"The world grieves today, following the death of illustrious heavyweight giant Joe Swanson, who died this morning of an acute myocardial infarction.  Joe's appearance in the popular Nintendo Entertainment System video game "Mike Tyson's Punch Out" shot him in to the public life, making him a household name overnight.  Unfortunately, allegations of steroid abuse brought his career to a screeching halt just a few short years later. He is survived by his beloved brother, "Fragile" Fred Swanson and loving cousin "Brittle" Barry Armstrong."    

Many of you may be familiar with "Glass" Joe Swanson. The man. The myth. The legend.  But no one will ever know him the way I did. 

We first met in the summer of 1989.  He was an over the hill prize fighter, still clinging to his lifelong dream of becoming world champion.  I was a rambunctious six-year old, who played Nintendo four hours a day.  I don't know what it was, but Joe and I just clicked.  

There are very few people you can count on in this world, but Joe was one of them.  If I got into trouble at school and a teacher yelled at me, Joe was there to feel my wrath.  If I got in a fight with my sister and my mom grounded me, Joe would offer a shoulder to beat on.  If I ever just felt like kicking the shit out of someone for no particular reason, there was Joe, ready and willing.  Without someone like "Glass" Joe Swanson in my life I wouldn't be the man I am today.  If I have seen further it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.

Some critics might point out that in Joe's thirty year boxing career, he only actually won one fight, a bout in Cleaveland where his opponent was disqualified for dancing over his unconscious body.  But I say, let us not remember Joe as a talentless middle-card fighter who was once indicted in the death of a Venetian prostitute, but as a pioneer of the virtual boxing world, and a great man.

So to you Joe, I raise my glass. God damnit, we salute you.

To Glass Joe, a man that died the way he lived.

Unconscious on the floor, and covered in blood.