November 2000
CBZ Masthead

A Heavy Snooze

by Randy Gordon


     Heavyweight contenders are going to be making a lot less money in the future, thanks to Andrew Golota and David Tua.  The heavyweight division’s last two title challengers each showed as much willingness to fight as a cobra at a mongoose convention.  Damn!  The Lennox Lewis-David Tua contest will never be mistaken for any of the three Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier fights.  In fact, it will never be mistaken for any fight!  Period.

    Here’s a recap and a capsule summary of the bout:  Nothing happened. 

    At least there was some good news coming out of the Lewis-Tua love-in.  Members of the anti-boxing group, the American Medical Association (AMA), who are constantly calling for the banning of boxing, were watching the fight, er, contest.  They sent a report back to headquarters saying they saw nothing brutal about the sport and have ended their decades-old effort to have the sport banned.

    There is no question Lennox Lewis is real good.  Not great.  Just real good.  But he’s real good in comparison to the rest of a paltry lot of pachyderms.  Do you remember the division ever being this bad?  I don’t.  Lewis is in the right place and the right division at the right time. 

    I really don’t remember the last heavyweight title fight that was so boring, so dishwater dull, so lackluster, so devoid of action.  Go back.  Not even Muhammad Ali’s 15-round snoozefest against Jimmy Young over a quarter-century ago was this dull.  And for those of you to whom that fight is only a "W 15" on Ali’s record, believe me it was a stinker.

    Instead of living up to his reputation as being a ferocious,
flesh-devouring animal, David Tua turned into nothing more than a pre-Thanksgiving turkey for the once-beaten champion.

    After the fight, the Tua camp said they didn’t want to make excuses.  That one sentence was the lead-in to the excuse they didn’t want to make. He had a two-month old rib injury, said promoter Dan Goossen, once the believable voice amidst a group of lying weasels.  So, Goossen knew about the injury, huh?  He knew he was leading an injured fighter to his certain doom, to an unquestionable loss.   Goossen was promoting damaged goods.  Instead of postponing the fight, Goossen went ahead with it, anyway.  Hmm.  I thought we were going to be getting two fighters at 100%, not one guy at 100% and the
other with an injured rib.  I want my $50 back.  We all should get money back.  Not all of it.  Just some.   Sounds like a class action suit to me.  I’ll settle for $45 back.  I think the fight was certainly worth $4.95.  Or, here’s another idea.  Give Lewis and Tua’s money to Clifford Etienne and Lawrence Clay-Bey.  Whatever they got paid for their brawl just before the Lewis-Tua dance was not enough.  Give them the big bucks. 

    Who is Lewis going to fight next?  Gee.  I can hardly wait.  Next time, I am going to invite every person I know who bought the fight over to my house.  That way, there will be only one fee paid and hundreds of us can watch the fight.  It would be like going into an all-you-can-eat restaurant with a hundred of your most ravenous friends, capable of eating a person out of house and home.  Sure.  Fifty dollars for about a hundred people, each of whom would normally be shelling out $50, would be about worth it.

    Lewis may be headed towards a place in boxing history, but I can’t believe that place is greatness.  I don’t believe greatness is achieved by merely getting the job done.  That’s what he does.  He fights just enough to get the job done, against a group of guys who would never have been found anywhere near the top 10 of the division 10 years ago.  Twenty years ago.  Thirty years ago.  But today, this is what the heavyweight division has become.  Francois Botha.  Shannon Briggs.  David Tua.  Andrew Golota.  John Ruiz.  Larry Donald.  At best, they are a second-rate group of heavyweights. 

    Now, talk is of Lewis against Mike Tyson.  Ooh.  Another
I-can-hardly-wait bout.  Tyson’s walk-in, hell-bent style will make for considerably more action than Lewis-Tua gave us, but watching my wife do the laundry provides more action than that fight.

    Trust me.  Tyson will fall harder against Lewis than he fell against Buster Douglas. Or Evander Holyfield, who, by the way, should really say goodnight.  

    The heavyweight division’s future is as bleak as at any time in history.

    Bring on the little guys.

    Oh, how I look forward to seeing Felix Trinidad-Fernando Vargas!