Once upon a time I read an article about how sometimes when people from non English countries learn English, they give their kids wacky birth names. Things like Rocket Ship and Dishwasher and stuff because, hey, sometimes English words are weird.Not sure if that was the case here, or if Prince's mother just enjoyed Rasperry Beret and tentacles, but whatever the case Prince Octopus Dzanie is this guy's name, and we here at the GSNHOF are eternally grateful to those who saddled him with it.
So what's his deal? Well, Prince is a boxer from Ghana who made it to the 2008 Olympics. He was soundly defeated in 2 minutes 11 seconds by the heavily favored Idel Torriente, but what do you expect from a boxer who is 4'8" and only 126 pounds? I couldn't find any video of the fight, but I could find this video of an octopus eating a shark, so let that satisfy your desire to see the fight, which didn't last long.
Couldn't find anything else on Prince sportswise, so hopefully we'll see him again at the 2012 Olympic games. However, I did find this little tidbit from BBC's "A Question of Sport." Given nine names, the contestants had to figure out who was a real Olympian and who was not. Good times, and Prince is there right in the middle like Alice on the Brady Bunch.
Congratulations on your nomination to the GSNHOF Prince! Best of luck in the voting, which begins TODAY!
To see the best sports names of all time, visit the Truly Great Names page.
To see some good sports names that were voted out, visit the Good Names page.
To see the current voting ballot, visit the Ballot page.
I was just thinking about how all of those year ago I saw a boxer with the awesomest name a boxer could have get soundly beaten by a guy with a less awesome name. So I went to the google box and asked it if Price Octopus Dzanie had done anything else of note, which is how I ended up here. True story.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, Prince Octopus is still young (assuming he's still alive). Maybe 5 years from now someone will post, "you mean Prince Octopus the Nobel Prize winning physicist or porn star?!"