history lesson

today I have a brief piece of boxing history to share with the group. as you may or may not know, boxing history is one of my 600 or so secret hobbies. ok, so lets cut to the chase here, I am getting bored.

Ivan Drago was a soviet boxing powerhouse during the late years of the cold war era. he was like nothing anyone had ever seen before. there is some uncertainty surrounding his background, but it is well documented that he was part of an elite russian athletics training program that was designed specifically to compete against the americans.

now for those of you who didnt attain a remarkable score of 3 on your AP european tests, the cold war was not really a war, but more of a period of intense underlying conflict between the country formerly known as the USSR and the country currently known as the USA.

I think that there were some bombs on both sides and then we surrounded cuba at some point.

but, I digress, the most dramatic part of the cold war was not the cuban missile crisis or the space race or the stockpiling of nuclear weapons, it took place in the squared circle. the squared circle is the boxing ring, for those of you who are not boxing historians (I apologize to those of you that are).

note: the squared circle is not the same as the octogon. the octogan is where ultimate fighting takes place. there are 3 rules in ultimate fighting.

1)do not talk about ultimate fighting
2)do not talk about ultimate fighting
3)no fish hooks or eye gouging

ok, we got that out of the way. back to the cold drama of the cold war.

Ivan Drago was a soviet boxing powerhouse who was specifically designed to destroy any american who dared to faced him in the squared circle (see, we all know what that means now). Drago was on a strict training regimen of sprinting up treadmills on 179 degree inclines and super high tech nautilus (trademark) machines.

not only did he run 179 degree inclines and have futuristic nautilus machines, but they gave him some kind of secret performance enhancing cocktail, usually via an injection directly into his thigh. he had to get off of the treadmill to take the cocktail injection.

there has been much speculation about what precisely was in his this performance enhancing serum, but the suspicision is that it was an early predecessor to taurine (now found in red bull energy drink). of course, the taurine they had back in the cold war days was not nearly as potent as what the kids drink these days. or so I hear.

one of drago's claims to fame is that there was simply noone who had the genetics to defeat him, much less the bootleg redbull. in fact, if you measured the sheer punching power of drago, it was about 2100 pounds per square inch, which is more than 100 psi more than even I can punch. way more than 100 psi more than even I can punch.

so this one black guy, apollo creed, who was an american boxer tried to fight drago and he actually got killed. drago was unphased by this death, and he is even rumored to have said 'if he dies, he dies'. how cold is that? thats cold!

the black guy who got killed was not mr T (who boxed under the name of clubber lang at the time). there has been some speculation that mr T could have at least not have gotten killed by drago if they ever fought, but this particular bout never occurred.

of course, after apollo creed got killed. a little white dude decided to try and avenge his death, which was ridiculous, because this white guy had little kids and stuff. what is more is that he even let his little kids watch the fight. what is even more ridiculous is that the fight took place in the soviet union. how sick is that, really. it was a suicide mission and his kid was sitting way too close to the tv set.

but the white guy had a plan, he knew that if he did those kind of situps where you hangupside down and if he went jogging in snow that was waist deep he would probably win. he had gotten the idea about the upside down situps from a bowflex commercial. I dont know where he got the idea for the waist deep snow jogging, but he actually probably did that by accident.

so these two unlikely competitors fought in a cold arena behind the iron curtain in cold communist russia. mostly likely in moscow. the huge turning point was when the little white american dude made ivan drago bleed. ivan drago swore on his mother's favorite nesting matorishka doll that the american was made of iron. (his mother's favorite nesting matroishka doll is pictured below)

ok. this is getting way too lengthy. way way too lengthy.

drago lost. the cold war ended. that is the real story of the cold war.

all thanks to 20 minutes a day with bowflex.

[ps: this is the actual transcription of my 2nd essay from my AP Euro exam circa 2000.]