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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 January 8, 2005 07:38 PM
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