In Durban last Saturday Tendai "The Beast" Mtawarira left the British and Irish Lions with what the eponymous hero of Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker memorably described as "A face ful of foot pirnts and a hart ful of sorer". Every time the huge Springbok prop got the ball he rampaged down the field with half a dozen red-shirted opponents flapping from his mighty shoulders like some kind of ragged human cape, looking the sort of man who'd kick sand in the Incredible Hulk's face and flick the Terminator with a wet towel. Ian McGeechan brought on Adam Jones to try to halt the carnage, but he must surely have wished he'd had at least a bulldozer on the bench, if not an Abrams tank.
On the plus side, at least the powerful Bok's nickname gives the Lions a clue how to handle things when the two teams collide again tomorrow. As numerous headlines have pointed out Paul O'Connell and his men must "Tame the Beast". This is one of the advantages of coming up against a sports person or team with a bustingly obvious sobriquet – the means to overcoming them can be found in any newspaper. If you take on an Eagle, for example, you must "clip its wings", when you confront a poisonous insect "draw its sting", Fires must be doused, Guns spiked, Blades blunted, while an encounter with any type of canine – insane or otherwise – will undoubtedly require a degree of muzzling to be done.
This is clearly not as simple as it sounds, but it is a good deal easier than formulating a strategy for dealing with anyone rejoicing under the moniker "Non-Dairy Spread" or "Renewable Indigenous Hardwood". When heavyweight boxing champ Jack Dempsey stepped into the ring with Luis "The Wild Bull of the Pampas" Firpo it was clear that some "taking by the horns" would be necessary. When he battled George "The Orchid Man" Carpentier, however, the Manassa Mauler must initially have been wondering whether to prune him, weedkiller him, or go for the long-term strategy of leaving him on the windowsill and forgetting to repot him until he withered. In the end the American opted simply to punch The Orchid Man in the head until he fell down, which was admittedly effective as a strategy but not much good as a metaphor.
When it comes to nicknames there are almost as many Beasts in sport as there are Psychos and Mad Dogs. The Zimbabwe-born Springbok is just the latest to earn the tag. Though there may be arguments from fans of Rodney "The Beast" Howe, Dan "The Beast" Severn, Bob "The Beast" Sapp and Derek "Beast" Charlebois, in my view Mtawarira will have to ruin more careers than Phil Vickery's if he is to scoff from the same trough as the greatest Beast of them all, John "The Beast" Mugabi.
Mugabi was a pile-driver-fisted Ugandan middleweight who had the misfortune to come up against Marvin Hagler in his pugilistic pomp. The Marvelous One had previous experience in dealing with zoological tags having already caged Frank "The Animal" Fletcher. He also had a chin so solid it made titanium look like lemon soufflé. Mugabi banged his best shots into Hagler's jaw, but the great man simply shook his head like a carthorse irritated by a gnat and plodded remorselessly onwards. The Beast was battered.
Another sporting Beast was the Flemish cycling legend, Roger De Vlaeminck, aka "The Beast of Eeklo". Cycling is a sport that does pretty well on the nickname front. Over the years it has offered such elaborate sobriquets as the Eagle of Toledo (Federico Bahamontes), the Angel of the Mountains (Charly Gaul), Le Pédaleur de Charme (Hugo Koblet) and the Little Chimney Sweep (Maurice Garin) alongside a host of shorter but no less imaginative efforts such as the Heron (Fausto Coppi), the Badger (Bernard Hinault) and the Devil (Claudio Chiappucci).
While many sportsmen are happy with one nickname, top cyclists tend to accumulate them in the offhand way a diplomat does parking tickets. Marco Pantani was the Little Devil, the Little Elephant and the Pirate. All of which is causing me to worry slightly about Britain's Mark Cavendish. The sprinter from the Isle of Man is being touted as a potential green jersey winner in the forthcoming Tour de France, but so far he is just about the only member of the peloton who is testing negative for nicknames. Well, he is if you discount "Cav" anyway, and I think we should because as Jacques Anquetil (Maître Jacques, Monsieur Chrono, etc) once remarked: "You don't ride the Tour de France on infantile diminutives."
I don't blame the Manxman for his plight. You only have to look at Scottish football with its Bairns, Jags, Pars and Arabs to see how pitifully England lags behind. In Scotland lowly Clyde are awarded the splendid epithet the Bully Wee, while south of the border mighty Liverpool can barely be arsed with a nickname at all. Some may consider this is a rather superficial reading of the situation, but if I was Cavendish I'd boost my chances of victory by encouraging sympathetic journalists to refer to me as "The Tailless Cat". If I was Ian McGeechan, meanwhile, I'd be scouring Britain for a prop forward known as the Tranquilliser Dart.
