Issue 385: Bonza, Space Planes & Albatross

Many moons ago, as a young cub journalist, I tracked down and interviewed a little-known former boxer called Chuck Wepner. Wepner was a chubby amateur boxer juggling a day job from New Jersey when, in 1975, he was given an improbable shot at the heavyweight title against Muhammad Ali, in his next bout after The Rumble in the Jungle. Nicknamed The Bayonne Bleeder because of his propensity to cut after taking a punch, Wepner told me he’d scrapped with as many men in the streets as he’d battled in the ring.