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Mazz’ Tiers: Biggest Boston Sports Villains



Tony Mazz gives us a list of the biggest villains in Boston sports history!

Thumbnail Images Courtesy of USA Today Sports (Mark J. Rebilas & Kyle Terada)

Maz what do we got this week okay so this week we’re doing uh great Boston Sports villains villains with Kyrie Irving coming back to town felt like the prime opportunity to sort of examine who are the players that Boston sports fans have hated the most and again I sort of always use 1980s as a starting point I think we go before that it gets a little old and and and let’s also Define these are not nemesises like you know Nemesis Nemesis like I said to you gur right he wasn’t a villain he was just good and in your Thor in your side know what I mean correct go ahead and so well that said there may be one on here that doesn’t qualify but we’ll get to that later so we’re starting with tier three and again now I want to tell you also when we get to tier one generally speaking nothing is ever ABS fully absolute but there was a specific criteria I had for tier one okay which I’ll explain in a minute but tier three Bill Parcels yes he was loved here but he did bail on you in the Super Bowl Bill par house is a little bit of a turn coat maybe a lot of a turn coat that first tuna Bowl in 97 when he came back on a Sunday night was Mayhem I was in the building that night was wild the emotions for Bill Parcels run very high in both directions so now I’ll try to go through the list rapidly there are 25 people on this list I’ll get to the 25th name in a minute but George steinbruner Rex Ryan Claude Lemieux and Dale Hunter both from the n who are like rats total rats and the reason they’re in tier three is because they were rats to everybody not just you Rick Mahorn and Jeff Rand who were with the Washington Bullets back then and the reason they were on the list is because Johnny Mo had one of the best nicknames ever for them McNasty and MC uh filthy MC filthy very good MC filthy and McNasty uh Chuck Pon Indiana Pacers The Rifleman they used to call him they also called him the rifle mouth cuz he talked a lot of trash he was a great villain for a short period of time Andrew Tony is more of a nemesis but he did have the nickname The Boston Strangler he was he was villainized by Boston sports fans Roger Goodell sorry only tier three love it he doesn’t really hate you like you think he does and the 25th name on the list we did 25 Murray cuz we had 24 and I needed a 25th name and we wanted to extend the boundaries a little bit the lines Colin Montgomery in the rder cup was an absolute Target of fans at the country club and you remember this so I covered it I was in I was inside the ropes I followed his group and I was out there one of those days that it was all the back and forth where he you know they’re calling Mrs Doubtfire and they were heckling him during punts you know during putts he’d be lining up a putt supposed to be quiet and guys are shouting at him that’s great and Montgomery would drain the Putt and turn around and like like donic like he he was like Luca donic on the golf course it was I gained a whole measure respect for the guy that day he was awesome and the fans were all over him it was really a spectacle I mean they were they were on him they were on him it was it was nasty okay tier two tier two Draymond Green Draymond Green became a villain in that Series against uh the Golden State Warriors he plays a good villain too you mucks it up on the floor all that sort of stuff PK suban with Montreal became a villain for the flopping and also I would argue that a lot of the guys on this particular uh section of the list had some Talent a lot not all so you had to respect their talent at the same time Dawn schula became a big villain here in New England as a patriot oh they can’t stand him and again very accomplished guy way bogs became a villain could have been argued for tier one former Red Sox player again I’ll explain the criteria in tier one shortly Bill lame beer with the Detroit Pistons Jimmy Stewart I think wanted the whole 80s pistons on the list which I can’t blame him for instead we picked a guy that was really just the face of the Detroit Pistons at least from the Rivalry of the Celtics lamb beer was a good one the players hated lamb beer Bart Scott sort of goes along with Rex Ryan and the Jets also played with the Ravens obviously not afraid to Trash Talk the Patriots I considered Joey Porter BK Scott was a a better fit for me than Joey Porter was and Chris Nyon Knuckles Knuckles Nyland so the reason he is on uh tier 2 versus Dale Hunter and Claude Lemieux is because Nyon was a little bit more Boston specific you know there was real sort of hatred for Boston not that he wasn’t a bully with the rest of the league but there was some real sort of animosity and a grudge with Boston that existed with nland that’s tier two now you want the criteria for tier one please okay to me to be a tier one villain generally speaking you need to have committed one of two crimes one is treason you have to have turned your back on the city of Boston you need to be someone who again turn coat Bill par house was only here four years some of these other guys were here longer and their degrees of uh what’s the word I’m looking for treason treason their degrees of treason were worse or you have to be guilty of assault okay and that means you have to have hurt yep a Boston player in some way that was reprehensible yes sir okay so here we go tier one Kyrie Irving he’s tier one I’m sorry the way that thing went down was just bad it was bad all the way around Roger Clemens another one I want to play closer to home then he goes to Toronto and the Yankees love that I mean that whole thing was just a clown show Clemens became an enormous villain this guy never played here but he could have it was close at Alex Rodriguez and became really the the uh the voodoo doll that you picked on during that 2003 for span where the Red Sox and Yankees had some of the best competition ever I mean the slight assault you know with the w right on Bronson Royal M very good but he snatched his purse is what he did Matt Cook oh yeah who hurt uh Mark saart uh drilled him in the side of the head frankly like basically ended his career right he was never really the same for all intents and purposes did yes I mean that was a really that was a dirty dirty hit Bernard Pard who took out Tom Brady and Rob gronowski Al be it in different seasons two-time offender that a-hole a knee injury to Brady that ended his season the ankle injury that hurt grank in 2011 I believe that was and grank wasn’t himself in the Super Bowl Al samelson great uh rival or adversary of Cam Neely Neely hated Al Samuelson Boston hated Al Samson and again started that whole knee problem really that Neil he hadn’t effectively entered career early Pat Riley not a turn coat but such a representative of the 80s Lakers and then the Miami Heat Riley to me sort of in a Class by Himself in tier one as far as coaches go but a great great great villain in Boston Sports history and Jack Tatum who delivered the hit on Daryl Stingley and never apologize yeah that uh ended stingy’s career and really obviously altered his life made him a never showed remorse yeah yeah made him a paraplegic and uh really just an awful awful incident but Jack Tatum again one of the great villains of Boston Sports history that is uh those are your 25 people in the three tiers 25 I feel like usually I have an addition I I can’t think of any Jimmy I was trying to advocate for Kurt chilling that’s crazy but he has he become one he done it to himself yeah that’s a good one Jimmy I mean to some people yeah I mean in some ways he has become a villain I left him off I was trying to keep him more the you know Arena of um what’s the right word yeah guys who also competed against Boston I guess he did I guess he did is Kyrie top tier the top tier uh I think so yeah I don’t know if he’s quite number one on the list but he’s up there who’s number one on the list I think go ahead I for me him and Clemens are a coin flip that Clemens stuff both both spots Toronto when he first came back it was lights out staring up at duette MF and him that whole thing and then what was the one weren’t some fans on his side I don’t remember I think they were I think people were like what are you doing to the Red Sox and duette yeah at the beginning they were yeah people wanted him back he didn’t stay you know he also over the years kind of turned himself into an a-hole with that we had to carry our own luggage and that kind of crap there was always something with Roger so uh and then there was that playoff game between him and Pedro the I think the Herold made a fight card there was that whole crapped his pants sh he got freaking shelled I’ll tell you I to me who was a sneaky name in the list and I did not come up with it uh someone else in the building did uh Riley Riley over decades definitely has remained one of the great oh right like we’re going back now 30 years 40 years with Riley I think it’s part of the reason that heat Celtics sing is so good absolutely he’s still there it’s like he looms I would I would give him serious consideration for number one on the list I I think he just like the other guys were maybe at higher Peaks than but if you’re talking about a lifelong villain consistent Mega villain oh yeah he’s like Lex Luth Doom oh totally so paint manning isn’t on there he’s not he’s not a villain he’s not a villain he was an adversary he was a nemesis right I mean not much of one but yeah right Magic Johnson’s not on there either yeah because again those guys were you know alltime opponents but they weren’t villains you didn’t hate them because you thought they were bad people these are the type of guys that at the bar after you’ve had too many there’s someone next to you you bring up The Name They smash the bottle like let me ask if I see him he’s a dead man like that’s that’s what you get on those tear you can weigh on that or anything else we’ve hit on today as agenda fre Friday continues after big J Murray get you updated if you like that clip check out more videos from felger and Maz here for more Celtics analysis and opinion hit this playlist and for all the latest from the sports subub download the app at 985 the sportshub tocom

27 Comments

  1. I hated Derek Jeter a great deal, far more than ARod. And I never really hated Clemens until he went to the Yankees. Your hockey picks are right on.

    My sneaky pick? Mickey Rivers.

  2. Pat Rat Riley they hate in New York and Boston while in Miami they're afraid of him .

  3. Thank you for not putting Curt Schilling on there. Maybe an enemy to RI, die-heard Democrats, and Tim Wakefield’s family, but not an enemy of Boston sports. Else Boston sports fans need to renounce the ‘04 WS win (and prob ‘07 too).

  4. I'd add Terrell Suggs, Eric Mangini, and Maxim Lapierre.
    I don't see Kyrie as a villain because of anything he did on the court, I see him as a social justice villain. I don't even care that he said he was gonna stay then left, that worked out better for us anyway.

  5. As much as I despise the Lakers and Heat and the sometimes misery Pat Riley has put us Celtics fans through, he’s honestly the only one on any of these tiers that I have respect for, it’s hard to not appreciate his greatness and being a worthy opponent as a sports fan.

  6. How did Ray Allen not make this list. At the time, leaving the Celtics to join the Heat and LeBron James he was just as much of a villain as Kyrie was.

  7. Honorable mention. Aaron Rome for the hit on Nathan Horton in the 2011 cup final. Basically career ending he was never the same

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