The World Awaits
As boxing repents for its sins
Ajitpaul Mangat, Staff
May 5, 2007 was supposed to be the night to save boxing. 17,157 of the who’s-who (Leo! Denzel! Jack!) crammed into Las Vegas’ sinfully impressive chapel of pugilism, the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Millions of others clamoured around their television sets. They were awaiting the best athletics has to offer: a boxing prize super fight. The sport’s most beloved, the “Golden Boy” Oscar de la Hoya, whose comeliness and inveiglement made him ubiquitously accepted, was about to face the sport’s most prodigious, the undefeated Floyd Mayweather, Jr., considered throughout the industry as the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world, for the WBC super welterweight championship.
Visions of grandeur rope-a-doped through humanities collective conscience: Luis Ángel Firpo iconically knocking Jack Dempsey out of the ring, Muhammad Ali out-rumbling George Foreman, in the jungle, and Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns spewing their blood, sweat, and tears in “The War.”
De la Hoya-Mayweather, titled “The World Awaits,” seemingly subsumed the proper ingredients for another inspiring ballet of sadistic artistry. So, indeed, with bated breath and eyes wide open the world did await.
Twelve craven, dreary rounds of boxing later two pristine, salubrious men, stood impassively as the result few still cared about was announced (Mayweather won by split decision), for humanity had closed their exasperated eyes rounds ago. Their visions had proven to be delusions and ones of mislaid optimism.
Boxing if not dead, was on its last legs.
Even with hindsight 20-20, the signs had all been there. A tepid and showy, but soulless, pre-fight build-up had been more bark than bite.
Mayweather, wearing over a million dollars worth of jewellery, spat more comical than threatening lies (saying he was going to retire after the fight), and platitudes: “I told him he a pussy, and he know what men do to pussy. They fuck ’em. He gonna get fucked.” De la Hoya, an opulent promoter, in addition to being a boxer, proved himself to be a natural actor, simply feigning anger at Mayweather’s comments by saying, “No, he wont!” Then there was HBO’s “soap-operaish” series 24-7, which documented each boxer’s pre-fight regimen. Mayweather pathologically drawn to the camera seemed more interested in fame than fighting. De la Hoya, a content husband and father with nothing left to prove, looked like a showman going through the motions. Each boxer’s tepid preparation screamed of indolence and apathy.
But most telling was Mayweather’s entrance music. Symbolically propelling Mayweather to the ring was 50 Cent rapping “Straight to the Bank”: “I ain’t even got to rap now life is made / Said I ain’t even got to rap, I’m filthy made / I’m laughing straight to the bank.” Truly Mayweather and De la Hoya did not have to fight, because they were already made. The two fighters combined to ultimately rake in a collective $75 million. There was no incentive to kill or be killed. After all, a dead man cannot bask and revel in his wealth.
So the result was a glorified sparring match between two men wanting to remain attractive for their corporately sponsored after parties on the Vegas Strip. What was once a daring and satisfying blood sport, boxing had become an ignominious exhibition of profligacy and capitalism.
Since that bleak, forgettable night boxing enthusiasts have been left to ponder: “Where have all the Rocky Balboas — those heroic, working-class underdogs who people can relate to and respect — gone?”
While boxing is seemingly devoid of such characters, its main competitor, UFC, is prospering by employing them. UFC’s mixed-martial-arts deliver what boxing once did: knockdowns. Where boxing too often goes to scorecards marked by crooked, faceless judges, every UFC fight has a clear victor standing tall, and a beaten, broken body splayed on the mat.
So, is Randy Couture or Chuck Liddell the next Rocky Balboa? If boxing does not repent for its sins — gluttony and greed — and respond to its fleeing audience, its future as a mainstream sport could be in doubt.
*****
Sept. 29, 2007 was just another Saturday evening. The world was not abuzz with thoughts of boxing on the cortex, like had occurred a few short months ago. The who’s-who had become the who-cares. The millions had shrunk to thousands. Gaudy, cacophonic Las Vegas was now the subtler Atlantic City.
So, with the undisputed middleweight championship of the world about to be contended, there was a queer, perturbing stillness that cloaked the cavalier boxing world.
But then something happened — a fight broke out.
Two men with everything to prove and a desire to be immortal boxed with anachronistic bravery and malevolence. When undefeated champion Jermain Taylor brutally knocked down undefeated challenger Kelly Pavlik in the second round, Pavlik, instead of cowering, arose boldly his spirit unnerved. Then, in the seventh round, with the crowd in a hedonistic frenzy, and each boxer fighting for their lives, a clear victor emerged. A bloody Pavlik, his broken nose sitting oblique on his face, trapped a swollen-eyed Taylor in the corner of the ring and unleashed a flurry of punches that dropped Taylor paralyzed to the canvas. It was the stuff of legend; the reason fans cherish the sport. Many have called it one of the best middleweight bouts ever. Others have called it boxing’s emergence from a self-created purgatory.
As Esquire magazine’s Chris Jones said, “[Boxing] needs more than one great fight or one great fighter to save itself.” Truly, the sport needs a procession of great fights and great boxers to emerge. The next two months should go a long way to determining if that happens as the quality of impending fights is astounding.
Thus, only time will tell if Pavlik-Taylor proves to be a prophetic sign
of boxing’s future, Until then, the world once again awaits.
