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January 27, 2005
No Headgear
Willie D of the fabulous fabulous Geto Boys de-romanticizes, then re-romanticizes the ring in a recent interview promoting their excellent reunion album, The Foundation:
Q: Have fun with this, a la "Fight Club" — "If you could fight any celebrity, who would you fight?"
A: I'd fight the one that would draw me the most attention and make me the most money. I mean whoever, it's whoever. Whoever the people want to see me fight, that's who I'd fight. 'Cause I wouldn't do it just for the fun of it, just for the hell of it because boxing is a very dangerous sport. It's a very dangerous sport. It's not to be taken lightly at all. I would probably wanna fight without headgear. I wouldn't wanna have headgear on. I'd wanna fight without the headgear.
Posted by jd at 10:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 16, 2005
Salford Boys
Boxing has a long and colorful history in the city of Manchester, so it's kind of a shame that the Tszyu/Hatton fight may not take place in Manchester after all; business is business, though, as any Manc boxer, trainer or promoter in the city's history would tell you. Meanwhile, the 4 a.m. starting time lends the match an eerie poetry before anybody's even laced up; scores of Hatton's loyal fans will have made the drive out to Bolton, half of them after closing the pubs and the other half after answering an unnaturally early wake-up call. On the other side of the ring, it wouldn't surprise me much to hear tell of diehard Tszyu fans coming all the way from Australia, showing up jet-lagged and thirsty for blood. At four in the morning. Possibly in the rain, June being no guarantee up north. The rest of the world (which is to say: "Las Vegas and Atlantic City") will enjoy an interesting fight on television, but however it plays out in the end, the fans in Bolton - and the fight's principals - will enjoy a singular experience.
Posted by jd at 02:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 08, 2005
Long Movie
What the thing about it is, see, is that this sort of thing happens all the time. Not the specifics — pissing in the fax machine? — but the general sense of the event: the feeling that somebody's crossed the midway point of the needle swinging left; that he's entered freefall. For boxers, this process is often so slow, so drawn out, as to defy narrative logic. You could try to tell the story in a film, but how long would the film have to be to get the feeling right? Eight hours? Ten? Twenty-four? How do you go from a career in which you won seventy-eight times, lost five, and never got knocked out once to total desperation? The distance from three-time world champion to making bail in Biloxi, Mississippi: what's that feel like? Why does this story tell itself over and over in boxers' lives: arrests on chump charges, stuff a kicking addict wouldn't get caught doing? Decline and fall, decline and fall. To say that this is part of the sport's appeal is untrue, but to deny that it seems part and parcel of the whole enchilada seems unduly hopeful.
Posted by jd at 07:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 05, 2005
Future Considerations
The question that would plague boxing and keep it up at night, if boxing were a single entity that needed to sleep and not a badly organized money-bleeding last-chance saloon for various hangers-on with severe self-confidence issues, is this: where does boxing fit into the modern world? The word "modern" is so thorny that you can't even use it without inviting in its hard-drinking friends (Mr. Pre, Mr. Post, and Mr. Quote End-quote), though, so let's try it with a slightly retro feel: what is boxing in the sports world of today? But this sounds stupid. "Why do certain artist-types gravitate toward boxing" is essentially the same question, or part of it, but won't give us the answer we want. Ditto "Where is boxing still popular?" and "Why can't I see boxing on TV for free except on Univision," which is a loaded question, because there's nothing stopping you from watching Univision or Telemundo — or, if you're lucky, your local Spanish-language affiliate.
But the question sticks. Is boxing something left over from a world in which we no longer live? Is this why the penny-ante corruption that'll always stick like barnacles to the hull of any sport has become, in essence, boxing's exoskeleton? What kid wants to be a boxer, when almost any other sport offers a better chance of success? Does boxing have a future and if so what is it? The answer, I'd contend, lies in framing the question right, which is what we're trying to do here, at our own slow pace.
Posted by jd at 03:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack