[spiderarms]

Originally Posted by battleship25

IMHO , Probert did this more than anyone. Maybe not always a turtle, but he had so many guys suckered in dropping their gloves :
J.Carlson
Cochrane (at least 2x)
Semenko(jumping)
Maguire (same took the shots- Maguire got the penalty)
Fotiu of course !! (apparently twice)
Grant Jennings
Clark
Nylund
and many others

Why?? Because he became so valuable that he couldn't be fighting every lunkhead that challenged him. This got the Wings a lot of penalties ..and the funny thing is Probie scored a ton of PP goals (I think 20 in his best yr). He still had time to fight over 300+ times..incredible. But he was great at it..making it look like he wanted to fight..but he just wanted to draw the penalty. It was part of his unpredictability .

Now as far as pure turtling ..no one beat Baxter...so hated , everyone wanted to kill him ...but on occasion he could fight(ask Kev. Mac..they had a couple of tremendous t2t bouts).

Once the instigator rule came that's when the fake glove drop exploded...everyone was doing it. Trying to get the other guy to take the penalty.

Brad Smith (TOR) turtled standing up at the STL net when Norwood just suckered him when Smith thought the coast was clear ..LOL. Almost closed his eye shut.

IMO, Probert was LEGENDARY and easily the most well known and popular fighter ever in the NHL and he had that image to protect, especially against lesser fighters who wanted to make a name for themselves by just sucker punching Bob Probert.

To me, if he didn't hit them back, why wouldn't they do it all the more to build up their reputations without paying any retribution for it. Letting some "Run of the Mill, Heavyweight" like a Mike Stothers attempt punching him in the face without returning fire hurts that image.

Just my opinion, but I hear your reasoning behind it.

In the case with Dave Brown in their second fight, he was originally trying to draw a penalty at the start of the fight. Obviously, he changed his mind and he came back in a BIG WAY in that one but what would have happened if they hadn't fought and he had only drawn the penalty!

I'm wondering if some of Probert's "slow starts" in his fights were because he was thinking about whether or not to draw penalties or not ?

In any event, one thing about his turtling, he will NEVER be questioned about his motive as he was COURAGEOUS, no question about it!