like that happening in an arm wrestling match, and from that moment on I have never arm wrestled again, nor will I ever do it again period. It makes me cringe when I think about all of those arm wrestling matches I participated in, they were intense and I was lucky not to have broken my arm in half. I haven't seen the Jim Otto video you refer to, I'll check it out when I get a chance. 👍

The last time I ever arm wrestled, and it will be the last time, was around 20 years ago. I was attending this good customer's employee wedding. The employee was my main contact there for orders, etc, but I also knew the owner well. Did a ton of business with him.

Anyway so at the reception, we're all sitting at the same table with the owner, and other business associates of the groom. I always knew the owner was a bull, very strong, but we never discussed any of that during business. But you see it coming, we're drinking a lot, and sure enough the subject of arm wrestling came up. I stated not in a bragging way, but I think the owner took it that way, that nobody, and I mean nobody has ever beaten me in arm wrestling who was close to my weight class. I recall at the mentioned frat parties, those who beat me outweighed me by at least 50 or 100 pounds, basically the linemen. This owner may have outweighed me by perhaps 10 or 15 pounds, and he took umbrage to what I said, in a fun way. Admittedly i did it intentionally as we all knew he was a tough guy. So we agreed to arm wrestle right there at the table, right in front of the ladies. Toughest match I ever had, it must have lasted one to two minutes, both of us going full out, and it was still a stalemate. Finally he acquiesced and let go, and I'm sure glad he did because I was shot.

Well the next day I had the worst tendinitis in my right elbow, I ever had in my life. And it must have lasted close to two weeks before it finally went away. It was brutal. Certainly wasn't worth the silly fooling around to see who's the best arm wrestler. You might think it was kinda stupid beating a guy in arm wresting who was a great customer. But we knew each other over a decade, and had a good laugh about it after it was over. I sure wasn't laughing about it the next day. I've had a kidney stone, and I'd rather have the kidney stone than have that severe tendinitis again - LOL

I've heard of tendinitis before but didn't realize it was that painful, worse than a kidney stone, I'm definitely never arm wrestling again!

It's a different sort of pain. Not sharp pain like a kidney stone, but a dull throbbing pain, agonizingly uncomfortable.

Not something I want to experience, I'm sure of that!

Also be careful as ya get older with things such as shoveling snow. I think most everyone is aware about the heart attack angle, but getting tendinitis from it is no fun either.

I actually have heart issues already, my heart beats way too fast after I eat, so my doctor put me on atenelol and it slows my heart down to a normal pace, so I'm always careful not to exert myself too much with my heart. I have pushed it too hard in the past and had chest pains that resulted in trips to the emergency room, they never found anything wrong though, just told me to take it easy. I still don't know why it beats too fast after I eat, but at least the atenelol slows it down

Sorry to hear that.

What is one of your typical meals if you don't mind me asking, and snacks, etc. Also outside of eating, do you have any "bad habits" as far as what could affect your physical well being?

No problem if ya don't wish to discuss it further.

Well, I smoked cigarettes for over a decade, but now I chew nicotine gum like it's going out of style, I'm chewing it right now as we speak. I'm sure that doesn't help my blood pressure, but I can't kick nicotine completely, I never will be able to kick the habit, I tried going cold turkey but the cravings are just overwhelming. I chew way too much, more than the recommended dose, that's probably my problem, I'm chewing too much of the stuff. Don't ever start smoking Steve, you'll regret it if you do

Nicotine addiction is a tough one, no doubt about it. My grandfather who was a farmer and blacksmith, one of the strongest men I've ever met, was a lifelong nicotine addict. I hardly remember him without a lit pipe in his hand packed with Sir Walter Raleigh pipe tobacco.

I forget the precise details because I was young, but I think it was sometime in his 60's he tried to quit cold turkey. From what I was told, the withdrawal symptoms practically killed him. His doctor, again, from what I was told, told him rather than go cold turkey, to just continue with the habit. Perhaps something got lost in the translation, I would have to believe the doctor told him to instead gradually cut down before quitting completely, but that's what I was told. They said with his monster strong heart, he may have lived to 100. But he died at age 74 from a massive stroke, obviously in my opinion from the addiction.

stevek

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

When I was younger, I always considered boxing to be the most grueling sport. I mean how can it get worse than being hit in the head countless numbers of times by a strong boxer? Seemed obvious to me.

Then I read an article pointing out how football has that distinction. I can't recall if the article used the word "grueling" or not, but I think it possibly could have been used. I thought about it and wound-up agreeing with the article.

The main reason is that yes, football players are not exposed to as much head trauma as boxers. But football players are exposed to a lot of head trauma, as CTE among long time football players is not uncommon. That being said, football exposes the player to so much more than just head trauma. Overall the damage that's done to the body playing football, yes I believe does equate to being more grueling than boxing.

Frankly, I would still place boxing, along with mixed martial arts in the gladiator category. With football at the top. The other sports mentioned have their toughness about them, I'm not questioning that, but I wouldn't consider those players to be gladiators, and baseball not even remotely close.

So in my view, considering everything, baseball players are stealing money for what they do. They shouldn't be making 1/10th of what they make. Football players in my view deserve every cent.

Boxing is definitely one of the most dangerous sports, around 1500 have died as a result of their injuries in the ring since the 1880s. As far as head trauma, boxing is by far the worst, the concussive force is greater, guys look like they've been hit by a shotgun blast, their bodies going completely limp. You rarely see that in any other sports, happens all the time in boxing. The gloves aren't padded to protect the face, they're padded to protect the fist, allowing guys to really unload on you.

Cassius Clay, sometimes little known by his other name, is a good example of what you stated. There are a number of interviews with him on Youtube. In the 60's and 70's he is smart, articulate, and even funny with a good sense of humor. In the 80's interviews or around that time, it was obvious how his brain had degraded in slower responses to interview questions, slightly slurred speech, etc.

Upon his retirement from boxing and until his death, I think most of us already know how Ali became sort of like a dementia patient. Yet from what I've read, he technically did not have dementia, and could understand everything going on around him including conversations. He just verbally couldn't respond to it. His physical mechanisms eventually shut down as well. Most will say, and I fully agree, that this gross deterioration was caused by boxing.

I read one time where somebody did a study, and estimated that Ali during his career, including sparing, etc, was subjected to approximately 75,000 blows to the head. Whatever is the number, it's for sure a lot of blows to the head. I mean there are sometimes news stories about someone receiving just one blow to the head in a scuffle of some sort, and dying from it.

It's of course not just Ali. My favorite boxer of all time is Joe Frazier. Joe wasn't as witty as Ali, not too many people are, but Joe was highly intelligent without question. Sadly, Joe as well in retirement suffered in a similar manner as Ali, although it wasn't quite as bad. It was painful to me hearing Joe speak as he got older, slurring the words, etc.

That's an excellent point you make about all the deaths from boxing, which I hadn't thought of when making my initial post about it. Boxers are gladiators, without question, and they well earn every cent that they make. Those fat 50 and 100 million dollar purses or whatever it is, I don't begrudge them one bit making that kind of big money.

It is sad to see a lot of boxers later in life with the slurred speech, Larry Holmes, Riddick Bowe, a lot of them show the signs you are talking about. I love Joe Frazier as well, one of my all-time favorites, a great guy and fighter, it was heart breaking listening to him talk in his later years, and of course Ali, who had such an outgoing personality in his younger days, and couldn't even speak as he got older. Football is a very violent sport as well, just look at Joe Montana, all the damage he took in the 80s when defenders could just lay waste to the quarterback. I was reading an article about Montana recently and he's had so many surgeries all over his body it's ridiculous, dozens, he's in constant pain all the time, and his wife said sometimes the pain gets so bad that he just gets out of bed in the middle of the night and lays in the floor in agony. Football is brutal on your overall body. Take this for example, Christian McCaffrey's wife posted these pics online the other day, she was a bit surprised by the beating his body took in their game on Thanksgiving. You can see the bruises and blood on his arm, and it left blood stains on the bed covers.

Yea, it's sort of like a form of morbid fun when you're young. Ya get banged up and figure your body will heal up fine and recover. In high school football, I was too stupid to wear an arm pad, and both my arms were almost one continuous bruise during football season. I actually enjoyed showing it off - sick, i admit it.

The only long term casualty I suffered from playing football was during a game this MFer clipped me for really no reason, as the play was on the other side of the field. To this day my one knee is a bit gimpy when i start walking long distances such as hunting. No pain, it just gives out so to speak. No complaints, but frankly, I'm glad as yell I decided not to even try college football, and I was tempted to try out.

Our fraternity used to party with the football fraternity up at Penn State, and of course when we all got drunk, we'd wind-up arm wrestling for the yell of it. At that time the football players shared the same weight room with the other students, and I was in there regularly every other day. So the football players knew my face, as it's usually the same people in there all the time. I'd outlift most of them. And during the arm wrestling sessions, I'd beat most of them. Some of them said to me why don't you try out for the team as a walk-on? I told them I thought about it, but the problem is in the 40, you can time me with an hourglass. Paterno or his staff would have cut me quickly because of that, so I figured why bother. Even if I had somehow made the team, I'd be no better than a third team tackling dummy. I knew I'd never play in a game, so I just didn't want to do that.

You probably know about and perhaps have seen the video on Jim Otto? I didn't realize that about Montana. I'll have to check out Youtube and see if there's a video on it about his hardship.

Interesting about the arm wrestling, I used to be obsessed with arm wrestling back in my younger days and I would challenge everyone and their brother to a match. Anyway, a while back I was poking around on YouTube, just looking at various videos, and I came across a video of two guys arm wrestling and the force of the pulling caused the guys arm to just snap like a stick, it was the first time I had ever seen anything like that happening in an arm wrestling match, and from that moment on I have never arm wrestled again, nor will I ever do it again period. It makes me cringe when I think about all of those arm wrestling matches I participated in, they were intense and I was lucky not to have broken my arm in half. I haven't seen the Jim Otto video you refer to, I'll check it out when I get a chance. 👍

The last time I ever arm wrestled, and it will be the last time, was around 20 years ago. I was attending this good customer's employee wedding. The employee was my main contact there for orders, etc, but I also knew the owner well. Did a ton of business with him.

Anyway so at the reception, we're all sitting at the same table with the owner, and other business associates of the groom. I always knew the owner was a bull, very strong, but we never discussed any of that during business. But you see it coming, we're drinking a lot, and sure enough the subject of arm wrestling came up. I stated not in a bragging way, but I think the owner took it that way, that nobody, and I mean nobody has ever beaten me in arm wrestling who was close to my weight class. I recall at the mentioned frat parties, those who beat me outweighed me by at least 50 or 100 pounds, basically the linemen. This owner may have outweighed me by perhaps 10 or 15 pounds, and he took umbrage to what I said, in a fun way. Admittedly i did it intentionally as we all knew he was a tough guy. So we agreed to arm wrestle right there at the table, right in front of the ladies. Toughest match I ever had, it must have lasted one to two minutes, both of us going full out, and it was still a stalemate. Finally he acquiesced and let go, and I'm sure glad he did because I was shot.

Well the next day I had the worst tendinitis in my right elbow, I ever had in my life. And it must have lasted close to two weeks before it finally went away. It was brutal. Certainly wasn't worth the silly fooling around to see who's the best arm wrestler. You might think it was kinda stupid beating a guy in arm wresting who was a great customer. But we knew each other over a decade, and had a good laugh about it after it was over. I sure wasn't laughing about it the next day. I've had a kidney stone, and I'd rather have the kidney stone than have that severe tendinitis again - LOL

I've heard of tendinitis before but didn't realize it was that painful, worse than a kidney stone, I'm definitely never arm wrestling again!

It's a different sort of pain. Not sharp pain like a kidney stone, but a dull throbbing pain, agonizingly uncomfortable.

Not something I want to experience, I'm sure of that!

Also be careful as ya get older with things such as shoveling snow. I think most everyone is aware about the heart attack angle, but getting tendinitis from it is no fun either.

I actually have heart issues already, my heart beats way too fast after I eat, so my doctor put me on atenelol and it slows my heart down to a normal pace, so I'm always careful not to exert myself too much with my heart. I have pushed it too hard in the past and had chest pains that resulted in trips to the emergency room, they never found anything wrong though, just told me to take it easy. I still don't know why it beats too fast after I eat, but at least the atenelol slows it down

Sorry to hear that.

What is one of your typical meals if you don't mind me asking, and snacks, etc. Also outside of eating, do you have any "bad habits" as far as what could affect your physical well being?

No problem if ya don't wish to discuss it further.

Well, I smoked cigarettes for over a decade, but now I chew nicotine gum like it's going out of style, I'm chewing it right now as we speak. I'm sure that doesn't help my blood pressure, but I can't kick nicotine completely, I never will be able to kick the habit, I tried going cold turkey but the cravings are just overwhelming. I chew way too much, more than the recommended dose, that's probably my problem, I'm chewing too much of the stuff. Don't ever start smoking Steve, you'll regret it if you do

I've smoked maybe one or two packs of cigarettes total in my entire life. Always OP's.

I've never actually bought a pack. I have bought a few packs of cigars. Neither one though in a long time. I just never liked smoking, not just for health reasons.

That's good to hear, nasty habit. 👍

I realize that you probably don't wish for any two-bit analysis. But you know I like you, as does everybody else on this forum, so I'll do it anyway. I'll keep it brief.

Even though you've had some close calls, you may need to experience a "lightbulb moment" when you're in the hospital, with your chest sliced open for heart surgery, close to possible death, but thankfully you manage to pull through and survive.

The better thing to do would be to think it thru to the inevitable conclusion, which will likely, if not definitely be as just mentioned. You can avoid that pain and suffering by doing what it takes, get yourself in the right addiction recovery mind frame, to keep the addiction at bay.

Don't worry about "curing" the addiction. It's usually too daunting for an addict to think like, oh my gosh never again can I have a cigarette? Just do what it takes on a day to day or hour to hour basis to keep the addiction at bay. Eventually, you'll get yourself into the good habit of not smoking and you won't really miss it. And look, if you slip and have a few smokes, say at a party, don't come down too hard on yourself. Just the next day get yourself right back in the good habit of staying clean from tobacco. 😊

doubledragon

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

When I was younger, I always considered boxing to be the most grueling sport. I mean how can it get worse than being hit in the head countless numbers of times by a strong boxer? Seemed obvious to me.

Then I read an article pointing out how football has that distinction. I can't recall if the article used the word "grueling" or not, but I think it possibly could have been used. I thought about it and wound-up agreeing with the article.

The main reason is that yes, football players are not exposed to as much head trauma as boxers. But football players are exposed to a lot of head trauma, as CTE among long time football players is not uncommon. That being said, football exposes the player to so much more than just head trauma. Overall the damage that's done to the body playing football, yes I believe does equate to being more grueling than boxing.

Frankly, I would still place boxing, along with mixed martial arts in the gladiator category. With football at the top. The other sports mentioned have their toughness about them, I'm not questioning that, but I wouldn't consider those players to be gladiators, and baseball not even remotely close.

So in my view, considering everything, baseball players are stealing money for what they do. They shouldn't be making 1/10th of what they make. Football players in my view deserve every cent.

Boxing is definitely one of the most dangerous sports, around 1500 have died as a result of their injuries in the ring since the 1880s. As far as head trauma, boxing is by far the worst, the concussive force is greater, guys look like they've been hit by a shotgun blast, their bodies going completely limp. You rarely see that in any other sports, happens all the time in boxing. The gloves aren't padded to protect the face, they're padded to protect the fist, allowing guys to really unload on you.

Cassius Clay, sometimes little known by his other name, is a good example of what you stated. There are a number of interviews with him on Youtube. In the 60's and 70's he is smart, articulate, and even funny with a good sense of humor. In the 80's interviews or around that time, it was obvious how his brain had degraded in slower responses to interview questions, slightly slurred speech, etc.

Upon his retirement from boxing and until his death, I think most of us already know how Ali became sort of like a dementia patient. Yet from what I've read, he technically did not have dementia, and could understand everything going on around him including conversations. He just verbally couldn't respond to it. His physical mechanisms eventually shut down as well. Most will say, and I fully agree, that this gross deterioration was caused by boxing.

I read one time where somebody did a study, and estimated that Ali during his career, including sparing, etc, was subjected to approximately 75,000 blows to the head. Whatever is the number, it's for sure a lot of blows to the head. I mean there are sometimes news stories about someone receiving just one blow to the head in a scuffle of some sort, and dying from it.

It's of course not just Ali. My favorite boxer of all time is Joe Frazier. Joe wasn't as witty as Ali, not too many people are, but Joe was highly intelligent without question. Sadly, Joe as well in retirement suffered in a similar manner as Ali, although it wasn't quite as bad. It was painful to me hearing Joe speak as he got older, slurring the words, etc.

That's an excellent point you make about all the deaths from boxing, which I hadn't thought of when making my initial post about it. Boxers are gladiators, without question, and they well earn every cent that they make. Those fat 50 and 100 million dollar purses or whatever it is, I don't begrudge them one bit making that kind of big money.

It is sad to see a lot of boxers later in life with the slurred speech, Larry Holmes, Riddick Bowe, a lot of them show the signs you are talking about. I love Joe Frazier as well, one of my all-time favorites, a great guy and fighter, it was heart breaking listening to him talk in his later years, and of course Ali, who had such an outgoing personality in his younger days, and couldn't even speak as he got older. Football is a very violent sport as well, just look at Joe Montana, all the damage he took in the 80s when defenders could just lay waste to the quarterback. I was reading an article about Montana recently and he's had so many surgeries all over his body it's ridiculous, dozens, he's in constant pain all the time, and his wife said sometimes the pain gets so bad that he just gets out of bed in the middle of the night and lays in the floor in agony. Football is brutal on your overall body. Take this for example, Christian McCaffrey's wife posted these pics online the other day, she was a bit surprised by the beating his body took in their game on Thanksgiving. You can see the bruises and blood on his arm, and it left blood stains on the bed covers.

Yea, it's sort of like a form of morbid fun when you're young. Ya get banged up and figure your body will heal up fine and recover. In high school football, I was too stupid to wear an arm pad, and both my arms were almost one continuous bruise during football season. I actually enjoyed showing it off - sick, i admit it.

The only long term casualty I suffered from playing football was during a game this MFer clipped me for really no reason, as the play was on the other side of the field. To this day my one knee is a bit gimpy when i start walking long distances such as hunting. No pain, it just gives out so to speak. No complaints, but frankly, I'm glad as yell I decided not to even try college football, and I was tempted to try out.

Our fraternity used to party with the football fraternity up at Penn State, and of course when we all got drunk, we'd wind-up arm wrestling for the yell of it. At that time the football players shared the same weight room with the other students, and I was in there regularly every other day. So the football players knew my face, as it's usually the same people in there all the time. I'd outlift most of them. And during the arm wrestling sessions, I'd beat most of them. Some of them said to me why don't you try out for the team as a walk-on? I told them I thought about it, but the problem is in the 40, you can time me with an hourglass. Paterno or his staff would have cut me quickly because of that, so I figured why bother. Even if I had somehow made the team, I'd be no better than a third team tackling dummy. I knew I'd never play in a game, so I just didn't want to do that.

You probably know about and perhaps have seen the video on Jim Otto? I didn't realize that about Montana. I'll have to check out Youtube and see if there's a video on it about his hardship.

Interesting about the arm wrestling, I used to be obsessed with arm wrestling back in my younger days and I would challenge everyone and their brother to a match. Anyway, a while back I was poking around on YouTube, just looking at various videos, and I came across a video of two guys arm wrestling and the force of the pulling caused the guys arm to just snap like a stick, it was the first time I had ever seen anything like that happening in an arm wrestling match, and from that moment on I have never arm wrestled again, nor will I ever do it again period. It makes me cringe when I think about all of those arm wrestling matches I participated in, they were intense and I was lucky not to have broken my arm in half. I haven't seen the Jim Otto video you refer to, I'll check it out when I get a chance. 👍

The last time I ever arm wrestled, and it will be the last time, was around 20 years ago. I was attending this good customer's employee wedding. The employee was my main contact there for orders, etc, but I also knew the owner well. Did a ton of business with him.

Anyway so at the reception, we're all sitting at the same table with the owner, and other business associates of the groom. I always knew the owner was a bull, very strong, but we never discussed any of that during business. But you see it coming, we're drinking a lot, and sure enough the subject of arm wrestling came up. I stated not in a bragging way, but I think the owner took it that way, that nobody, and I mean nobody has ever beaten me in arm wrestling who was close to my weight class. I recall at the mentioned frat parties, those who beat me outweighed me by at least 50 or 100 pounds, basically the linemen. This owner may have outweighed me by perhaps 10 or 15 pounds, and he took umbrage to what I said, in a fun way. Admittedly i did it intentionally as we all knew he was a tough guy. So we agreed to arm wrestle right there at the table, right in front of the ladies. Toughest match I ever had, it must have lasted one to two minutes, both of us going full out, and it was still a stalemate. Finally he acquiesced and let go, and I'm sure glad he did because I was shot.

Well the next day I had the worst tendinitis in my right elbow, I ever had in my life. And it must have lasted close to two weeks before it finally went away. It was brutal. Certainly wasn't worth the silly fooling around to see who's the best arm wrestler. You might think it was kinda stupid beating a guy in arm wresting who was a great customer. But we knew each other over a decade, and had a good laugh about it after it was over. I sure wasn't laughing about it the next day. I've had a kidney stone, and I'd rather have the kidney stone than have that severe tendinitis again - LOL

I've heard of tendinitis before but didn't realize it was that painful, worse than a kidney stone, I'm definitely never arm wrestling again!

It's a different sort of pain. Not sharp pain like a kidney stone, but a dull throbbing pain, agonizingly uncomfortable.

Not something I want to experience, I'm sure of that!

Also be careful as ya get older with things such as shoveling snow. I think most everyone is aware about the heart attack angle, but getting tendinitis from it is no fun either.

I actually have heart issues already, my heart beats way too fast after I eat, so my doctor put me on atenelol and it slows my heart down to a normal pace, so I'm always careful not to exert myself too much with my heart. I have pushed it too hard in the past and had chest pains that resulted in trips to the emergency room, they never found anything wrong though, just told me to take it easy. I still don't know why it beats too fast after I eat, but at least the atenelol slows it down

Sorry to hear that.

What is one of your typical meals if you don't mind me asking, and snacks, etc. Also outside of eating, do you have any "bad habits" as far as what could affect your physical well being?

No problem if ya don't wish to discuss it further.

Well, I smoked cigarettes for over a decade, but now I chew nicotine gum like it's going out of style, I'm chewing it right now as we speak. I'm sure that doesn't help my blood pressure, but I can't kick nicotine completely, I never will be able to kick the habit, I tried going cold turkey but the cravings are just overwhelming. I chew way too much, more than the recommended dose, that's probably my problem, I'm chewing too much of the stuff. Don't ever start smoking Steve, you'll regret it if you do

I've smoked maybe one or two packs of cigarettes total in my entire life. Always OP's.

I've never actually bought a pack. I have bought a few packs of cigars. Neither one though in a long time. I just never liked smoking, not just for health reasons.

That's good to hear, nasty habit. 👍

I realize that you probably don't wish for any two-bit analysis. But you know I like you, as does everybody else on this forum, so I'll do it anyway. I'll keep it brief.

Even though you've had some close calls, you may need to experience a "lightbulb moment" when you're in the hospital, with your chest sliced open for heart surgery, close to possible death, but thankfully you manage to pull through and survive.

The better thing to do would be to think it thru to the inevitable conclusion, which will likely, if not definitely be as just mentioned. You can avoid that pain and suffering by doing what it takes, get yourself in the right addiction recovery mind frame, to keep the addiction at bay.

Don't worry about "curing" the addiction. It's usually too daunting for an addict to think like, oh my gosh never again can I have a cigarette? Just do what it takes on a day to day or hour to hour basis to keep the addiction at bay. Eventually, you'll get yourself into the good habit of not smoking and you won't really miss it. And look, if you slip and have a few smokes, say at a party, don't come down too hard on yourself. Just the next day get yourself right back in the good habit of staying clean from tobacco. 😊

I appreciate the kind words, I've actually quit smoking, it's the nicotine gum I'm addicted to now. I need to cut back on it because I know it's making my blood pressure go up, and probably contributing to my rapid heart beat. I'll try and cut down, though it will be extremely difficult. Nicotine is difficult thing to quit completely!

stevek

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:

@doubledragon said:

@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

When I was younger, I always considered boxing to be the most grueling sport. I mean how can it get worse than being hit in the head countless numbers of times by a strong boxer? Seemed obvious to me.

Then I read an article pointing out how football has that distinction. I can't recall if the article used the word "grueling" or not, but I think it possibly could have been used. I thought about it and wound-up agreeing with the article.

The main reason is that yes, football players are not exposed to as much head trauma as boxers. But football players are exposed to a lot of head trauma, as CTE among long time football players is not uncommon. That being said, football exposes the player to so much more than just head trauma. Overall the damage that's done to the body playing football, yes I believe does equate to being more grueling than boxing.

Frankly, I would still place boxing, along with mixed martial arts in the gladiator category. With football at the top. The other sports mentioned have their toughness about them, I'm not questioning that, but I wouldn't consider those players to be gladiators, and baseball not even remotely close.

So in my view, considering everything, baseball players are stealing money for what they do. They shouldn't be making 1/10th of what they make. Football players in my view deserve every cent.

Boxing is definitely one of the most dangerous sports, around 1500 have died as a result of their injuries in the ring since the 1880s. As far as head trauma, boxing is by far the worst, the concussive force is greater, guys look like they've been hit by a shotgun blast, their bodies going completely limp. You rarely see that in any other sports, happens all the time in boxing. The gloves aren't padded to protect the face, they're padded to protect the fist, allowing guys to really unload on you.

Cassius Clay, sometimes little known by his other name, is a good example of what you stated. There are a number of interviews with him on Youtube. In the 60's and 70's he is smart, articulate, and even funny with a good sense of humor. In the 80's interviews or around that time, it was obvious how his brain had degraded in slower responses to interview questions, slightly slurred speech, etc.

Upon his retirement from boxing and until his death, I think most of us already know how Ali became sort of like a dementia patient. Yet from what I've read, he technically did not have dementia, and could understand everything going on around him including conversations. He just verbally couldn't respond to it. His physical mechanisms eventually shut down as well. Most will say, and I fully agree, that this gross deterioration was caused by boxing.

I read one time where somebody did a study, and estimated that Ali during his career, including sparing, etc, was subjected to approximately 75,000 blows to the head. Whatever is the number, it's for sure a lot of blows to the head. I mean there are sometimes news stories about someone receiving just one blow to the head in a scuffle of some sort, and dying from it.

It's of course not just Ali. My favorite boxer of all time is Joe Frazier. Joe wasn't as witty as Ali, not too many people are, but Joe was highly intelligent without question. Sadly, Joe as well in retirement suffered in a similar manner as Ali, although it wasn't quite as bad. It was painful to me hearing Joe speak as he got older, slurring the words, etc.

That's an excellent point you make about all the deaths from boxing, which I hadn't thought of when making my initial post about it. Boxers are gladiators, without question, and they well earn every cent that they make. Those fat 50 and 100 million dollar purses or whatever it is, I don't begrudge them one bit making that kind of big money.

It is sad to see a lot of boxers later in life with the slurred speech, Larry Holmes, Riddick Bowe, a lot of them show the signs you are talking about. I love Joe Frazier as well, one of my all-time favorites, a great guy and fighter, it was heart breaking listening to him talk in his later years, and of course Ali, who had such an outgoing personality in his younger days, and couldn't even speak as he got older. Football is a very violent sport as well, just look at Joe Montana, all the damage he took in the 80s when defenders could just lay waste to the quarterback. I was reading an article about Montana recently and he's had so many surgeries all over his body it's ridiculous, dozens, he's in constant pain all the time, and his wife said sometimes the pain gets so bad that he just gets out of bed in the middle of the night and lays in the floor in agony. Football is brutal on your overall body. Take this for example, Christian McCaffrey's wife posted these pics online the other day, she was a bit surprised by the beating his body took in their game on Thanksgiving. You can see the bruises and blood on his arm, and it left blood stains on the bed covers.

Yea, it's sort of like a form of morbid fun when you're young. Ya get banged up and figure your body will heal up fine and recover. In high school football, I was too stupid to wear an arm pad, and both my arms were almost one continuous bruise during football season. I actually enjoyed showing it off - sick, i admit it.

The only long term casualty I suffered from playing football was during a game this MFer clipped me for really no reason, as the play was on the other side of the field. To this day my one knee is a bit gimpy when i start walking long distances such as hunting. No pain, it just gives out so to speak. No complaints, but frankly, I'm glad as yell I decided not to even try college football, and I was tempted to try out.

Our fraternity used to party with the football fraternity up at Penn State, and of course when we all got drunk, we'd wind-up arm wrestling for the yell of it. At that time the football players shared the same weight room with the other students, and I was in there regularly every other day. So the football players knew my face, as it's usually the same people in there all the time. I'd outlift most of them. And during the arm wrestling sessions, I'd beat most of them. Some of them said to me why don't you try out for the team as a walk-on? I told them I thought about it, but the problem is in the 40, you can time me with an hourglass. Paterno or his staff would have cut me quickly because of that, so I figured why bother. Even if I had somehow made the team, I'd be no better than a third team tackling dummy. I knew I'd never play in a game, so I just didn't want to do that.

You probably know about and perhaps have seen the video on Jim Otto? I didn't realize that about Montana. I'll have to check out Youtube and see if there's a video on it about his hardship.

Interesting about the arm wrestling, I used to be obsessed with arm wrestling back in my younger days and I would challenge everyone and their brother to a match. Anyway, a while back I was poking around on YouTube, just looking at various videos, and I came across a video of two guys arm wrestling and the force of the pulling caused the guys arm to just snap like a stick, it was the first time I had ever seen anything like that happening in an arm wrestling match, and from that moment on I have never arm wrestled again, nor will I ever do it again period. It makes me cringe when I think about all of those arm wrestling matches I participated in, they were intense and I was lucky not to have broken my arm in half. I haven't seen the Jim Otto video you refer to, I'll check it out when I get a chance. 👍

The last time I ever arm wrestled, and it will be the last time, was around 20 years ago. I was attending this good customer's employee wedding. The employee was my main contact there for orders, etc, but I also knew the owner well. Did a ton of business with him.

Anyway so at the reception, we're all sitting at the same table with the owner, and other business associates of the groom. I always knew the owner was a bull, very strong, but we never discussed any of that during business. But you see it coming, we're drinking a lot, and sure enough the subject of arm wrestling came up. I stated not in a bragging way, but I think the owner took it that way, that nobody, and I mean nobody has ever beaten me in arm wrestling who was close to my weight class. I recall at the mentioned frat parties, those who beat me outweighed me by at least 50 or 100 pounds, basically the linemen. This owner may have outweighed me by perhaps 10 or 15 pounds, and he took umbrage to what I said, in a fun way. Admittedly i did it intentionally as we all knew he was a tough guy. So we agreed to arm wrestle right there at the table, right in front of the ladies. Toughest match I ever had, it must have lasted one to two minutes, both of us going full out, and it was still a stalemate. Finally he acquiesced and let go, and I'm sure glad he did because I was shot.

Well the next day I had the worst tendinitis in my right elbow, I ever had in my life. And it must have lasted close to two weeks before it finally went away. It was brutal. Certainly wasn't worth the silly fooling around to see who's the best arm wrestler. You might think it was kinda stupid beating a guy in arm wresting who was a great customer. But we knew each other over a decade, and had a good laugh about it after it was over. I sure wasn't laughing about it the next day. I've had a kidney stone, and I'd rather have the kidney stone than have that severe tendinitis again - LOL

I've heard of tendinitis before but didn't realize it was that painful, worse than a kidney stone, I'm definitely never arm wrestling again!

It's a different sort of pain. Not sharp pain like a kidney stone, but a dull throbbing pain, agonizingly uncomfortable.

Not something I want to experience, I'm sure of that!

Also be careful as ya get older with things such as shoveling snow. I think most everyone is aware about the heart attack angle, but getting tendinitis from it is no fun either.

I actually have heart issues already, my heart beats way too fast after I eat, so my doctor put me on atenelol and it slows my heart down to a normal pace, so I'm always careful not to exert myself too much with my heart. I have pushed it too hard in the past and had chest pains that resulted in trips to the emergency room, they never found anything wrong though, just told me to take it easy. I still don't know why it beats too fast after I eat, but at least the atenelol slows it down

Sorry to hear that.

What is one of your typical meals if you don't mind me asking, and snacks, etc. Also outside of eating, do you have any "bad habits" as far as what could affect your physical well being?

No problem if ya don't wish to discuss it further.

Well, I smoked cigarettes for over a decade, but now I chew nicotine gum like it's going out of style, I'm chewing it right now as we speak. I'm sure that doesn't help my blood pressure, but I can't kick nicotine completely, I never will be able to kick the habit, I tried going cold turkey but the cravings are just overwhelming. I chew way too much, more than the recommended dose, that's probably my problem, I'm chewing too much of the stuff. Don't ever start smoking Steve, you'll regret it if you do

I've smoked maybe one or two packs of cigarettes total in my entire life. Always OP's.

I've never actually bought a pack. I have bought a few packs of cigars. Neither one though in a long time. I just never liked smoking, not just for health reasons.

That's good to hear, nasty habit. 👍

I realize that you probably don't wish for any two-bit analysis. But you know I like you, as does everybody else on this forum, so I'll do it anyway. I'll keep it brief.

Even though you've had some close calls, you may need to experience a "lightbulb moment" when you're in the hospital, with your chest sliced open for heart surgery, close to possible death, but thankfully you manage to pull through and survive.

The better thing to do would be to think it thru to the inevitable conclusion, which will likely, if not definitely be as just mentioned. You can avoid that pain and suffering by doing what it takes, get yourself in the right addiction recovery mind frame, to keep the addiction at bay.

Don't worry about "curing" the addiction. It's usually too daunting for an addict to think like, oh my gosh never again can I have a cigarette? Just do what it takes on a day to day or hour to hour basis to keep the addiction at bay. Eventually, you'll get yourself into the good habit of not smoking and you won't really miss it. And look, if you slip and have a few smokes, say at a party, don't come down too hard on yourself. Just the next day get yourself right back in the good habit of staying clean from tobacco. 😊

I appreciate the kind words, I've actually quit smoking, it's the nicotine gum I'm addicted to now. I need to cut back on it because I know it's making my blood pressure go up, and probably contributing to my rapid heart beat. I'll try and cut down, though it will be extremely difficult. Nicotine is difficult thing to quit completely!

Going from inhaling smoke, to chewing the gum was certainly a big plus.

I guess you've tried the nicotine free gum, but didn't continue it for whatever reason.

There are addiction forums all over the internet now. I'd be sure there is a forum tailored to tobacco addiction, or at least a sub-section in a general addiction forum. They are always free to join, and you can of course remain anonymous. Read those stories and perhaps share yours which usually benefits everyone.

An old addiction forum adage is "take what you need and leave the rest." You may not agree with most of the posts or many of the recovery methods. As there is no one size fits all to addiction recovery. But you may possibly find a few posts that take you close if not to that lightbulb moment, without having to go thru a traumatic event.

Steven59

"Nicotine is difficult thing to quit completely!"

My best friend smoked 2 packs of Newports a day before he died of throat cancer 5 years ago at age 57 - ironically it was the same day I threw my cigs in the trash and have never smoked since! There was no way in Hell I wanted to go through what the doctors did to him to try to "save his life".

doubledragon

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@stevek said:
Football players are gladiators, no question about it.

Most other professional sports are stealing the money for what they do, especially baseball. But football players earn every cent they make.

Hockey players take a beating 80 games + per year.

When I was younger, I always considered boxing to be the most grueling sport. I mean how can it get worse than being hit in the head countless numbers of times by a strong boxer? Seemed obvious to me.

Then I read an article pointing out how football has that distinction. I can't recall if the article used the word "grueling" or not, but I think it possibly could have been used. I thought about it and wound-up agreeing with the article.

The main reason is that yes, football players are not exposed to as much head trauma as boxers. But football players are exposed to a lot of head trauma, as CTE among long time football players is not uncommon. That being said, football exposes the player to so much more than just head trauma. Overall the damage that's done to the body playing football, yes I believe does equate to being more grueling than boxing.

Frankly, I would still place boxing, along with mixed martial arts in the gladiator category. With football at the top. The other sports mentioned have their toughness about them, I'm not questioning that, but I wouldn't consider those players to be gladiators, and baseball not even remotely close.

So in my view, considering everything, baseball players are stealing money for what they do. They shouldn't be making 1/10th of what they make. Football players in my view deserve every cent.

Boxing is definitely one of the most dangerous sports, around 1500 have died as a result of their injuries in the ring since the 1880s. As far as head trauma, boxing is by far the worst, the concussive force is greater, guys look like they've been hit by a shotgun blast, their bodies going completely limp. You rarely see that in any other sports, happens all the time in boxing. The gloves aren't padded to protect the face, they're padded to protect the fist, allowing guys to really unload on you.

Cassius Clay, sometimes little known by his other name, is a good example of what you stated. There are a number of interviews with him on Youtube. In the 60's and 70's he is smart, articulate, and even funny with a good sense of humor. In the 80's interviews or around that time, it was obvious how his brain had degraded in slower responses to interview questions, slightly slurred speech, etc.

Upon his retirement from boxing and until his death, I think most of us already know how Ali became sort of like a dementia patient. Yet from what I've read, he technically did not have dementia, and could understand everything going on around him including conversations. He just verbally couldn't respond to it. His physical mechanisms eventually shut down as well. Most will say, and I fully agree, that this gross deterioration was caused by boxing.

I read one time where somebody did a study, and estimated that Ali during his career, including sparing, etc, was subjected to approximately 75,000 blows to the head. Whatever is the number, it's for sure a lot of blows to the head. I mean there are sometimes news stories about someone receiving just one blow to the head in a scuffle of some sort, and dying from it.

It's of course not just Ali. My favorite boxer of all time is Joe Frazier. Joe wasn't as witty as Ali, not too many people are, but Joe was highly intelligent without question. Sadly, Joe as well in retirement suffered in a similar manner as Ali, although it wasn't quite as bad. It was painful to me hearing Joe speak as he got older, slurring the words, etc.

That's an excellent point you make about all the deaths from boxing, which I hadn't thought of when making my initial post about it. Boxers are gladiators, without question, and they well earn every cent that they make. Those fat 50 and 100 million dollar purses or whatever it is, I don't begrudge them one bit making that kind of big money.

It is sad to see a lot of boxers later in life with the slurred speech, Larry Holmes, Riddick Bowe, a lot of them show the signs you are talking about. I love Joe Frazier as well, one of my all-time favorites, a great guy and fighter, it was heart breaking listening to him talk in his later years, and of course Ali, who had such an outgoing personality in his younger days, and couldn't even speak as he got older. Football is a very violent sport as well, just look at Joe Montana, all the damage he took in the 80s when defenders could just lay waste to the quarterback. I was reading an article about Montana recently and he's had so many surgeries all over his body it's ridiculous, dozens, he's in constant pain all the time, and his wife said sometimes the pain gets so bad that he just gets out of bed in the middle of the night and lays in the floor in agony. Football is brutal on your overall body. Take this for example, Christian McCaffrey's wife posted these pics online the other day, she was a bit surprised by the beating his body took in their game on Thanksgiving. You can see the bruises and blood on his arm, and it left blood stains on the bed covers.

Yea, it's sort of like a form of morbid fun when you're young. Ya get banged up and figure your body will heal up fine and recover. In high school football, I was too stupid to wear an arm pad, and both my arms were almost one continuous bruise during football season. I actually enjoyed showing it off - sick, i admit it.

The only long term casualty I suffered from playing football was during a game this MFer clipped me for really no reason, as the play was on the other side of the field. To this day my one knee is a bit gimpy when i start walking long distances such as hunting. No pain, it just gives out so to speak. No complaints, but frankly, I'm glad as yell I decided not to even try college football, and I was tempted to try out.

Our fraternity used to party with the football fraternity up at Penn State, and of course when we all got drunk, we'd wind-up arm wrestling for the yell of it. At that time the football players shared the same weight room with the other students, and I was in there regularly every other day. So the football players knew my face, as it's usually the same people in there all the time. I'd outlift most of them. And during the arm wrestling sessions, I'd beat most of them. Some of them said to me why don't you try out for the team as a walk-on? I told them I thought about it, but the problem is in the 40, you can time me with an hourglass. Paterno or his staff would have cut me quickly because of that, so I figured why bother. Even if I had somehow made the team, I'd be no better than a third team tackling dummy. I knew I'd never play in a game, so I just didn't want to do that.

You probably know about and perhaps have seen the video on Jim Otto? I didn't realize that about Montana. I'll have to check out Youtube and see if there's a video on it about his hardship.

Interesting about the arm wrestling, I used to be obsessed with arm wrestling back in my younger days and I would challenge everyone and their brother to a match. Anyway, a while back I was poking around on YouTube, just looking at various videos, and I came across a video of two guys arm wrestling and the force of the pulling caused the guys arm to just snap like a stick, it was the first time I had ever seen anything like that happening in an arm wrestling match, and from that moment on I have never arm wrestled again, nor will I ever do it again period. It makes me cringe when I think about all of those arm wrestling matches I participated in, they were intense and I was lucky not to have broken my arm in half. I haven't seen the Jim Otto video you refer to, I'll check it out when I get a chance. 👍

The last time I ever arm wrestled, and it will be the last time, was around 20 years ago. I was attending this good customer's employee wedding. The employee was my main contact there for orders, etc, but I also knew the owner well. Did a ton of business with him.

Anyway so at the reception, we're all sitting at the same table with the owner, and other business associates of the groom. I always knew the owner was a bull, very strong, but we never discussed any of that during business. But you see it coming, we're drinking a lot, and sure enough the subject of arm wrestling came up. I stated not in a bragging way, but I think the owner took it that way, that nobody, and I mean nobody has ever beaten me in arm wrestling who was close to my weight class. I recall at the mentioned frat parties, those who beat me outweighed me by at least 50 or 100 pounds, basically the linemen. This owner may have outweighed me by perhaps 10 or 15 pounds, and he took umbrage to what I said, in a fun way. Admittedly i did it intentionally as we all knew he was a tough guy. So we agreed to arm wrestle right there at the table, right in front of the ladies. Toughest match I ever had, it must have lasted one to two minutes, both of us going full out, and it was still a stalemate. Finally he acquiesced and let go, and I'm sure glad he did because I was shot.

Well the next day I had the worst tendinitis in my right elbow, I ever had in my life. And it must have lasted close to two weeks before it finally went away. It was brutal. Certainly wasn't worth the silly fooling around to see who's the best arm wrestler. You might think it was kinda stupid beating a guy in arm wresting who was a great customer. But we knew each other over a decade, and had a good laugh about it after it was over. I sure wasn't laughing about it the next day. I've had a kidney stone, and I'd rather have the kidney stone than have that severe tendinitis again - LOL

I've heard of tendinitis before but didn't realize it was that painful, worse than a kidney stone, I'm definitely never arm wrestling again!

It's a different sort of pain. Not sharp pain like a kidney stone, but a dull throbbing pain, agonizingly uncomfortable.

Not something I want to experience, I'm sure of that!

Also be careful as ya get older with things such as shoveling snow. I think most everyone is aware about the heart attack angle, but getting tendinitis from it is no fun either.

I actually have heart issues already, my heart beats way too fast after I eat, so my doctor put me on atenelol and it slows my heart down to a normal pace, so I'm always careful not to exert myself too much with my heart. I have pushed it too hard in the past and had chest pains that resulted in trips to the emergency room, they never found anything wrong though, just told me to take it easy. I still don't know why it beats too fast after I eat, but at least the atenelol slows it down

Sorry to hear that.

What is one of your typical meals if you don't mind me asking, and snacks, etc. Also outside of eating, do you have any "bad habits" as far as what could affect your physical well being?

No problem if ya don't wish to discuss it further.

Well, I smoked cigarettes for over a decade, but now I chew nicotine gum like it's going out of style, I'm chewing it right now as we speak. I'm sure that doesn't help my blood pressure, but I can't kick nicotine completely, I never will be able to kick the habit, I tried going cold turkey but the cravings are just overwhelming. I chew way too much, more than the recommended dose, that's probably my problem, I'm chewing too much of the stuff. Don't ever start smoking Steve, you'll regret it if you do

I've smoked maybe one or two packs of cigarettes total in my entire life. Always OP's.

I've never actually bought a pack. I have bought a few packs of cigars. Neither one though in a long time. I just never liked smoking, not just for health reasons.

That's good to hear, nasty habit. 👍

I realize that you probably don't wish for any two-bit analysis. But you know I like you, as does everybody else on this forum, so I'll do it anyway. I'll keep it brief.

Even though you've had some close calls, you may need to experience a "lightbulb moment" when you're in the hospital, with your chest sliced open for heart surgery, close to possible death, but thankfully you manage to pull through and survive.

The better thing to do would be to think it thru to the inevitable conclusion, which will likely, if not definitely be as just mentioned. You can avoid that pain and suffering by doing what it takes, get yourself in the right addiction recovery mind frame, to keep the addiction at bay.

Don't worry about "curing" the addiction. It's usually too daunting for an addict to think like, oh my gosh never again can I have a cigarette? Just do what it takes on a day to day or hour to hour basis to keep the addiction at bay. Eventually, you'll get yourself into the good habit of not smoking and you won't really miss it. And look, if you slip and have a few smokes, say at a party, don't come down too hard on yourself. Just the next day get yourself right back in the good habit of staying clean from tobacco. 😊

I appreciate the kind words, I've actually quit smoking, it's the nicotine gum I'm addicted to now. I need to cut back on it because I know it's making my blood pressure go up, and probably contributing to my rapid heart beat. I'll try and cut down, though it will be extremely difficult. Nicotine is difficult thing to quit completely!

Going from inhaling smoke, to chewing the gum was certainly a big plus.

I guess you've tried the nicotine free gum, but didn't continue it for whatever reason.

There are addiction forums all over the internet now. I'd be sure there is a forum tailored to tobacco addiction, or at least a sub-section in a general addiction forum. They are always free to join, and you can of course remain anonymous. Read those stories and perhaps share yours which usually benefits everyone.

An old addiction forum adage is "take what you need and leave the rest." You may not agree with most of the posts or many of the recovery methods. As there is no one size fits all to addiction recovery. But you may possibly find a few posts that take you close if not to that lightbulb moment, without having to go thru a traumatic event.

I'll definitely look into that, and I appreciate your concern Steve, you're a good guy. 👍