Ring Legends. Stanely Ketchel The Michigan Assassin

, ringlegends, brawlerz, stanleyketchel The Michigan Assassin Stanley Ketchel. Born in 1886 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, he avoided school, instead falling in with a gang of street kids and often getting into fist fights. At twelve years old, he ran away from home, becoming a child hobo. As a teenager he lived in Butte, Montana, where he found employment first as a hotel bellhop and then as a bouncer. This profession obviously led to many scraps that established his reputation as the best fist fighter in town. . Soon enough sixteenyearold Stanley was performing in backroom boxing matches with older locals for twenty dollars a week. In 1907, he moved to California, where he knew most of boxing s big names and big fights waited for him. . Only a middleweight, Ketchel was also known for taking on heavyweights, who sometimes outweighed him by more than 30 pounds (14 kg). According to hearsay, before each of his fights, he would imagine that his opponent had insulted his mo