NOT the least remarkable thing about Bernard Dunne’s world title win on Saturday was that he did it without having a properly established nickname. As we noted last week, a nickname can be a mixed blessing in some walks of life. But for a professional pugilist, it is a prerequisite second only to a boxing licence.
Sure enough, it turns out that Dunne does have a legally-held nickname – “The Dublin Dynamo” – though I had to look it up after the fight. Maybe I had heard him described as “Dublin Dynamo Bernard Dunne” before, and it passed me by because it just sounded like a compound adjective. At any rate, it is not nearly as well known as that localised weather condition “The Clones Cyclone” was, long before Barry McGuigan won his world title.
“The Dublin Dynamo” is at least in strict conformity with the sport’s rules, which state that a boxer’s nickname should involve either alliteration or rhyme, and that if it involves neither, it should have a very good excuse.
Not for boxers the anarchic system that applies to another sporting sub-genre where nicknames are compulsory: Brazilian soccer players. Whether it’s Garrincha or Pele, Zico or Robinho, no Brazilian footballer can expect to be taken seriously at the top level without a pet name by which he is known exclusively. Such IDs are as central to their identities as the model names of cars – Ford Mondeo, Fiat Bambino, etc – and, indeed, are often similar-sounding.
Where they differ from cars is that no research goes into Brazilian footballers’ nicknames before export. Hence such English-language branding disasters as “Dunga”, so named in childhood by a relative who thought he looked like one of the seven dwarfs (it’s Portuguese for “Dopey”), and the equally unfortunate “Kaka”, a title conferred in infancy by a sibling who couldn’t pronounce “Ricardo”.
In boxing, above all professions, you don’t want to give your opponent a stick to beat you with. Hence the strict rules for nicknames. Most boxers keep it simple by sticking to alliteration, viz: Brown Bomber (Joe Louis), Manassa Mauler (Jack Dempsey), Louisville Lip (Muhammad Ali), Gorgeous Gael (Jack Doyle), and so on.
Jersey Joe Walcott is interesting example of the genre, because “Joe” wasn’t his real name, nor was “Walcott”. He was born in Jersey all right, but as “Arnold Cream”. The “Joe Walcott” was adopted later as a tribute to an existing boxer he admired. As cream is something that gets beaten regularly, his original surname would in any case have been problematic.
In the absence of alliteration, rhyme is next best. Again the rule is to keep it simple, like Wayne “Pocket Rocket” McCullough. You can embellish when circumstances justify, as in the case of the seven-foot-tall Russian heavyweight Nikolay Valuev, “the Beast from the East”. But in my opinion, anyway, a Mexican welterweight who goes under the soubriquet of “the Hispanic causing Panic” is pushing his luck.
Although it appears orthodox, “Clones Cyclone” is not strictly alliterative (whereas “Gentleman Jim” is). But I suppose “Clones Climatological Disturbance” would have been cumbersome; and cyclone was an apt description of the boxer’s all-action style. In fact, given the huge contrast between the fellow townsmen, I thought it a missed opportunity that Kevin McBride – the man who retired Mike Tyson – was not called the “Clones Anti-Cyclone”. They opted for “Colossus” instead.
As “Iron Mike”, Tyson was one of those who flouted the rules, in this and every other respect. So did Smokin’ Joe (Frazier), and the two Sugar Rays (Robinson and Leonard). There was also James Braddock, “The Cinderella Man” of film, and Ruben “Hurricane” Carter. And closer to home there was “Rinty” Monaghan, aka “The Singing Irishman”.
Only a few boxers seem to have escaped a nickname altogether, with mixed results. I cannot recall Ireland’s Olympic gold medallist Michael Carruth ever having one, for example. And while it’s not clear that this held his professional career back, the fact is his career didn’t thrive. I still can’t help feeling that, as Michael “The Truth” Carruth, he could have been big in America.
Only rarely (for obvious reasons) are boxers given a nickname they don’t like. But it happened to Roberto Duran, one of the all-time greats, who was still known as “Manos de Piedra” (“Hands of Stone”) when he beat Sugar Ray Leonard in 1980. That was until the rematch five months later when, for boxing fans out of his earshot, he became Roberto “No Mas” Duran: based on his reported words – disputed ever since by he and his cornermen – when quitting during the 8th round.
Leonard’s camp had cunningly sought an early rematch, knowing that Duran was famous for celebrating victories and might struggle to make the weight. Sure enough, the plan worked. “No Mas” means “no more” in Spanish – which is as good a point as any to end this column.