As a law student, Bob Bennett took a job at a moving company to help pay the bills. His older co-workers, full of resentment at the college boy in their midst, picked on him relentlessly. One day he had enough and, as he recalled in his 2008 book, “In The Ring,” “foolishly stood up to” Joe, the biggest of the bunch, “a real animal.”

When Joe “charged like a raging bull,” Bennett said he grabbed a two-by-four board and smacked Joe across the face with it.

Joe “fell to the ground, blood pouring from his nose and mouth,” Bennett recounted. “He gave me a toothless smile and said, ‘Kid, you’re OK.’ ”