From our Compare and Contrast in Clear Idiomatic English desk
Interesting columns in Saturday’s local dailies about Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s short-lived boxing career.
Ron Borges in the Boston Herald:
Pro boxer threw punches with ‘evil’ Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2010
If Edwin Rodriguez knew back in late 2010 what he knows now, his boxing encounter in Worcester with Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev would have had a different ending, that’s for sure.
Reached yesterday afternoon, Rodriguez, the No. 2-ranked super middleweight in the world, pulled no punches when discussing his only encounter with Tsarnaev.
“I wasn’t trying to kill him; we were just sparring,” Rodriguez said, “but I would have if I knew he was that evil and a coward.”
Money quote:
“It told you everything that he showed up at my gym with nobody,” Rodriguez said. “I’ve never been to a gym by myself. When you go to someone else’s gym, you always want someone to have your back.”
Crosstown at the Boston Globe, columnist Kevin Cullen filed this:
Nothing tough about this boxer’s character
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a pretty good boxer, and he fashioned himself a tough guy. He was so tough he was charged with assaulting his girlfriend.
Last Monday, tough guy Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his brother left bombs on the sidewalk on Boylston Street and killed an 8-year-old boy, a 29-year-old woman who grew up in Medford, and a 23-year-old Chinese graduate student at Boston University.
Money quote:
It takes a tough guy to pack a bomb with ball bearings and nails and purposely put it in a crowd so that it will kill and maim men, women, and children. The Tsarnaevs were so tough that when they decided to kill a fine police officer named Sean Collier on Thursday night, they approached him from behind and shot Collier in the head even before Collier could get out of his cruiser.
Boston journalists are fighting mad about the Marathon mayhem, no doubt about it.
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