Aside from the pure joy of the sport itself, boxing has had a long line of colorful characters with true insight into the game of life. Not too many people of our era will remember a fighter named Art Aragon but he picked up the sobriquet of "Mr. Sandman" owing to a comment he made after one of his fights. Apparently, he'd taken a sleeping pill by mistake before a fight when he was to take a headache pill:
"I was asleep between rounds, and I wasn't doing too well during the rounds, either,"Aragon said..
Aragon was an extremely popular contender in both the Lightweight and Welterweight divisions during the 1950s, an era where boxing was dominated by the Mob. A mobster named Frankie Carbo was notorious for fixing fights he'd bet on. The better known Jake LaMotta admitted he once "took a dive" in order to make things right with the mob boss.
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