But professional wrestlers are no joke, they're big guys that are very powerful and knowledgeable about many different and dangerous holds, you don't want to tangle with a pro wrestler, that's for sure.
By far, the best heel turn in pro wrestling history is when Hulk Hogan turned heel at WCW Bash At The Beach in 1996, Hogan had always been a good guy, babyface, his entire career, and nobody expected him to turn heel. It was a pure stroke of genius, it led to the formation of the NWO with Kevin Nash and Scott Hall and would later add other members including Macho Man Randy Savage, in many people's opinions the NWO was the greatest pro wrestling faction in history, and it launched WCW into the stratosphere, WCW actually overtook it's rival WWE and became the number one wrestling promotion in the world. They had WWE on the ropes for a while, they beat WWE in TV ratings for 83 straight weeks, in what was called the Monday Night Wars, and this was all a direct result of Hogan turning heel, the fans couldn't believe Hogan would turn bad and just couldn't get enough of it. So Hogan actually had Two separate careers, his good guy run and his bad guy run, both historic runs, Hulk Hogan's impact on the pro wrestling business can't be understated enough, he changed the business multiple times. In my personal opinion, Ric Flair is the greatest of all-time, but Hogan had a bigger impact by far. Hogan was a great heel, he changed his name to "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan, he had a nasty attitude, he really made you hate him, he used to wear an NWO weightlifting belt around his waist and he would take it off and whip his opponents silly with it, and he all but hijacked the WCW World Heavyweight Championship belt, the famous Gold belt, and spray painted the letters NWO on it in Black, just to piss people off, he was a great heel.
I'll never forget the night after WrestleMania 18, that Hulk Hogan entrance on WWE Monday Night Raw, it was one of the loudest ovations I've ever heard, the fans really appreciated everything Hogan did for the wrestling business.
It's time for the random sports photo of the day, an iconic photo of college students from the University of Pittsburgh watching Game 7 of the 1960 World Series between the Pirates and Yankees, the students are watching from atop the Cathedral of Learning and they are reacting to Bill Mazeroski's walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth inning, which secured the Pirates' victory and their first World Series championship since 1925. The photo is titled "Cheering Students."
Picked up this awesome photo of Marvelous Marvin Hagler last night, this one is for you Eric, Marvin Hagler was his favorite fighter. This is an image of Hagler walking toward center ring before round 1 of his infamous fight with Tommy "Hitman" Hearns, the war. Look at Hagler, walking right into battle, knowing damn well what he was about to do, draw Tommy Hearns into a firefight and take him out. He looks like the monolith that he was, that look on his face is priceless, totally emotionless, ice cold.
This fight has been analyzed over and over by boxing experts, so let's analyze it one more time. It was a brilliant strategy by Hagler, draw Hearns into a savage storm that he could not escape. Hagler was a notorious slow starter, but Hagler went right after Hearns, he wanted to get inside and bang Hearns out, to the body, to the head, he didn't want Hearns to have a chance to box him from the outside, using his long reach, his jab, because Hearns could flat-out box, he wanted to negate Hearns strengths. Hagler never intended for this fight to go into deep water, he was on a mission to take Hearns out early. Hagler wanted to draw Hearns into a street brawl and put him away, Hagler knew he could take Hearns best shots, the man had a chin made of Tungsten, so he wasn't worried about getting knocked out in a slugfest, Hearns legendary power was of little concern to Hagler. He applied relentless pressure on Hearns, every time Hearns got outside and started to box, Hagler would force his way inside on Hearns and take the fight to him, not letting Hearns box him from the outside, getting Hearns up against the ropes and banging away. The body shots eventually start to take their toll on Hearns and by round 2 Hearns legs start to go, it was only a matter of time after that, Hagler knows Hearns is fading and Hagler starts really unloading and that was it, brilliant strategy by Hagler and it's a fascinating fight to study.
This photo of Tommy Hearns being carried away after the fight is one of the most iconic images in sports history, Tommy Hearns said that his fight with Hagler was the most physically painful experience of his life. He hit Hagler with everything and the kitchen sink and Hagler just shrugged it off and kept coming, that was Marvin freaking Hagler.
Marvin Hagler ate, breathed, and slept boxing, he once said that if they cut his skull open, they would find a boxing glove where his brain is supposed to be, he was intense, no $hitting.
I want to talk about Ed Sprinkle for a minute, a Chicago Bears player in the 1950s, a true monster of the midway, he was nicknamed "The Claw" because he would use a vicious clothesline type tackle on offensive players, and in 1950, Collier's magazine called him "The Meanest Man in Pro Football", a moniker that stuck with him for the rest of his life. I don't think Ed Sprinkle was a dirty player or anything like that, he played according to the style back then, did he have a "take no prisoners" attitude, certainly, but you have to understand, football was a different game back then, you didn't have the rules that you see today. This is an article written about Ed Sprinkle in 2020, the year he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Fascinating player.
Countdown to Canton: Ed Sprinkle may finally "Claw'' his way to Canton
Ron BorgesJan 4, 2020 11:58 PM
Ed Sprinkle was once called the meanest man in pro football. Maybe soon he'll also finally be called a Hall of Famer.
Apparently there were two ways to look at Ed Sprinkle.
George Halas, who coached him throughout his 12-year career with the Chicago Bears, called him “the greatest pass rusher I’ve ever seen.’’ In 1950, Collier's magazine called him “The Meanest Man in Pro Football.’’
Now the Pro Football Hall-of-Fame’s Centennial Committee will decide if it is ready to call him something different, something that Halas and many others who remember Sprinkle believe he should have been called decades ago – a Hall of Famer.
Sprinkle is among 20 senior finalists for the special “Centennial Class’’ of Hall of Famers who will be enshrined next September as part of the 100th anniversary of the NFL. It’s a one-time attempt to make up for past oversights by the Hall, and Sprinkle is on the top of many people’s lists.
A hard-nosed, raw-boned 210-pound pass rusher who grew up as a sharecropper’s son in West Texas, Ed Sprinkle was born hard and raised to be tough. When he arrived in Chicago in 1944, he came believing there was only one way to play pro football. The way Halas described Sprinkle’s playing style was illuminating.
“He’s got to push and shove his way past those blockers,” Halas told Collier’s, “and if somebody gets an unintentional whack in the nose now and then — well, that’s football.”
That was also Sprinkle. It’s how he was named to four Pro Bowls and five All-Pro teams, twice as a first teamer. The NFL didn’t create the Pro Bowl until 1950, six years after Sprinkle first came to Chicago, yet despite the ferociousness of his style, Sprinkle was selected to four of the first six Pro Bowl teams as a defensive end before retiring after the 1955 season.
He was also named to the 1940s' all-decade team despite playing only the latter half of the decade.
To say his approach to the game was violent is to minimize Sprinkle’s philosophy. To play in such a manner and still be named by your peers to such honors speaks loudly of the respect he commanded. So did the men who most often suffered his wrath.
“Sprinkle would drive you 10 yards out of bounds, and the official would be taking the ball away from you, but Sprinkle would still be choking you,” Hugh McElhenny, a Hall-of-Fame halfback for the 49ers, told The New York Times in 1985.
In Sprinkle’s day they did not yet keep statistics for sacks. If they had he might well rank up there with Deacon Jones, Lawrence Taylor and Reggie White. In fact, so adept was he at getting to the quarterback in the formative days of the T-formation that Halas stopped using him as a two-way end. Instead, he elected to have him concentrate solely on defense for much of his career, at a time when the two-way player was still much in vogue.
His first two seasons with the Bears, Sprinkle played both guard and defensive end before Halas split him wide as an end where he caught 29 passes for 438 yards and five touchdowns the next five years. But even on offense his favorite thing to do was create mayhem. He once said his favorite offensive play was to be spread wide and rush down and deliver a blindside, crack-back block on an unsuspecting linebacker or defensive end in the days when such violence wasn’t considered all that violent.
Typical of his style was his performance in the 1946 NFL championship game against the New York Giants. By the time he was finished, Sprinkle had knocked two New York running backs out of the game -- George Franck with a separated shoulder and Frank Reagan with a broken nose. And that was before breaking the nose of quarterback Frank Filchock with a clothesline to the face he called “The Claw.’’
It really didn’t need much more of a description.
On one such play, Sprinkle nailed Filchock as he was about to pass, causing an interception that was returned for a Bears’ touchdown in what became a 24-14 Chicago victory. That is how the great pass rusher can disrupt a game and destroy an offense. Such a player can also drive an opponent to distraction, as he once did to Chicago Cardinals’ quarterback Paul Christman.
Once so distracted by Sprinkle’s vicious pass rush, Christman instructed his line not to block Sprinkle on a pass play. As Sprinkle rushed in untouched, Christman rifled a pass right at his face. Fortunately for Sprinkle, who didn’t wear a facemask, the ball missed him.
One guy who did not was Christman’s teammate, future Hall-of-Fame running back Charley Trippi. According to Sprinkle, Trippi once punched him in the face during a pileup and then fled to the sidelines to avoid the repercussions.
Yet despite his reputation, Sprinkle never felt his play crossed the line. To him, and frankly many of his peers, he was just a hard-nosed pass rusher at a time when football was a brutally physical confrontation.
“I never really played dirty football in my life, but I’d knock the hell out of a guy if I got the chance,” once said. “I believed in hitting somebody. We were meaner in the 1950s because there were fewer positions, and we fought harder for them. It was a different era.’’
Until now, Ed Sprinkle has never been a finalist for the Hall of Fame. Because the league didn’t keep track of sacks or forced fumbles, he has no statistics available to support his candidacy. What he has, though, is the word of men like Halas, who saw how he could effect a game and destroy an opponent’s passing games.
Here is a good close-up shot of Ed Sprinkle, aka "The Claw." I've always been fascinated by players from back then, the game was different, it was a lot more vicious, an era when Dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and Ed Sprinkle was a carnivore. It makes today's game look like cheerleading practice.
"Quarterbacks would look with only One eye for receivers. They kept the other eye on Sprinkle." - Y.A. Tittle
Just want to mention this, I posted a lot of dog and cat memes over the years and the reason I post those memes is because I love dogs and cats, give me a dog or cat anyday over a person. They don't judge you, they don't care if you're Black, White, Hispanic, they don't care if you're straight, gay, trans, they don't care if you have holes in your clothes, they're not a$$holes like people are. And they're quite entertaining as well.
I also want to pay proper respect to Bronko Nagurski, he never gets mentioned around these parts and it's a joke, the man was a beast, he was the reason the Bears were nicknamed The Monsters of The Midway. He played for the Chicago Bears in the 1930s, on offense and defense, the guy could do it all, a real Swiss Army knife. He was built like a miniature tank, he was simply one of the greatest football players to ever live. He also made one of the greatest comebacks in sports history past his prime and led the Bears to the championship, past his freaking prime. Bronko Nagurski primarily played fullback and defensive tackle, with some experience at offensive tackle and defensive end as well. He was known for his speed, versatility, and power, playing both offense and defense for the University of Minnesota and the Chicago Bears. Like I said, he was a beast, he attacked when carrying the ball, he'd gore you, and he didn't budge on defense. As if his football career wasn't enough, he was also a pro wrestler.
"I always used my strength in football. I liked to meet guys head-on when I was carrying the ball. Then I’d drop my shoulder, and catch him with that, and then brush him off with my arm. It worked -most of the time.” - Bronko Nagurski
Chicago Bears fullback Bronko Nagurski was the symbol of power football during the 1930s. His performances took on legendary proportions. Many eyewitness observers insisted that for sheer brutal line-smashing, no one came close to Nagurski.
Never fancy, he just ran straight ahead, over and through the opposition. Although he is best remembered for his bull-like running, he had no peer as a blocker and his tackling was as effective as any the game has seen. He was the complete player.
At the University of Minnesota he played four positions and was named All-America at both fullback and tackle. With the Bears, his defensive play was as awesome as his offensive ball carrying.
The jump pass, in which he would fake a plunge, then step back a yard or two, jump and lob a pass to a waiting receiver was devastating. His jump pass to Red Grange was responsible for the key touchdown in the Bears’ 1932 victory over Portsmouth for the league title.
The next year, in the National Football League’s first official championship game, Bronko passed for two touchdowns, including the game-winning score. When Nagurski couldn’t get a raise to $6,500 in 1938, Nagurski retired to become a professional wrestler.
But in 1943, when the demands of World War II left the Bears short of manpower, he rejoined the team as a tackle. Late in the season, with Chicago trailing in a must-win game, he went back to the fullback position. The 35-year old Nagurski’s line plunges keyed a drive to the tying touchdown and then set up the winning score. A week later, in the 1943 NFL title game against the Washington Redskins, Bronko, - who was named a first- or second-team All-NFL in seven of his first eight seasons – ended his career by scoring the touchdown that put the Bears ahead to stay.
The Athletic
NFL 100: At No. 33, Bears’ Bronko Nagurski’s many talents and feats are the stuff of legend
Dan Pompei
Aug. 11, 2021Updated July 17, 2023
Welcome to the NFL 100, The Athletic’s endeavor to identify the 100 best players in football history. You can order the book version here. Every day until the season begins, we’ll unveil new members of the list, with the No. 1 player to be crowned on Wednesday, Sept. 8.
With most heroes, there are legends, and then there are realities.
With Bronko Nagurski, there are legends. Only legends.
If Homer, Vince McMahon and Stan Lee could have collaborated to create a hero, they would have come up with The Bronk. The story would have included passages about a young man lifting a plow overhead, a head cracking a brick wall, a horse being knocked on its back, and a ring that could have been used as a bracelet.
It would have told of modest beginnings.
Nagurski grew up in International Falls, Minn., one of four children of Polish-Ukrainian immigrants. His given name was Bronislau, but a teacher who couldn’t pronounce it called him Bronko instead, as if she knew what he would become.
Nagurski learned how to work from his father Mike, who ran a 240-acre farm and sawmill, and later a corner grocery store. His son helped by chopping wood, pulling wagons, pushing plows and delivering groceries. He ran two miles back and forth to school — of course he did — often in temperatures that began with the word “minus.”
From his mother Michelina, the Bronk learned not to give an inch. According to “Monster of the Midway,” she often told him in Ukrainian: Ty moz’esz robyty tse. “You can make it.” Throughout his football career, when facing his most daunting challenges, Nagurski repeated the phrase silently to himself.
Opportunity found him when he was working on the family farm as a high school student.
“I was driving past a farm when I noticed this big, strong boy plowing a field — without a horse,” Minnesota football coach Clarence “Doc” Spears said. “I stopped to ask directions. The boy pointed — with the plow. That’s how I happened to discover Bronko.”
Spears told the story many times over the years, but Nagurski never did. When he was pointedly questioned about it later in his life, Nagurski said, “It wasn’t a very big plow.”
At Minnesota, Nagurski was a force from his first practice, when he defeated two all-Big Ten linemen in a nutcracker drill. By the time Nagurski was a senior, he had two spots on the All-America team of famed sportswriter Grantland Rice — at fullback and defensive tackle.
Nagurski continued playing fullback and tackle after signing with the Bears, and he continued dominating on both sides of the ball. They say he knocked out more than a dozen opponents in his rookie season alone.
Nagurski was different from almost everyone he played with or against. Sid Luckman, once his quarterback on the Bears, said his rival Sammy Baugh told him Nagurski was the most powerful human being he ever encountered.
He was 6-foot-2, 235 pounds in an era when the average lineman weighed 210. His neck, size 22, had the girth of some of the logs he used to chop. When the Pro Football Hall of Fame presented him with a ring upon his induction in their charter class of 1963, it was a size 19.5 — still the largest ring ever made for a Hall of Famer.
Hall of Famer John “Blood” McNally told sportswriter Ray Didinger about Nagurski trampling two Steelers on his way to the end zone in 1937. One of them was knocked out for 10 minutes, the other suffered a broken shoulder. “It was as if they were run over by a locomotive,” McNally said.
There can be no mention of Nagurski without the story that would make today’s concussion spotters cringe. In a 1930 game against the Packers in front of a crowd at Wrigley Field that included nearly every Chicagoan of status, including the notorious Al Capone, Nagurski was given a handoff on the final minutes on the 2-yard line. He rammed through two Packers with his head down. His momentum carried him through the end zone and his leather helmet crashed into the outfield wall, which was about one step past the end line. When Bears trainer Andy Lotshow asked if he was OK, Nagurski replied, “Who the heck was that last guy?”
Nagurski apparently walked away with less damage than “that last guy.” Wrote George Halas in his autobiography “Halas by Halas,” “Some people will today show you a crack in the south wall at Wrigley Field they say was made by his helmeted head.”
It was not Nagurski’s only collision out of the boundary of play. The year after he cracked Wrigley’s wall, he had a sideline crash with a mounted policeman who was there to prevent fans from coming on the field. Nagurski sent both the horse and policeman airborne. He helped the cop to his feet, brushed the grass off his uniform, and said, “I’m sorry, officer. I didn’t mean to hit you. But you really should get out of my way when I’m running.” He then turned his attention to the horse, patting his nose. “I’m sorry, horse,” he said.
There were no recorded apologies to the cop car he barreled into on the sideline during another game, even though Nagurski knocked off the front fender.
Nagurski won most of the collisions he was involved with, but his game was about more than power. In his early years, he was the second-fastest player on the Bears after Red Grange. Nagurski was timed at 10.2 in the 100-yard dash at Minnesota.
Some think he was a better defensive player than an offensive player. On offense, he could also throw the ball and he was one of the premier blockers of all time.
In 1934, Beattie Feathers became the first player to rush for 1,000 yards in NFL history. “I had the greatest blocker who ever lived,” Feathers said, referring to Nagurski. Feathers averaged 8.4 yards per carry, still an NFL record for a running back. Wrote Stanley Frank in Collier’s magazine, “Every inch was made behind Nagurski’s interference.”
In the 1932 title game against Portsmouth that had to be played in the Chicago Stadium because of a blizzard, Nagurski threw the key touchdown pass to Grange. The following year, in the first official championship game, he threw for two touchdowns against the Giants, including the game-winner.
In addition to playing football on both sides of the ball, Nagurski was a pro wrestler for a portion of his career, putting unthinkable stress on his body. This is what a 21-day stretch during 1937 looked like for Nagurski, according to the book “The Chicago Bears” by Howard Roberts.
• Sunday, Sept. 19 — played with Bears at Green Bay.
• Tuesday, Sept. 21 — played an exhibition with Bears at Duluth.
• Wednesday, Sept. 22 — wrestled in Portland, Ore.
• Thursday, Sept. 23 — wrestled in Vancouver, B.C.
• Friday, Sept. 24 — wrestled in Seattle.
• Monday, Sept. 27 — wrestled in Phoenix.
• Wednesday, Sept. 29 — wrestled in Los Angeles.
• Thursday, Sept. 30 — wrestled in Oakland.
• Friday, Oct. 1 — wrestled in Salt Lake City.
• Monday, Oct. 4 — played with Bears at Pittsburgh.
• Wednesday, Oct. 6 — played an exhibition with Bears at Erie, Pa.
• Friday, Oct. 8 — wrestled in Philadelphia.
• Sunday, Oct. 10 — played with Bears at Cleveland.
When Nagurski signed with the Bears as a rookie in the days before the draft, he agreed to a one-year contract worth $5,000. It was the richest contract in NFL history at the time. It also was the high point of his NFL earnings. His salary was cut every year because he played during the Great Depression. His salary was down to $3,700 by 1932. And he often didn’t even collect his money on time, as Halas didn’t have the cash to pay his players. Nagurski demanded $6,500 in 1938. Halas countered with an offer of $6,000. Nagurski was confident he could make more if he were wrestling full-time, so he retired from football at 31 at the peak of his abilities.
In 1943, the Bears, depleted by World War II, made a pitch for him to return. After some hesitation, Nagurski agreed to play for $5,000 with the stipulation he had to be paid up front.
Nagurski was available only because he had been rejected medically by Army physicians after trying to enlist for the war the day after the Pearl Harbor bombing. A doctor told him there were six reasons he failed his physical.
He was healthy enough to play in the NFL, however, and at the age of 35, Nagurski made a comeback with the understanding he would not be used as a fullback because he couldn’t run like he once did. Nagurski had to wear a metal brace on his back because he had broken two vertebrae earlier in his career. He also had a degenerative hip condition.
It was evident quickly he still had his power, however. In training camp, he broke several teammates’ noses and another’s clavicle.
The Bears’ roster had changed considerably, as only six of his previous teammates remained and many of his new ones were more than a decade younger. Opponents called him an old man, and teammates treated him with reverence. At practice one day, he told a group of Bears players, “If one more of you guys calls me Mr. Nagurski, I’m going to lay you out.”
Nagurski went through most of the season playing tackle. In the final game of the regular season at Wrigley, the Bears needed to beat the Cardinals to win the Western Division title. They trailed 24-14 entering the fourth quarter when Nagurski lined up at fullback for the first time since 1937 to the chants of “Bronko! Bronko! Bronko!”
And then snow began to fall.
In the final quarter, he carried 16 times for 84 yards and a touchdown, as the Bears won 35-24. Fans stormed the field afterward and carried him off on their shoulders.
Nagurski played fullback again in the championship game and scored a touchdown as the Bears beat Washington 41-21.
“Bronko is the one man that I never wanted to see again,” said Baugh, who opposed him as both a quarterback and defensive back. “I still have nightmares about that big monster.”
Nagurski retired again after the game and returned to wrestling. He became a heavyweight champion before stepping away from his second sport in 1960 at 52. He was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2009 with a class that included Nick Bockwinkel and Ricky Steamboat. It was his fourth Hall of Fame, as he previously had been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the College Football Hall of Fame and the Minnesota Sports Hall of Fame.
Nagurski never stopped coming home to International Falls. He and his childhood sweetheart, Eileen, raised six kids there, and when he was done with wrestling, he bought a gas station at 217 Third Ave. But he wasn’t just the administrator at Nagurski Pure Oil Service Station. Wearing overalls and flannel shirts, the Bronk pumped the gas. The story goes that he screwed the gas caps on so tightly that people had to return to him to have them taken off.
Nagurski turned down most requests to make public appearances in the years leading up to his death in 1990. But he was convinced to toss the coin for the Super Bowl in 1984. By the way he moved at that time, it was clear his opponents weren’t the only ones who felt the impact of all those collisions.
Those collisions defined him until the end.
“How good was he?” Grange said in a WGN radio interview in 1978. “On defense, he was equal to Dick Butkus in Butkus’ prime. On offense, he was faster and equal to Larry Csonka. Put the two together and you got Nagurski.”
@Saint Ezzard said:
It's time for the random sports photo of the day, an iconic photo of college students from the University of Pittsburgh watching Game 7 of the 1960 World Series between the Pirates and Yankees, the students are watching from atop the Cathedral of Learning and they are reacting to Bill Mazeroski's walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth inning, which secured the Pirates' victory and their first World Series championship since 1925. The photo is titled "Cheering Students."
My Dad had this photo framed on the wall of our den at home. As Burghkid, before becoming Burghman, I always loved how it looks like this guy and girl in completely different rows are holding hands
@Saint Ezzard said:
It's time for the random sports photo of the day, an iconic photo of college students from the University of Pittsburgh watching Game 7 of the 1960 World Series between the Pirates and Yankees, the students are watching from atop the Cathedral of Learning and they are reacting to Bill Mazeroski's walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth inning, which secured the Pirates' victory and their first World Series championship since 1925. The photo is titled "Cheering Students."
My Dad had this photo framed on the wall of our den at home. As Burghkid, before becoming Burghman, I always loved how it looks like this guy and girl in completely different rows are holding hands
Cool story, I never noticed that before, it does look like they're holding hands! 😂😂
The famous cobra bite incident involving Jake "The Snake" Roberts and "Macho Man" Randy Savage occurred on November 23, 1991. This took place during a WWF Superstars segment, where Roberts unleashed his pet cobra on Savage. The incident is a well-remembered moment in wrestling history, known for its shock value and the perceived danger of the attack. Jake Roberts, known for his snake-handling gimmick, used his cobra to attack Savage, who was a commentator at the time. The angle was designed to escalate their ongoing feud and create a memorable visual moment for the audience. While the snake was devenomized, the segment was still shocking and considered a highlight of the Golden Era of wrestling. During the segment, the cobra latched on to Macho Man's right arm and would not let go, Roberts later stated he had one heck of a time trying to get the cobra to let go of Macho Man's arm.
This is Jake "The Snake" Roberts talking about the famous cobra bite segment with Macho Man, he talks about how Macho Man was paranoid about the cobra not being devenomized before the segment took place, it's hilarious and worth a listen.
By the way, since I'm in the subject of snakes, I watched a documentary a few months ago, it's called "Titanoboa : Monster Snake", I highly recommend, it's an absolutely fascinating documentary about the discovery of Titanoboa, one of the largest snakes to ever exist on this planet. The Titanoboa was a prehistoric snake that existed around 58-60 million years ago, long extinct, but this snake was an absolute unit, about 49 feet in length, weighing around 2,000 lbs. The fossils were discovered in the early 2000s by a group of Archaeologists from Florida in some coal mines down in Colombia, they weren't even looking for it but stumbled across it by complete accident. There's no other way to describe Titanoboa other than it was a monster, it's what you would expect a snake from the dinosaur period to look like, it's like something out of a horror movie. The archaeologists hired a model maker to make a model of it based on the fossils they found, and the model is housed at The Smithsonian. This is the documentary, it's available for viewing on YouTube, it's a fascinating documentary and I highly recommend it.
This is the Titanoboa model at the Smithsonian, it has a crocodile sticking out of it's mouth to signify it's sheer size, that it was perfectly capable of devouring a full grown crocodile. You can see people viewing the exhibit and the size of the snake.
You can just imagine what it would look and feel like if you were walking through the rain forests in prehistoric times and happened to run into the Titanoboa, it would be a nightmare scenario.
Speaking of the Dinosaurs, I watched a documentary a few weeks back, I'm always watching documentaries about everything, anyway it was a documentary about the Chicxulub asteroid that many people believe caused the extinction of the Dinosaurs, or at least finished them off, and it's just shocking how powerful nature can be. This is a simulation of how it would look if our planet was hit by different sized asteroids, it starts off with smaller asteroids, and then works it way up to bigger ones, finishing with the granddaddy of them all, an asteroid the size of Ceres, which is the biggest asteroid in our solar system. The last Two asteroids explosions in the simulation would be big enough to end the world.
Back to Chicxulub, the asteroid that wiped out the Dinosaurs, the asteroid was believed to have been about 6 miles wide, and the tail end if it would have been at an altitude of 30,000 feet in the air when it hit Earth, it's difficult to imagine something that gigantic, and it hit at a speed of 45,000 mph, over 58 times the speed of sound. It's just mind boggling to imagine that kind of explosion, it would have been an explosion to the likes of which none of us can comprehend. This is how big the asteroid was compared to New York City, this is what it would look like coming down on New York City.
One last thing about the Chicxulub asteroid impact, or the K/Pg impactor as it is scientifically known, the asteroid left a crater that is 110 miles wide, the crater is down in the gulf of Mexico and is underwater, it was discovered by geophysicists Glen Penfield and Antonio Camargo in the late 1970s while they were working for the Mexican oil company Pemex. They noticed a peculiar semicircular geophysical anomaly on magnetic survey maps of the Yucatan Peninsula, suggesting the presence of an impact crater. While their initial findings were not initially linked to the K/Pg impactor extinction event, further research, including work by Alan Hildebrand and others, eventually connected the crater to the extinction of the dinosaurs. It's one heck of an event that changed the world forever, if it wasn't for that asteroid, we wouldn't be here today, the Dinosaurs definitely took one for the team. The Dinosaurs had a reign on this planet that lasted about 165 million years, they ruled this planet for 165 million years, that is mind bending stuff. In comparison, we've only been here about 300,000 years, we'll never sniff 165 million, nowhere close. Humans will never see a reign like that, we'll be long gone before we get anywhere close to 165 million years of being the dominant species on planet Earth.
Time for a music break, this song always mellows me out, yes I am a Bruce Springsteen fan and I don't give a crap what anyone thinks about it. The man has sold over 140 million albums worldwide, he must be doing something right.
You know, there's something fascinating about NFL hard hitters, they're a different breed, almost mythical like, they command absolute attention, when an offensive player steps onto the field they always have to have a sixth sense and be aware of where the hard hitter is at all times, that's the kind of menacing presence a hard hitter has on the field. Its like the Predator from the movies is on the field, walking around with the spear in his hand, the laser beam pointing out, hunting for prey, that's the kind of feeling they give off. This is one of my favorite NFL players of all-time, one of the hardest hitters and most feared players in NFL history, Richard "Night Train" Lane, definitely the hardest hitting Defensive back in the history of the league. That name is enough to send shivers down your spine, the Night Train was no joke. He was never really even supposed to play in the NFL, Lane played just one season of junior college football before serving in the US Army for 4 years, after being discharged from the Army he happened to pass by the Los Angeles Rams office on his bus ride to work, despite a total lack of experience playing the sport at a high level, Lane decided to stop in and asked to try out as a receiver. The Rams were so blown away by his raw athleticism that they gave him a spot on the team as a receiver. Lane eventually switched to defensive back and the Rams quickly fell in love with his ferocious playing style, and it didn't take long for the rest of the league to become familiar with his ferocious playing style, as the NFL quickly had to create rules against Lane's brutal tackling style. He became known for wrapping players around the neck and also grabbing their face mask and slinging them to the ground, people started calling the move the "Night Train Necktie." In 1961 he tackled Jon Arnett by the facemask while Arnett was running at full speed and left him laying there motionless on the field, there's a famous photo of the tackle that shows Lane basically trying to take his head off. The next year, the NFL made a rule prohibiting grabbing the facemask to make a tackle and that was due to the Jon Arnett tackle by Lane. The NFL later banned a tackle around the head and neck, what was known as a "clothesline tackle", again due to Lane's brutal style. Lane once explained his style by saying, "My object is to stop the guy before he gains another inch. I'm usually dealing with ends who are trying to catch passes, and if I hit them in the legs they may fall forward for a first down. There is nothing I hate worse than a first down." In addition to wreaking havoc with his tackling style, Lane was also a terror as a ball hog, to this day he still holds the NFL record for most interceptions in a seasons with 14, and amazingly doing so in only 12 games. Lane played two years with the Rams before being traded to the Cardinals in 1954. Six years later, he was sent to the Detroit Lions where he enjoyed his finest years. Lane was named first or second team All-NFL every year from 1954 through 1963 and he was named to seven Pro Bowls. If you watch highlights of Lane in YouTube, it's easy to see why he was so feared, and the nickname "Night Train" fits him very well, he came at you like a freaking freight train. Speaking of his nickname, it's one of the coolest nicknames in sports history, and like I said it fit him well, there are a couple of theories about how he hit that nickname. The first is that he earned the nickname from his ferocious hits on receivers. Although that may have helped the mystique of his nickname, that isn’t how he got his nickname. There is no doubt that his hits coincided with the moniker, however. The train reference to his punishing style of play resonated with both players and the media. The second theory stated that he didn’t like to fly and that he traveled to road games via a late-night train. This theory is so prominent that it’s even given as the reason for the “Night Train” label in a story about him on the Denver Broncos official website. Although that sounds like a neat way that Night Train got his nickname, it’s not the story that Lane or his Rams teammates ever told. The story that Lane and his Rams teammates told is a bit more fun. Now during that Rams training camp, Lane visited Tom Fears after practices to ask him for tips on making the team. Fears owned a record player and played a song called Night Train, a song written by sax player Jimmy Forrest. There are also renditions by Buddy Morrow, James Brown, and jazz great Oscar Peterson. One time, Lane walked into Fears’ room and somebody said, “Hey, here comes Night Train.” For whatever reason, the nickname stuck. Former NFL coach Jerry Glanville was good friends with Lane and here's what Jerry Glanville had to say about Lane,"Two players in the National Football League, everytime they hit you, they tried to hurt you, and they did. One was a guy by the name of Dick Butkus, and the other is.....Night Train Lane." Lane once told Glanville that there was never a good tackle in the history of the league below the eyebrows. Glanville went on to say, "Lane was the first guy to tackle with the facemask, the play wasn't successful unless he ripped your helmet off. So they made a rule banning the facemask tackle, Lane then made what was called the Night Train Lane necktie tackle, it was a clothesline, they then said the clothesline was illegal, you cannot do that. So then he decided he would take his forearm and try to bust you with it, and Lane once told me if I he could hit the man so hard that it broke my (Lane's) arm, that would be a great play." That was Richard "Night Train" Lane, and it's easy to see why he was so feared.
Night Train Lane uses the "Night Train Necktie" clothesline tackle to bring down Green Bay Packers fullback Jim Taylor. My God, Night Train Lane was intense.
I want to talk about Steph Curry for a second, it's just ridiculous how great the guy is, he's the greatest shooter I've ever seen, and he has this thing that he does every so often where he'll shoot the ball and before it even goes in the basket he'll look away and smile, or start jogging down to the other end of the court, he somehow knows that as soon as he releases it the ball is going in, he doesn't even look at it. It's the coldest signature move I've ever seen, it's almost like he's a damn alien in a human body, that's how great he is. This poster captures exactly what I'm talking about.
I mean just look at the kind of shots Steph Curry regularly takes, and makes, bombs from 30 feet away, half court, it takes serious guts to even attempt these kinds of shots knowing that if you don't make them you look foolish. The fact that there are 8:00 videos of him making these kinds of shots is ridiculous, it shouldn't be, it just shouldn't. The guy has alien DNA.
This is still my favorite dunk of all-time, and arguably the greatest in-game dunk ever witnessed. In 2000, at the Sydney Olympics, Vince Carter steals the ball, doesn't even get a full running start, and leaps completely over 7'2" Frederic Weis and dunks the ball with authority, destroying the guy. As far as slam dunks are concerned, it just doesn't get any better than that, the dunk famously became known as the "Dunk of Death."
I always found this dunk to be entertaining, the Gerald Green cupcake dunk. In the 2008 NBA Slam Dunk competition, Gerald Green put a cupcake with a lit candle on the back of the rim and blew out the candle as he dunked.
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Here it is, the Hulk Hogan and Richard Belzer incident and Belzer talking about it on his show the week after it happened.
But professional wrestlers are no joke, they're big guys that are very powerful and knowledgeable about many different and dangerous holds, you don't want to tangle with a pro wrestler, that's for sure.
By far, the best heel turn in pro wrestling history is when Hulk Hogan turned heel at WCW Bash At The Beach in 1996, Hogan had always been a good guy, babyface, his entire career, and nobody expected him to turn heel. It was a pure stroke of genius, it led to the formation of the NWO with Kevin Nash and Scott Hall and would later add other members including Macho Man Randy Savage, in many people's opinions the NWO was the greatest pro wrestling faction in history, and it launched WCW into the stratosphere, WCW actually overtook it's rival WWE and became the number one wrestling promotion in the world. They had WWE on the ropes for a while, they beat WWE in TV ratings for 83 straight weeks, in what was called the Monday Night Wars, and this was all a direct result of Hogan turning heel, the fans couldn't believe Hogan would turn bad and just couldn't get enough of it. So Hogan actually had Two separate careers, his good guy run and his bad guy run, both historic runs, Hulk Hogan's impact on the pro wrestling business can't be understated enough, he changed the business multiple times. In my personal opinion, Ric Flair is the greatest of all-time, but Hogan had a bigger impact by far. Hogan was a great heel, he changed his name to "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan, he had a nasty attitude, he really made you hate him, he used to wear an NWO weightlifting belt around his waist and he would take it off and whip his opponents silly with it, and he all but hijacked the WCW World Heavyweight Championship belt, the famous Gold belt, and spray painted the letters NWO on it in Black, just to piss people off, he was a great heel.
The NWO, Kevin Nash, Hulk Hogan, and Scott Hall at the height of their popularity.
I'll never forget the night after WrestleMania 18, that Hulk Hogan entrance on WWE Monday Night Raw, it was one of the loudest ovations I've ever heard, the fans really appreciated everything Hogan did for the wrestling business.
It's time for the random sports photo of the day, an iconic photo of college students from the University of Pittsburgh watching Game 7 of the 1960 World Series between the Pirates and Yankees, the students are watching from atop the Cathedral of Learning and they are reacting to Bill Mazeroski's walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth inning, which secured the Pirates' victory and their first World Series championship since 1925. The photo is titled "Cheering Students."
Picked up this awesome photo of Marvelous Marvin Hagler last night, this one is for you Eric, Marvin Hagler was his favorite fighter. This is an image of Hagler walking toward center ring before round 1 of his infamous fight with Tommy "Hitman" Hearns, the war. Look at Hagler, walking right into battle, knowing damn well what he was about to do, draw Tommy Hearns into a firefight and take him out. He looks like the monolith that he was, that look on his face is priceless, totally emotionless, ice cold.
This fight has been analyzed over and over by boxing experts, so let's analyze it one more time. It was a brilliant strategy by Hagler, draw Hearns into a savage storm that he could not escape. Hagler was a notorious slow starter, but Hagler went right after Hearns, he wanted to get inside and bang Hearns out, to the body, to the head, he didn't want Hearns to have a chance to box him from the outside, using his long reach, his jab, because Hearns could flat-out box, he wanted to negate Hearns strengths. Hagler never intended for this fight to go into deep water, he was on a mission to take Hearns out early. Hagler wanted to draw Hearns into a street brawl and put him away, Hagler knew he could take Hearns best shots, the man had a chin made of Tungsten, so he wasn't worried about getting knocked out in a slugfest, Hearns legendary power was of little concern to Hagler. He applied relentless pressure on Hearns, every time Hearns got outside and started to box, Hagler would force his way inside on Hearns and take the fight to him, not letting Hearns box him from the outside, getting Hearns up against the ropes and banging away. The body shots eventually start to take their toll on Hearns and by round 2 Hearns legs start to go, it was only a matter of time after that, Hagler knows Hearns is fading and Hagler starts really unloading and that was it, brilliant strategy by Hagler and it's a fascinating fight to study.
This photo of Tommy Hearns being carried away after the fight is one of the most iconic images in sports history, Tommy Hearns said that his fight with Hagler was the most physically painful experience of his life. He hit Hagler with everything and the kitchen sink and Hagler just shrugged it off and kept coming, that was Marvin freaking Hagler.
Marvin Hagler ate, breathed, and slept boxing, he once said that if they cut his skull open, they would find a boxing glove where his brain is supposed to be, he was intense, no $hitting.
How about a little music break, a tribute to the 80s, a great decade.
Check out this photo of the moon, lurking behind the Seattle Space Needle, this image was captured by photographer Tim Durkin in 2020.
I want to talk about Ed Sprinkle for a minute, a Chicago Bears player in the 1950s, a true monster of the midway, he was nicknamed "The Claw" because he would use a vicious clothesline type tackle on offensive players, and in 1950, Collier's magazine called him "The Meanest Man in Pro Football", a moniker that stuck with him for the rest of his life. I don't think Ed Sprinkle was a dirty player or anything like that, he played according to the style back then, did he have a "take no prisoners" attitude, certainly, but you have to understand, football was a different game back then, you didn't have the rules that you see today. This is an article written about Ed Sprinkle in 2020, the year he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Fascinating player.
Countdown to Canton: Ed Sprinkle may finally "Claw'' his way to Canton
Ron BorgesJan 4, 2020 11:58 PM
Ed Sprinkle was once called the meanest man in pro football. Maybe soon he'll also finally be called a Hall of Famer.
Apparently there were two ways to look at Ed Sprinkle.
George Halas, who coached him throughout his 12-year career with the Chicago Bears, called him “the greatest pass rusher I’ve ever seen.’’ In 1950, Collier's magazine called him “The Meanest Man in Pro Football.’’
Now the Pro Football Hall-of-Fame’s Centennial Committee will decide if it is ready to call him something different, something that Halas and many others who remember Sprinkle believe he should have been called decades ago – a Hall of Famer.
Sprinkle is among 20 senior finalists for the special “Centennial Class’’ of Hall of Famers who will be enshrined next September as part of the 100th anniversary of the NFL. It’s a one-time attempt to make up for past oversights by the Hall, and Sprinkle is on the top of many people’s lists.
A hard-nosed, raw-boned 210-pound pass rusher who grew up as a sharecropper’s son in West Texas, Ed Sprinkle was born hard and raised to be tough. When he arrived in Chicago in 1944, he came believing there was only one way to play pro football. The way Halas described Sprinkle’s playing style was illuminating.
“He’s got to push and shove his way past those blockers,” Halas told Collier’s, “and if somebody gets an unintentional whack in the nose now and then — well, that’s football.”
That was also Sprinkle. It’s how he was named to four Pro Bowls and five All-Pro teams, twice as a first teamer. The NFL didn’t create the Pro Bowl until 1950, six years after Sprinkle first came to Chicago, yet despite the ferociousness of his style, Sprinkle was selected to four of the first six Pro Bowl teams as a defensive end before retiring after the 1955 season.
He was also named to the 1940s' all-decade team despite playing only the latter half of the decade.
To say his approach to the game was violent is to minimize Sprinkle’s philosophy. To play in such a manner and still be named by your peers to such honors speaks loudly of the respect he commanded. So did the men who most often suffered his wrath.
“Sprinkle would drive you 10 yards out of bounds, and the official would be taking the ball away from you, but Sprinkle would still be choking you,” Hugh McElhenny, a Hall-of-Fame halfback for the 49ers, told The New York Times in 1985.
In Sprinkle’s day they did not yet keep statistics for sacks. If they had he might well rank up there with Deacon Jones, Lawrence Taylor and Reggie White. In fact, so adept was he at getting to the quarterback in the formative days of the T-formation that Halas stopped using him as a two-way end. Instead, he elected to have him concentrate solely on defense for much of his career, at a time when the two-way player was still much in vogue.
His first two seasons with the Bears, Sprinkle played both guard and defensive end before Halas split him wide as an end where he caught 29 passes for 438 yards and five touchdowns the next five years. But even on offense his favorite thing to do was create mayhem. He once said his favorite offensive play was to be spread wide and rush down and deliver a blindside, crack-back block on an unsuspecting linebacker or defensive end in the days when such violence wasn’t considered all that violent.
Typical of his style was his performance in the 1946 NFL championship game against the New York Giants. By the time he was finished, Sprinkle had knocked two New York running backs out of the game -- George Franck with a separated shoulder and Frank Reagan with a broken nose. And that was before breaking the nose of quarterback Frank Filchock with a clothesline to the face he called “The Claw.’’
It really didn’t need much more of a description.
On one such play, Sprinkle nailed Filchock as he was about to pass, causing an interception that was returned for a Bears’ touchdown in what became a 24-14 Chicago victory. That is how the great pass rusher can disrupt a game and destroy an offense. Such a player can also drive an opponent to distraction, as he once did to Chicago Cardinals’ quarterback Paul Christman.
Once so distracted by Sprinkle’s vicious pass rush, Christman instructed his line not to block Sprinkle on a pass play. As Sprinkle rushed in untouched, Christman rifled a pass right at his face. Fortunately for Sprinkle, who didn’t wear a facemask, the ball missed him.
One guy who did not was Christman’s teammate, future Hall-of-Fame running back Charley Trippi. According to Sprinkle, Trippi once punched him in the face during a pileup and then fled to the sidelines to avoid the repercussions.
Yet despite his reputation, Sprinkle never felt his play crossed the line. To him, and frankly many of his peers, he was just a hard-nosed pass rusher at a time when football was a brutally physical confrontation.
“I never really played dirty football in my life, but I’d knock the hell out of a guy if I got the chance,” once said. “I believed in hitting somebody. We were meaner in the 1950s because there were fewer positions, and we fought harder for them. It was a different era.’’
Until now, Ed Sprinkle has never been a finalist for the Hall of Fame. Because the league didn’t keep track of sacks or forced fumbles, he has no statistics available to support his candidacy. What he has, though, is the word of men like Halas, who saw how he could effect a game and destroy an opponent’s passing games.
Here is a good close-up shot of Ed Sprinkle, aka "The Claw." I've always been fascinated by players from back then, the game was different, it was a lot more vicious, an era when Dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and Ed Sprinkle was a carnivore. It makes today's game look like cheerleading practice.
"Quarterbacks would look with only One eye for receivers. They kept the other eye on Sprinkle." - Y.A. Tittle
Just want to mention this, I posted a lot of dog and cat memes over the years and the reason I post those memes is because I love dogs and cats, give me a dog or cat anyday over a person. They don't judge you, they don't care if you're Black, White, Hispanic, they don't care if you're straight, gay, trans, they don't care if you have holes in your clothes, they're not a$$holes like people are. And they're quite entertaining as well.
Time for a music break.
I also want to pay proper respect to Bronko Nagurski, he never gets mentioned around these parts and it's a joke, the man was a beast, he was the reason the Bears were nicknamed The Monsters of The Midway. He played for the Chicago Bears in the 1930s, on offense and defense, the guy could do it all, a real Swiss Army knife. He was built like a miniature tank, he was simply one of the greatest football players to ever live. He also made one of the greatest comebacks in sports history past his prime and led the Bears to the championship, past his freaking prime. Bronko Nagurski primarily played fullback and defensive tackle, with some experience at offensive tackle and defensive end as well. He was known for his speed, versatility, and power, playing both offense and defense for the University of Minnesota and the Chicago Bears. Like I said, he was a beast, he attacked when carrying the ball, he'd gore you, and he didn't budge on defense. As if his football career wasn't enough, he was also a pro wrestler.
"I always used my strength in football. I liked to meet guys head-on when I was carrying the ball. Then I’d drop my shoulder, and catch him with that, and then brush him off with my arm. It worked -most of the time.” - Bronko Nagurski
Chicago Bears fullback Bronko Nagurski was the symbol of power football during the 1930s. His performances took on legendary proportions. Many eyewitness observers insisted that for sheer brutal line-smashing, no one came close to Nagurski.
Never fancy, he just ran straight ahead, over and through the opposition. Although he is best remembered for his bull-like running, he had no peer as a blocker and his tackling was as effective as any the game has seen. He was the complete player.
At the University of Minnesota he played four positions and was named All-America at both fullback and tackle. With the Bears, his defensive play was as awesome as his offensive ball carrying.
The jump pass, in which he would fake a plunge, then step back a yard or two, jump and lob a pass to a waiting receiver was devastating. His jump pass to Red Grange was responsible for the key touchdown in the Bears’ 1932 victory over Portsmouth for the league title.
The next year, in the National Football League’s first official championship game, Bronko passed for two touchdowns, including the game-winning score. When Nagurski couldn’t get a raise to $6,500 in 1938, Nagurski retired to become a professional wrestler.
But in 1943, when the demands of World War II left the Bears short of manpower, he rejoined the team as a tackle. Late in the season, with Chicago trailing in a must-win game, he went back to the fullback position. The 35-year old Nagurski’s line plunges keyed a drive to the tying touchdown and then set up the winning score. A week later, in the 1943 NFL title game against the Washington Redskins, Bronko, - who was named a first- or second-team All-NFL in seven of his first eight seasons – ended his career by scoring the touchdown that put the Bears ahead to stay.
The Athletic
NFL 100: At No. 33, Bears’ Bronko Nagurski’s many talents and feats are the stuff of legend
Dan Pompei
Aug. 11, 2021Updated July 17, 2023
Welcome to the NFL 100, The Athletic’s endeavor to identify the 100 best players in football history. You can order the book version here. Every day until the season begins, we’ll unveil new members of the list, with the No. 1 player to be crowned on Wednesday, Sept. 8.
With most heroes, there are legends, and then there are realities.
With Bronko Nagurski, there are legends. Only legends.
If Homer, Vince McMahon and Stan Lee could have collaborated to create a hero, they would have come up with The Bronk. The story would have included passages about a young man lifting a plow overhead, a head cracking a brick wall, a horse being knocked on its back, and a ring that could have been used as a bracelet.
It would have told of modest beginnings.
Nagurski grew up in International Falls, Minn., one of four children of Polish-Ukrainian immigrants. His given name was Bronislau, but a teacher who couldn’t pronounce it called him Bronko instead, as if she knew what he would become.
Nagurski learned how to work from his father Mike, who ran a 240-acre farm and sawmill, and later a corner grocery store. His son helped by chopping wood, pulling wagons, pushing plows and delivering groceries. He ran two miles back and forth to school — of course he did — often in temperatures that began with the word “minus.”
From his mother Michelina, the Bronk learned not to give an inch. According to “Monster of the Midway,” she often told him in Ukrainian: Ty moz’esz robyty tse. “You can make it.” Throughout his football career, when facing his most daunting challenges, Nagurski repeated the phrase silently to himself.
Opportunity found him when he was working on the family farm as a high school student.
“I was driving past a farm when I noticed this big, strong boy plowing a field — without a horse,” Minnesota football coach Clarence “Doc” Spears said. “I stopped to ask directions. The boy pointed — with the plow. That’s how I happened to discover Bronko.”
Spears told the story many times over the years, but Nagurski never did. When he was pointedly questioned about it later in his life, Nagurski said, “It wasn’t a very big plow.”
At Minnesota, Nagurski was a force from his first practice, when he defeated two all-Big Ten linemen in a nutcracker drill. By the time Nagurski was a senior, he had two spots on the All-America team of famed sportswriter Grantland Rice — at fullback and defensive tackle.
Nagurski continued playing fullback and tackle after signing with the Bears, and he continued dominating on both sides of the ball. They say he knocked out more than a dozen opponents in his rookie season alone.
Nagurski was different from almost everyone he played with or against. Sid Luckman, once his quarterback on the Bears, said his rival Sammy Baugh told him Nagurski was the most powerful human being he ever encountered.
He was 6-foot-2, 235 pounds in an era when the average lineman weighed 210. His neck, size 22, had the girth of some of the logs he used to chop. When the Pro Football Hall of Fame presented him with a ring upon his induction in their charter class of 1963, it was a size 19.5 — still the largest ring ever made for a Hall of Famer.
Hall of Famer John “Blood” McNally told sportswriter Ray Didinger about Nagurski trampling two Steelers on his way to the end zone in 1937. One of them was knocked out for 10 minutes, the other suffered a broken shoulder. “It was as if they were run over by a locomotive,” McNally said.
There can be no mention of Nagurski without the story that would make today’s concussion spotters cringe. In a 1930 game against the Packers in front of a crowd at Wrigley Field that included nearly every Chicagoan of status, including the notorious Al Capone, Nagurski was given a handoff on the final minutes on the 2-yard line. He rammed through two Packers with his head down. His momentum carried him through the end zone and his leather helmet crashed into the outfield wall, which was about one step past the end line. When Bears trainer Andy Lotshow asked if he was OK, Nagurski replied, “Who the heck was that last guy?”
Nagurski apparently walked away with less damage than “that last guy.” Wrote George Halas in his autobiography “Halas by Halas,” “Some people will today show you a crack in the south wall at Wrigley Field they say was made by his helmeted head.”
It was not Nagurski’s only collision out of the boundary of play. The year after he cracked Wrigley’s wall, he had a sideline crash with a mounted policeman who was there to prevent fans from coming on the field. Nagurski sent both the horse and policeman airborne. He helped the cop to his feet, brushed the grass off his uniform, and said, “I’m sorry, officer. I didn’t mean to hit you. But you really should get out of my way when I’m running.” He then turned his attention to the horse, patting his nose. “I’m sorry, horse,” he said.
There were no recorded apologies to the cop car he barreled into on the sideline during another game, even though Nagurski knocked off the front fender.
Nagurski won most of the collisions he was involved with, but his game was about more than power. In his early years, he was the second-fastest player on the Bears after Red Grange. Nagurski was timed at 10.2 in the 100-yard dash at Minnesota.
Some think he was a better defensive player than an offensive player. On offense, he could also throw the ball and he was one of the premier blockers of all time.
In 1934, Beattie Feathers became the first player to rush for 1,000 yards in NFL history. “I had the greatest blocker who ever lived,” Feathers said, referring to Nagurski. Feathers averaged 8.4 yards per carry, still an NFL record for a running back. Wrote Stanley Frank in Collier’s magazine, “Every inch was made behind Nagurski’s interference.”
In the 1932 title game against Portsmouth that had to be played in the Chicago Stadium because of a blizzard, Nagurski threw the key touchdown pass to Grange. The following year, in the first official championship game, he threw for two touchdowns against the Giants, including the game-winner.
In addition to playing football on both sides of the ball, Nagurski was a pro wrestler for a portion of his career, putting unthinkable stress on his body. This is what a 21-day stretch during 1937 looked like for Nagurski, according to the book “The Chicago Bears” by Howard Roberts.
• Sunday, Sept. 19 — played with Bears at Green Bay.
• Tuesday, Sept. 21 — played an exhibition with Bears at Duluth.
• Wednesday, Sept. 22 — wrestled in Portland, Ore.
• Thursday, Sept. 23 — wrestled in Vancouver, B.C.
• Friday, Sept. 24 — wrestled in Seattle.
• Monday, Sept. 27 — wrestled in Phoenix.
• Wednesday, Sept. 29 — wrestled in Los Angeles.
• Thursday, Sept. 30 — wrestled in Oakland.
• Friday, Oct. 1 — wrestled in Salt Lake City.
• Monday, Oct. 4 — played with Bears at Pittsburgh.
• Wednesday, Oct. 6 — played an exhibition with Bears at Erie, Pa.
• Friday, Oct. 8 — wrestled in Philadelphia.
• Sunday, Oct. 10 — played with Bears at Cleveland.
When Nagurski signed with the Bears as a rookie in the days before the draft, he agreed to a one-year contract worth $5,000. It was the richest contract in NFL history at the time. It also was the high point of his NFL earnings. His salary was cut every year because he played during the Great Depression. His salary was down to $3,700 by 1932. And he often didn’t even collect his money on time, as Halas didn’t have the cash to pay his players. Nagurski demanded $6,500 in 1938. Halas countered with an offer of $6,000. Nagurski was confident he could make more if he were wrestling full-time, so he retired from football at 31 at the peak of his abilities.
In 1943, the Bears, depleted by World War II, made a pitch for him to return. After some hesitation, Nagurski agreed to play for $5,000 with the stipulation he had to be paid up front.
Nagurski was available only because he had been rejected medically by Army physicians after trying to enlist for the war the day after the Pearl Harbor bombing. A doctor told him there were six reasons he failed his physical.
He was healthy enough to play in the NFL, however, and at the age of 35, Nagurski made a comeback with the understanding he would not be used as a fullback because he couldn’t run like he once did. Nagurski had to wear a metal brace on his back because he had broken two vertebrae earlier in his career. He also had a degenerative hip condition.
It was evident quickly he still had his power, however. In training camp, he broke several teammates’ noses and another’s clavicle.
The Bears’ roster had changed considerably, as only six of his previous teammates remained and many of his new ones were more than a decade younger. Opponents called him an old man, and teammates treated him with reverence. At practice one day, he told a group of Bears players, “If one more of you guys calls me Mr. Nagurski, I’m going to lay you out.”
Nagurski went through most of the season playing tackle. In the final game of the regular season at Wrigley, the Bears needed to beat the Cardinals to win the Western Division title. They trailed 24-14 entering the fourth quarter when Nagurski lined up at fullback for the first time since 1937 to the chants of “Bronko! Bronko! Bronko!”
And then snow began to fall.
In the final quarter, he carried 16 times for 84 yards and a touchdown, as the Bears won 35-24. Fans stormed the field afterward and carried him off on their shoulders.
Nagurski played fullback again in the championship game and scored a touchdown as the Bears beat Washington 41-21.
“Bronko is the one man that I never wanted to see again,” said Baugh, who opposed him as both a quarterback and defensive back. “I still have nightmares about that big monster.”
Nagurski retired again after the game and returned to wrestling. He became a heavyweight champion before stepping away from his second sport in 1960 at 52. He was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2009 with a class that included Nick Bockwinkel and Ricky Steamboat. It was his fourth Hall of Fame, as he previously had been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the College Football Hall of Fame and the Minnesota Sports Hall of Fame.
Nagurski never stopped coming home to International Falls. He and his childhood sweetheart, Eileen, raised six kids there, and when he was done with wrestling, he bought a gas station at 217 Third Ave. But he wasn’t just the administrator at Nagurski Pure Oil Service Station. Wearing overalls and flannel shirts, the Bronk pumped the gas. The story goes that he screwed the gas caps on so tightly that people had to return to him to have them taken off.
Nagurski turned down most requests to make public appearances in the years leading up to his death in 1990. But he was convinced to toss the coin for the Super Bowl in 1984. By the way he moved at that time, it was clear his opponents weren’t the only ones who felt the impact of all those collisions.
Those collisions defined him until the end.
“How good was he?” Grange said in a WGN radio interview in 1978. “On defense, he was equal to Dick Butkus in Butkus’ prime. On offense, he was faster and equal to Larry Csonka. Put the two together and you got Nagurski.”
Bronko Nagurski in his playing days. Just look at how big and powerful he was, just steamrolling through defenders, my goodness.
My Dad had this photo framed on the wall of our den at home. As Burghkid, before becoming Burghman, I always loved how it looks like this guy and girl in completely different rows are holding hands
Jim
Cool story, I never noticed that before, it does look like they're holding hands! 😂😂
The famous cobra bite incident involving Jake "The Snake" Roberts and "Macho Man" Randy Savage occurred on November 23, 1991. This took place during a WWF Superstars segment, where Roberts unleashed his pet cobra on Savage. The incident is a well-remembered moment in wrestling history, known for its shock value and the perceived danger of the attack. Jake Roberts, known for his snake-handling gimmick, used his cobra to attack Savage, who was a commentator at the time. The angle was designed to escalate their ongoing feud and create a memorable visual moment for the audience. While the snake was devenomized, the segment was still shocking and considered a highlight of the Golden Era of wrestling. During the segment, the cobra latched on to Macho Man's right arm and would not let go, Roberts later stated he had one heck of a time trying to get the cobra to let go of Macho Man's arm.
This is Jake "The Snake" Roberts talking about the famous cobra bite segment with Macho Man, he talks about how Macho Man was paranoid about the cobra not being devenomized before the segment took place, it's hilarious and worth a listen.
By the way, since I'm in the subject of snakes, I watched a documentary a few months ago, it's called "Titanoboa : Monster Snake", I highly recommend, it's an absolutely fascinating documentary about the discovery of Titanoboa, one of the largest snakes to ever exist on this planet. The Titanoboa was a prehistoric snake that existed around 58-60 million years ago, long extinct, but this snake was an absolute unit, about 49 feet in length, weighing around 2,000 lbs. The fossils were discovered in the early 2000s by a group of Archaeologists from Florida in some coal mines down in Colombia, they weren't even looking for it but stumbled across it by complete accident. There's no other way to describe Titanoboa other than it was a monster, it's what you would expect a snake from the dinosaur period to look like, it's like something out of a horror movie. The archaeologists hired a model maker to make a model of it based on the fossils they found, and the model is housed at The Smithsonian. This is the documentary, it's available for viewing on YouTube, it's a fascinating documentary and I highly recommend it.
This is the Titanoboa model at the Smithsonian, it has a crocodile sticking out of it's mouth to signify it's sheer size, that it was perfectly capable of devouring a full grown crocodile. You can see people viewing the exhibit and the size of the snake.
You can just imagine what it would look and feel like if you were walking through the rain forests in prehistoric times and happened to run into the Titanoboa, it would be a nightmare scenario.
Speaking of the Dinosaurs, I watched a documentary a few weeks back, I'm always watching documentaries about everything, anyway it was a documentary about the Chicxulub asteroid that many people believe caused the extinction of the Dinosaurs, or at least finished them off, and it's just shocking how powerful nature can be. This is a simulation of how it would look if our planet was hit by different sized asteroids, it starts off with smaller asteroids, and then works it way up to bigger ones, finishing with the granddaddy of them all, an asteroid the size of Ceres, which is the biggest asteroid in our solar system. The last Two asteroids explosions in the simulation would be big enough to end the world.
Back to Chicxulub, the asteroid that wiped out the Dinosaurs, the asteroid was believed to have been about 6 miles wide, and the tail end if it would have been at an altitude of 30,000 feet in the air when it hit Earth, it's difficult to imagine something that gigantic, and it hit at a speed of 45,000 mph, over 58 times the speed of sound. It's just mind boggling to imagine that kind of explosion, it would have been an explosion to the likes of which none of us can comprehend. This is how big the asteroid was compared to New York City, this is what it would look like coming down on New York City.
One last thing about the Chicxulub asteroid impact, or the K/Pg impactor as it is scientifically known, the asteroid left a crater that is 110 miles wide, the crater is down in the gulf of Mexico and is underwater, it was discovered by geophysicists Glen Penfield and Antonio Camargo in the late 1970s while they were working for the Mexican oil company Pemex. They noticed a peculiar semicircular geophysical anomaly on magnetic survey maps of the Yucatan Peninsula, suggesting the presence of an impact crater. While their initial findings were not initially linked to the K/Pg impactor extinction event, further research, including work by Alan Hildebrand and others, eventually connected the crater to the extinction of the dinosaurs. It's one heck of an event that changed the world forever, if it wasn't for that asteroid, we wouldn't be here today, the Dinosaurs definitely took one for the team. The Dinosaurs had a reign on this planet that lasted about 165 million years, they ruled this planet for 165 million years, that is mind bending stuff. In comparison, we've only been here about 300,000 years, we'll never sniff 165 million, nowhere close. Humans will never see a reign like that, we'll be long gone before we get anywhere close to 165 million years of being the dominant species on planet Earth.
Time for a music break, this song always mellows me out, yes I am a Bruce Springsteen fan and I don't give a crap what anyone thinks about it. The man has sold over 140 million albums worldwide, he must be doing something right.
You know, there's something fascinating about NFL hard hitters, they're a different breed, almost mythical like, they command absolute attention, when an offensive player steps onto the field they always have to have a sixth sense and be aware of where the hard hitter is at all times, that's the kind of menacing presence a hard hitter has on the field. Its like the Predator from the movies is on the field, walking around with the spear in his hand, the laser beam pointing out, hunting for prey, that's the kind of feeling they give off. This is one of my favorite NFL players of all-time, one of the hardest hitters and most feared players in NFL history, Richard "Night Train" Lane, definitely the hardest hitting Defensive back in the history of the league. That name is enough to send shivers down your spine, the Night Train was no joke. He was never really even supposed to play in the NFL, Lane played just one season of junior college football before serving in the US Army for 4 years, after being discharged from the Army he happened to pass by the Los Angeles Rams office on his bus ride to work, despite a total lack of experience playing the sport at a high level, Lane decided to stop in and asked to try out as a receiver. The Rams were so blown away by his raw athleticism that they gave him a spot on the team as a receiver. Lane eventually switched to defensive back and the Rams quickly fell in love with his ferocious playing style, and it didn't take long for the rest of the league to become familiar with his ferocious playing style, as the NFL quickly had to create rules against Lane's brutal tackling style. He became known for wrapping players around the neck and also grabbing their face mask and slinging them to the ground, people started calling the move the "Night Train Necktie." In 1961 he tackled Jon Arnett by the facemask while Arnett was running at full speed and left him laying there motionless on the field, there's a famous photo of the tackle that shows Lane basically trying to take his head off. The next year, the NFL made a rule prohibiting grabbing the facemask to make a tackle and that was due to the Jon Arnett tackle by Lane. The NFL later banned a tackle around the head and neck, what was known as a "clothesline tackle", again due to Lane's brutal style. Lane once explained his style by saying, "My object is to stop the guy before he gains another inch. I'm usually dealing with ends who are trying to catch passes, and if I hit them in the legs they may fall forward for a first down. There is nothing I hate worse than a first down." In addition to wreaking havoc with his tackling style, Lane was also a terror as a ball hog, to this day he still holds the NFL record for most interceptions in a seasons with 14, and amazingly doing so in only 12 games. Lane played two years with the Rams before being traded to the Cardinals in 1954. Six years later, he was sent to the Detroit Lions where he enjoyed his finest years. Lane was named first or second team All-NFL every year from 1954 through 1963 and he was named to seven Pro Bowls. If you watch highlights of Lane in YouTube, it's easy to see why he was so feared, and the nickname "Night Train" fits him very well, he came at you like a freaking freight train. Speaking of his nickname, it's one of the coolest nicknames in sports history, and like I said it fit him well, there are a couple of theories about how he hit that nickname. The first is that he earned the nickname from his ferocious hits on receivers. Although that may have helped the mystique of his nickname, that isn’t how he got his nickname. There is no doubt that his hits coincided with the moniker, however. The train reference to his punishing style of play resonated with both players and the media. The second theory stated that he didn’t like to fly and that he traveled to road games via a late-night train. This theory is so prominent that it’s even given as the reason for the “Night Train” label in a story about him on the Denver Broncos official website. Although that sounds like a neat way that Night Train got his nickname, it’s not the story that Lane or his Rams teammates ever told. The story that Lane and his Rams teammates told is a bit more fun. Now during that Rams training camp, Lane visited Tom Fears after practices to ask him for tips on making the team. Fears owned a record player and played a song called Night Train, a song written by sax player Jimmy Forrest. There are also renditions by Buddy Morrow, James Brown, and jazz great Oscar Peterson. One time, Lane walked into Fears’ room and somebody said, “Hey, here comes Night Train.” For whatever reason, the nickname stuck. Former NFL coach Jerry Glanville was good friends with Lane and here's what Jerry Glanville had to say about Lane,"Two players in the National Football League, everytime they hit you, they tried to hurt you, and they did. One was a guy by the name of Dick Butkus, and the other is.....Night Train Lane." Lane once told Glanville that there was never a good tackle in the history of the league below the eyebrows. Glanville went on to say, "Lane was the first guy to tackle with the facemask, the play wasn't successful unless he ripped your helmet off. So they made a rule banning the facemask tackle, Lane then made what was called the Night Train Lane necktie tackle, it was a clothesline, they then said the clothesline was illegal, you cannot do that. So then he decided he would take his forearm and try to bust you with it, and Lane once told me if I he could hit the man so hard that it broke my (Lane's) arm, that would be a great play." That was Richard "Night Train" Lane, and it's easy to see why he was so feared.
Night Train resting on the sidelines.
This is the famous photo of Night Train Lane taking down Jon Arnett, this hit caused the facemask tackle to be banned.
Night Train Lane uses the "Night Train Necktie" clothesline tackle to bring down Green Bay Packers fullback Jim Taylor. My God, Night Train Lane was intense.
Whoa, that Night Train Lane segment got me pumped, how about a little Ozzy.
Nothing like some of the NFL's greatest hits!
"When they can't find anything wrong with you, they create it!"
Always gotta watch a power slap match when Sheena Bathory is involved!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNp4kfh6J4E
"When they can't find anything wrong with you, they create it!"
Those power slap matches are insane, it's one of the most brutal sports out there, the men's power slap is ridiculously brutal.
I want to talk about Steph Curry for a second, it's just ridiculous how great the guy is, he's the greatest shooter I've ever seen, and he has this thing that he does every so often where he'll shoot the ball and before it even goes in the basket he'll look away and smile, or start jogging down to the other end of the court, he somehow knows that as soon as he releases it the ball is going in, he doesn't even look at it. It's the coldest signature move I've ever seen, it's almost like he's a damn alien in a human body, that's how great he is. This poster captures exactly what I'm talking about.
I mean just look at the kind of shots Steph Curry regularly takes, and makes, bombs from 30 feet away, half court, it takes serious guts to even attempt these kinds of shots knowing that if you don't make them you look foolish. The fact that there are 8:00 videos of him making these kinds of shots is ridiculous, it shouldn't be, it just shouldn't. The guy has alien DNA.
This is still my favorite dunk of all-time, and arguably the greatest in-game dunk ever witnessed. In 2000, at the Sydney Olympics, Vince Carter steals the ball, doesn't even get a full running start, and leaps completely over 7'2" Frederic Weis and dunks the ball with authority, destroying the guy. As far as slam dunks are concerned, it just doesn't get any better than that, the dunk famously became known as the "Dunk of Death."
The complete destruction of a 7'2" giant.
Here is the "Dunk of Death" as it was broadcasted that day.
Here's another one of my favorite dunks, Jordan lowers the boom on Ewing.
Ja Morant full extension over Malik Beasley with serious authority.
I always found this dunk to be entertaining, the Gerald Green cupcake dunk. In the 2008 NBA Slam Dunk competition, Gerald Green put a cupcake with a lit candle on the back of the rim and blew out the candle as he dunked.
Don't mess with Sophie Cunningham - 6'1" and a Tae-Kwan-Do black belt!
"When they can't find anything wrong with you, they create it!"
Well, that certainly was entertaining! 😂😂
Jamal Crawford's alley oop through the legs to Blake Griffin.