Anyone with the story on old Calvin Murphy-Sidney Wicks fight?

there's an anectdote about it in "the punch" - the book about Rudy T/Kermit Washington - but I'm too lazy to walk over to the shelf and pick it up.

hope this helps.

 

Don't know what caused it, but Murphy pummeled him. And he's more than a foot shorter. You basically did not mess with Murphy. Years after, I read where Murphy mentions how he thanks God he didn't kill him.

 

Here's a couple of mentions of the fight:

Excerpt from John Feinstein's "The Punch":

Murphy was one of the league's smallest men, but he was every bit the enforcer that Washington was. He had been a Golden Gloves boxer as a teenager, and unlike most of the league's players, he actually knew how to fight. Unofficially he had been in seventeen full-fledged fights during eight years in the league and had never lost. The fight that people remembered most was one against Sidney Wicks, then of the Boston Celtics. Like Washington, Wicks was 6-8 and about 225. Murphy had jumped into the air, grabbed Wicks by his Afro, pulled him down to his level, and punched him into submission.

http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/servlet/DCARead?standardNo=0316735639&standardNoType=1&excerpt=true

Interview with Tom Nisalke:

5. Q. Who was the toughest player you ever saw?

A. The toughest backcourt guys who were playing together were (Jerry) Sloan and Norm Van Lier. Calvin Murphy was 5-9, about 180 pounds, about same size as Rocky Marciano. People don’t realize that … Nobody would challenge Calvin when he played for me in Houston. We were playing Boston one night and he just flattened Sidney Wicks, must have hit him five times. Sidney collapsed and they showed it on our replay board and people were counting the punches. (Coach) Tommy Heinsohn came walking down and said, ‘Tommy — he called me Tommy, too — if they show that one more time it’s gonna be you and me and I think I’ll win.’ So I got them to shut that off.”

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/...with-former-Utah-Jazz-coach-Tom-Nissalke.html

 

My dad always said this about Murphy, "you know a cat that grew up in our days twirling a baton had to have a pair of hands on him".

 

Nice posts! Murph was truely a bad cat, which might be hard to believe when looking him today. I wish we had vintage Murphy on the team today.

 

I figured you'd chime in Deck and I couldn't agree more.

 

The original MMA fighter?

 

No more Casspi.

 

Harden needs to at least try defensively.

 

We need to make a shot

 

Murphy is not that tough, if he fought big guys that actually knew how to fight, his ass would have been grass.

 

http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=238537

.

 

I know how to fight from my days as a trained boxer in sanctioned fights. I had a few fights with guys much bigger(6'4-6'6") and stronger than me(5'11") that didn't know how to fight. Those fights weren't even closed... those big guys just wailed at me with wild looping punches(more like slaps caused they couldn't form a proper fist). I would perry and counter with body shots that would drop them like a sack of potatoes. If those guys knew how to fight, I would have had a tough time and even have my ass handed to me. A good big man always beat a good little man, size matters...just ask Dr Steelhammer.

 

See more on Know Your Meme