1) Jack ‘The Assassin’ Tatum. You know, even before Jack crippled fellow football star Darryl Stingley, he’d already been dubbed The Assassin. When you’ve got that nickname and you go out in a preseason football game and *cripple* an opposing player? Talk about living up to it. I know that everybody wishes it hadn’t happened, of course, but nobody can say that guy wasn’t adequately summed up by his moniker.
2) Iron Mike Tyson. During his heyday, and before Cus D’Amato died, there was no more fearsome heavyweight champion than Iron Mike Tyson. This guy literally struck fear into the hearts of his opponents, even the best of the contenders. Had Cus lived longer, who knows what might have been.
3) Richard The Iceman Kuklinski. Okay, so it turns out that the convicted mafia hitman didn’t really kill all the people he claimed to. But still, a hit man nicknamed The Iceman who got nailed after stuffing a body in the freezer before dumping it? Sounds like something out of a Mario Puzo novel.
4) Bernard ‘The Executioner’ Hopkins. Lots of boxers have great nicknames. But too often, they seek them out for themselves, and never live up to them. Fifty million wannabes have self-proclaimed themselves Sugar Ray somebody and wound up being embarrassments. But Hopkins? Just like Jack Tatum, he more than lived up to his moniker.
5) Al Hraboski, The Mad Hungarian. On the mound, Hraboski could send chills up a batter’s spine because, frankly, he was probably known as the Mad Hungarian off the baseball diamond as well. Hraboski had a glare, his mound behavior was erratic, and he threw hard. You did not want to be leaning too far over the plate if Al decided to throw a little chin music. And, what better closer could you want to bring into a tight game than a guy known as the Mad Hungarian?
6) Dale Earnhardt. The Intimidator. He earned the nickname early on, and never relinquished it, racing hard until his untimely death. On the track, Number 3 *was* the Intimidator, no doubt about it.
7) George ‘The Animal’ Steele. Okay, so it’s wrestling and everybody has a nickname, or just goes by their character name. They’re written into the scripts, they’re made up, etc. But unlike Edge and Mankind and Test (Test? Why the hell would *anybody* wanna be called Test???), George ate fucking turnbuckles. He had the green tongue. He occasionally turned on his own tag team partner in the middle of a match to snack on the ringpost while opponents beat him over the head with steel chairs. Stone Cold Steve Austin is a *great* nickname. But back in the day, George The Animal Steele really lived the part, and set himself apart from other contemporaries, like Superstar Billy Graham and Greg The Hammer Valentine. For most of them, (Special Delivery Jones, Stan The Man Stasiak, Haystacks Calhoun) nothing about their nicknames really identified them. But George The Animal Steele *was* his nickname, which set him apart in a category all to himself.
8) The Steel Curtain. Not an individual, but the nickname for the Pittsburgh Steelers’ play hard, hit hard, never-let-up defense. Nobody, no matter how talented their receiving corps, looked forward to facing the Steel Curtain.
9) Charlie Hustle. Pete Rose had his share of ups and downs throughout his baseball career, but his nickname derived from the way he played the game. Every pitch, every inning, every play. Whether it was running to first after a base on balls or the now-infamous collision at the plate with Ray Fosse in the 1970 All-Star game (the play is textbook baseball highlight reel), Rose deserved the nickname because it fit him like he’d been born with it.
10) Everybody probably knows Manfred von Richthofen, if only by his nickname. The WWI German fighter pilot is more commonly known as The Red Baron, a nickname which has taken on iconic status. When you say The Red Baron, people know what you mean, whether you’re applying it to a sports figure, a military opponent, a motorcycle rider adept at various feats of derring do on the road, etc. Even Snoopy found The Red Baron to be a perfect foil for his doghouse dogfights. You don’t give yourself a nickname like that, either. But once you get one, and you continue to grow the legend that supports it, then you’ve truly earned it.
