Posted by
Kilroy on Friday, April 27, 2007 11:41:26 AM
SEARCHLIGHT, Nevada -- Sen. Harry Reid rocked the boxing world today by announcing that he will not be renewing his annual membership at the Henderson Boys Club, the facility he’s trained and sparred at since he began his boxing career as a youth.
Reid’s retirement caps off an amateur boxing career spanning 50 years in which he fought in numerous exhibition bouts as a middleweight. Reid’s boxing style was considered unique in that he never adopted the typical bob and weave method of defense and would instead dive face first to the ring floor and lay prone to the nine count. The unusual move earned him a huge fan base including Tom Dashle, who would later become Reid’s fellow Senator. "
The floor (was) Harry's turf", Dashle recalled. Early in his career Reid was tagged with the nickname “Pinky” for the pinkish hue his cheeks would take on because of an acute allergic reaction to the canvas floor of the ring. “
I might have gotten pink cheeks but I never got a bloody nose” Reid has been known to boast.
Reid also became known for “trash-talking” his opponents; a practice he took off of the ring floor and onto the Senate floor. In recent years Reid has come under fire for calling Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas “
an embarrassment” and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan “
a political hack”. Most recently he called the military offensive in Iraq “
lost”. Reid defended his comments by citing his boxing career stats of
0-wins, 0-losses, 43-forfeitures saying “
I’ve never lost a fight but I know what a loser looks like”.
On his decision to retire from boxing Reid said,
“It’s time I devote my energies to achieving the most important forfeiture I've faced. That is the forfeiture of this so called 'war on terror'”.
