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Irish Independent
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
The Indo Daily: From kidnapped heiress to on-the-run terrorist – the Patty Hearst story
Richard Nixon resigns in disgrace following the Watergate scandal. Muhammad Ali and George Foreman serve up a pugilistic masterclass in the 'Rumble in the Jungle'. Aspiring horror writer Stephen King publishes Carrie, his first novel. ABBA storm the Eurovision Song Contest with 'Waterloo'. And in Hungary, an architect by the name of Erno Rubik invents a multi-coloured cube that would capture the world's attention. Just a handful of stories that left a still-enduring impression. But not all such events are so easily explained away in the end. Take the case of Patricia Campbell Hearst; born into immense privilege and seemingly destined for a life of elite exclusivity. However, fate had other plans for Hearst, as did a violent militant organisation that wanted to shake America to its very foundations, with the bright and wealthy college student the perfect target. Perhaps too perfect, as it turned out... On this episode of The Indo Daily, host Fionnán Sheahan is joined from New York by Jeffrey Toobin, author of 'American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst', to review a true story that proved to be stranger than fiction.
The Age
06-05-2025
- Politics
- The Age
They came from left and right. Albanese defeated them all. Now, for the championship bout
Many analogies have been uttered and written to describe Labor's comprehensive election win. And although comparing blood sports with politics is something of a cliche, we would like to evoke a boxing analogy from 50 years ago. In 1975, George Foreman was fuming from his loss the previous year to Muhammad Ali in what was known as the 'Rumble in the Jungle' world heavyweight title defence fight in Zaire. Foreman, either as a gimmick or an exercise in restoring self-belief, arranged to fight five boxers in the one night, one after the other. He despatched all of them. Come May 2025, and enter the election ring a second time, one Anthony Albanese. The prime minister has floored not just one political opponent but several who appeared from the left and the right. At the time of writing, Labor has 86 seats in the House of Representatives, the Liberal Party 39, independents 8, the Greens 1 and others 2, as counting continues in some seats. Albanese's most powerful knockout has been that delivered to Peter Dutton. The former opposition leader lost his seat of Dickson to the ALP. Some of his most senior lieutenants will follow him out the door, including influential Victorian Liberal Michael Sukkar. Catastrophe is too mild a term for what has engulfed the Liberal Party. Their footprint in the cities has virtually disappeared. The party has fallen, or perhaps sleepwalked, into an abyss, given the dismal nature of their campaign. Knockout punches were also landed against opponents in other parties. The Greens have lost seats, including that of prime ministerial antagonist Max Chandler-Mather in Griffith. Melbourne, held by Greens leader Adam Bandt, is too close to call, but if he manages to hang on, the swing against the minor party leader in his previously safe inner-city seat is certainly a victory the PM and Labor will celebrate. Albanese also knocked out Clive Palmer's eye-wateringly expensive foray into the campaign. Dutton, Sukkar, Chandler-Mather, Bandt, Palmer. All five in one night. Albanese's Foreman-like demolition of his opponents is such that he has been elevated to the pantheon of Labor heroes, alongside Bob Hawke, Gough Whitlam and Paul Keating. He is the first prime minister since 2004 to serve the full term and be re-elected. If he serves a full second-term, he will become Labor's second-longest serving PM after Hawke. In his victory speech, Albanese declared: 'We have everything we need to seize this moment, and make it our own, but we must do it together, all of us, because for Australia to realise our full potential, for our nation to be the very best, every Australian must have the opportunity to be the best, to serve our Australian values, to be their best. We must value every Australian, and Labor will govern for every Australian.'
Daily Mirror
06-05-2025
- Sport
- Daily Mirror
Mike Tyson calls Floyd Mayweather 'delusional' over outrageous claim
Tyson has blasted Mayweather after the former pound-for-pound king claimed he was better than the legendary Muhammad Ali during an interview Mike Tyson has savagely criticised Floyd Mayweather Jr following the latter's bold assertion that he was better than boxing great Muhammad Ali. Ali - who is regarded as one of the biggest names in the history of boxing - transcended the sport of boxing. The icon is the only fighter to win the lineal heavyweight championship on three occasions and his legacy includes epic showdowns like the 'Rumble in the Jungle' with George Foreman. That said, during an interview with First Post, Mayweather Jr expressed his belief that he's the biggest star. "I feel like I've done just as much in the sport as Ali," he confidently declared. "It is hard for a guy like me, still sharp at 38. No disrespect to Ali, but I feel like I am the best. Ali lost in his career to Leon Spinks. He lost some other fights and is still known as the greatest. That is what it is". Mayweather Jr's remarks have ignited a storm on social media, with Tyson himself left stunned by 'Money's comments. In a YouTube interview, 'Iron Mike' was quick to label the American as 'delusional.' "He's very delusional, he can't listen. If he was anywhere near that realm of great Ali he'd be able to take his kids to school by himself," Tyson remarked. "He can't take his kids to school by himself and he's talking about he's great? Greatness is not guarding yourself from the people, greatness is being accepted by the people. He can't take his kids alone to school by himself. He's a little scared man... a very small scared man." Mayweather Jr hung up his gloves in 2017 with an undefeated professional record of 50-0 after besting former dual-weight UFC champion Conor McGregor in a highly-anticipated crossover clash. 'Money' has beaten some massive names over the years, including Manny Pacquiao, Canelo Alvarez, Shane Mosley, Ricky Hatton, and Oscar De La Hoya. Despite retiring in 2017, Mayweather couldn't stay away from the ring and has been involved in several exhibition fights over the last few years. Meanwhile, Tyson - another fighter who is regarded as one of the greatest heavyweights of all time - seized the heavyweight championship in a ferocious beatdown of Trevor Berbick back in 1986 at just 20 years old. His ended his career in 2005 after a loss to Kevin McBride. However, the now 58-year-old stunned the boxing world last year after announcing his return to the ring, taking on YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul. But alas, Tyson was unable to roll back the years on fight night. Despite failing to secure a knockout, the 'Problem Child' comfortably sailed to a points victory.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Jim Lampley wasn't supposed to fall in love with boxing. Instead, he became its voice
Jim Lampley poses next to his photo at the Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, N.Y., in June 2015. The longtime boxing broadcaster says his life story "reads like a fictional narrative." (Alex Menendez / Getty Images) Jim Lampley has been the voice of boxing for a generation of Americans, which is remarkable because the assignment was only supposed to last one fight. In the winter of 1986, Lampley had a new contract and a new boss who wanted him out. So Dennis Swanson, the head of the ABC's sports division, ordered Lampley to cover Mike Tyson's first fight on network TV in the hopes, Lampley said, he would embarrass himself and slink away. Advertisement Instead, Lampley nailed the assignment and a year later began what would be an unparalleled three-decade career calling fights for HBO. 'I knew from the moment I called that first fight I was home,' said Lampley, 76, whose work earned him induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. 'I understood that was where I was supposed to be.' Read more: George Foreman, boxing legend who fought Muhammad Ali in the 'Rumble in the Jungle,' dies So 18 months later, on his agent's advice, Lampley walked into Swanson's office, signed the papers that separated him from ABC Sports, and never looked back. That's one of several stories Lampley tells in 'It Happened: A Uniquely Lucky Life in Sports Television,' an autobiography of an admittedly charmed 50-year career in broadcasting. Advertisement 'My life story reads like a fictional narrative. That's the reason for the title,' Lampley said. 'It's the only way you can respond to something as totally counterintuitive, unexpected and filled with blessings as my career is to say, 'it happened.' 'I can't talk about anything that ever happened to me with anything less than astonishment.' The title of the book, written with journalist Art Chansky, is also a paean to Lampley's most famous call — the narration of George Foreman's stunning knockout of Michael Moorer, which allowed Foreman to become, at 45, the oldest heavyweight champion in history. 'Down goes Moorer on a right hand!. An unbelievably close-in right-hand shot! 'It happened! It happened!' George Foreman, left, punches Michael Moorer during their heavyweight championship fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in November 1994. Jim Lampley's call of the fight helped cement his place in boxing history. (Lennox McLendon / Associated Press) In the book, Lampley takes readers inside locker rooms in every league and into the conference rooms of every network. He shares family stories of growing up in the South at the start of the civil rights movement and dishes celebrity gossip about some of the biggest names in sports and broadcasting. Advertisement But if the career he describes was marked by good fortune — he got his first break at 24 when, still in graduate school, he was chosen from a field of 432 candidates to serve as the first network sideline reporter on ABC's college football broadcasts — he was also very good at what he did. Over his dozen years at ABC he called two Indy 500s, broadcast Major League Baseball, traveled the world reporting for 'Wide World of Sports,' interviewed President Ronald Reagan at Daytona, presided over the trophy presentation after Super Bowl XIX and covered the first of 14 Olympics. He interviewed Mike Eruzione and Jim Craig after the U.S. hockey team's Miracle on Ice, worked with Billie Jean King at Wimbledon, saw Richard Petty's final NASCAR victory and was close enough to smell the sweat at every significant title fight between 1988 and 2018. 'Given his long career across several networks, he probably has some juicy stories to tell,' said Daniel Durbin, a professor at the USC Annenberg Institute of Sports, Media and Society. Yet it was a career that proved memorable as much for Lampley's timing as for his talent. Advertisement 'Jim was one of a group of 1970s college students who grew into sportscasters, that included Jim Nantz, Al Michaels, and Bob Costas,' Durbin continued. 'They pursued careers in a sort of golden age of sportscasting when 'Monday Night Football' had shown the tremendous potential of prime-time sports and ESPN and, later, Fox Sports were just on the horizon. 'He was a consistently strong sportscaster. A very good, workmanlike boxing broadcaster; well-prepared, clear and effective in his calls.' And every time his career seemed to reach a fork in the road, he inevitably chose the right path — one that has him returning to do blow by blow, this time on DAZN PPV, for a May 2 world championship card featuring Ryan Garcia, Teófimo López and Devin Haney, in separate bouts, live from Times Square. It will be his first fight call since HBO ended its boxing programming in 2018. Jim Lampley waves to the crowd during his induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in June 2015. (Heather Ainsworth / Associated Press) In between his start at ABC and his return to his ring-side seat this week, Lampley was the first program host listeners heard on WFAN, helping it grow into the biggest sports-talk station in the country; anchored coverage of the Olympics and the NFL on NBC; appeared regularly on 'The CBS Morning Show' and had his own syndicated interview program, 'One on One With Jim Lampley.' Advertisement 'I was working all the time,' he said. 'I was making piles of money, one paycheck on top of another.' But he's also remembered in Los Angeles for a life-changing five-year stint as co-anchor of the nightly news on Channel 2. 'When I was forced out of ABC Sports, my next gig, my landing spot, was at KCBS-TV,' Lampley said on an hourlong Zoom call from his home in Chapel Hill, N.C., where he sat before a wall covered with dozens of the media credentials he has gathered over the decades. 'The first thing I said to my agent was 'that's a local station. That's not a network gig'.' It came with a big contract though. And when the station brought in Bree Walker to join him behind the anchor desk, Lampley's personal life, as well as his career, took a turn. Advertisement 'There was a giant promotional campaign and a lot of hoopla,' Lampley remembered in an interview long on detail and short on regret. 'Yes, it probably boosted my image. [But] I found myself in a situation where I felt ill-equipped to compete with her particular studio skills on air. 'I decided that my best defense would be to get her to fall in love with me.' Read more: The rise and fall of Ryan Garcia: Embattled boxer wants to be the relatable anti-hero And she did, marrying Lampley and having a son with him before the couple divorced after nine years. It was 'Anchorman' 14 years before the Will Ferrell movie made Ron Burgundy and Veronica Corningstone household names. Advertisement Months after moving to Los Angeles, Lampley also signed his first contract to call boxing on HBO, the job that would come to define his career. It was a job he was always meant to have since one of his earliest memories was of his widowed mother sitting him down in front of a television set perched on a TV dinner tray and putting on a Sugar Ray Robinson fight. He was 6. Eight years later he was in the Miami Beach Convention Hall to watch his boyhood idol Cassius Clay knock out Sonny Liston, and more than a quarter-century after that, Lampley was ringside in Tokyo for HBO when Buster Douglas knocked out Mike Tyson, making him the only broadcaster to be present for the two greatest upsets in heavyweight boxing history. So it has been a uniquely lucky life. And, as the title of the book says, it happened. 'This was the way it was supposed to go,' Lampley said with a smile. 'It was preordained.' Advertisement Lampley will be in Los Angeles for a pair of book signings, on May 8 at 7 p.m. at the Barnes and Noble at The Grove and on May 10 at 2 p.m. at the Wild Card Boxing Club. The event at the Grove will feature a Q and A session moderated by KCBS-TV sports director Jim Hill. Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
The Independent
21-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
‘I detest him, but I respect him': How Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank's fierce rivalry changed British boxing
Nigel Benn never took his eyes off Chris Eubank the first time they met in a boxing ring in 1990. It was a Sunday night at the NEC on the outskirts of Birmingham and British boxing would never be the same again. It was the night the sport moved from its comfortable black and white tradition to a world of colour and incident. Both fighters were different and not products of the usual boxing factories; the promoters, managers and high-profile hangers on were all part of a new business. Barry Hearn (promoter and friend to Eubank) and Ambrose Mendy (hype maestro, advisor and friend to Benn) made the madness happen. It was the start of the fight circus that we now accept; Eubank and Benn meetings were visually and verbally electric – the sons continued that tradition. The hate was real; Benn admitted it; Eubank still denies it. It all looks so perfect now, choreographed even, but it was all new at the time and raw. Eubank was an enigma, and Benn was a perfect dance partner. It was chilling being at ringside and so close to the intensity of the two boxers in the ring; it was obvious all week in Birmingham that something special was going to happen. There was simply too much on the line, it was always more than a title fight. Remember, neither Benn or Eubank could be considered the best or even the second-best middleweight in Britain at the time. This was a fight between characters, style, image and it was between two men with a promise to fight until the bitter end. It was all new, trust me, and the papers loved it. The WBO belt that Benn was defending meant very little at the time and the British Boxing Board of Control did not recognise the sanctioning body; the fight launched the WBO and that changed the sport in Britain with an endless stream of title fights from that night until the present day. It was not just a fight – it was a monumental game-changing event. There was genuine disbelief because the ringside seats were two hundred quid for a fight over a 'worthless piece of plastic', according to one senior scribe. Those were very different days in the press seats, a place packed with a lot of seasoned men; a dozen or more had been at the Rumble in the Jungle, all wore ties and Neil Allen of the London Evening Standard had gone to his first Olympics – Melbourne in 1956 – by ship! They were the last of the ancient days. I was just 27 and I felt like a child alongside the giants. Early in the week I had a story from a health club in Birmingham that Benn was struggling at the weight and he was. I think that was a quick 500 words in the paper and that is how the week went: stories each day, visits to gyms and hotels to speak to the boxers. And celebrity spotting – Bob Geldof in his shades and cowboy boots was all over Birmingham that week. And then it was the fight. Richard Steele, the world's most famous referee at the time, pulled them together for a final word. He knew the fight was special; he had seen Benn destroy Iran Barkley a few months earlier in Las Vegas. That had been a WBO defence and most of the British boxing press considered the title meaningless and that meant the win went under the radar. I believe Eubank changed the thinking of the boxing writers because we had never seen an eccentric like that before. There was still the great unknown with Eubank: could he really fight? It was furious from the opening bell, and it stayed that way until Steele jumped between them with just a few seconds left in the ninth round. Benn's left eye was closed, Eubank had been swallowing his own blood for rounds, and they had fought each other to a savage standstill in an unforgettable fight. Nobody wanted to back down, nobody wanted to turn away from the ferocity. It was one of the greatest fights to ever take place in a British ring, an instant classic. It was personal long before the first bell and long before Steele saved Benn from his own deep, deep bravery. At the very end Benn said: 'I detest him, but I respect him.' Eubank could not even attend the post-fight conference. The statistics only tell part of the story; Eubank moved to 25 wins in 25 fights; Benn lost for the second time in 29 fights. Eubank was just 24, Benn 26. The real measure of the fight's toll has nothing to do with those type of numbers: Eubank was lifted in and out of cold bath by his trainer, Ronnie Davies, after the fight and needed seven weeks to recover. Benn was broken in defeat, his hate even stronger and that is something inside that simply refuses to be measured. It is impossible to calculate a boxer's desire. They went down their separate paths after that fight. There was no rematch clause, Eubank and Hearn had a smart agenda to fight on a regular basis with little risk involved. Benn hunted Eubank down, moved to super-middle to chase him, won a world title and finally, in October 1993, they met again. The backdrop was the Theatre of Dreams and at the end of twelve amazing rounds, it was a draw. Then, they walked away from each other again and this time it was permanent: two men who changed British boxing and set a standard for sacrifice, pain, suffering and devotion in two fights of wonder. It was a true privilege, a highlight of too many years at ringside, to be present and working at both. This Saturday is, in many ways, a ghost of a fight, a reminder of two nights that nobody present will ever forget. Or want to ever forget.
