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02/04/2004 Archived Entry: "Boxing: Violence at its Best"
Boxing: Violence at its Best
By Clifford Endicott
For those of us who have been boxing fans for many years, wehave seen boxing evolve from an immensely popular spectacle tolittle more than a fringe sport. Where there was once severalarticles each week about the fights in the sports section ofmost newspapers, there is now usually only a couple per month,and almost always about the least interesting of thedivisions, the heavyweights.
Mention a name like Erik Moralesto even the most avid sports fan, and you receive nothing buta blank stare. Roy Jones might generate a comment along thelines of, "Oh yeah, I've heard of him...." There are a lot ofreasons for this, the lack of television coverage beingforemost among them, but I've often wondered why nobody seemsto care anymore. Because boxing has exactly what sports fanswant.
Look at most of the major sports. Football is based primarilyon violence. The objective of the game is, of course, tooutscore the other team. But at any given time there are onlya handful of players on the field that are there to get theball into the other team's endzone - the vast majority of theplayers on the field have a primary objective of knocking hisequal number on the other team's dick into the dirt. Baseballis less violent, but let's be honest - the most exciting thingthat can possibly happen in a ball game is a brushback orbeanball followed by a charge of the mound. A dugout-emptyingmelee is sure to get more SportsCenter coverage than abrilliant diving catch.
Hockey is nothing but a bone-jarring end-to-end crash-fest.Fans go bananas when anyone drops the gloves, and sports showshave entire segments dedicated to the creme-de-la-creme ofhockey fights. A talented but not particularly spectacularplayer can go virtually his entire career completelyunnoticed, but a goon like Tie Domi, with virtually no hockeyskills whatsoever, can be drafted in the second round and makemillions, as well as have the adoration of the public, simplybecause he can fight. Rugby is nothing but guys hammering eachother. There aren't a lot of on-field fights in soccer, butthe fans more than make up for that. Basketball is one sportthat doesn't really have a lot of violence, but I never hadthe slightest bit of interest in the game, so I won't offerany opinions. Needless to say, I can't see the attraction ofwatching a bunch of tall, spoiled millionaires running aroundin short pants.....
All these sports feed the fan's desire to see somethingviolent happen. Well, why don't they care about boxinganymore? It is NOTHING but violence. It simply doesn't haveany coy disguises - this isn't a game where the possibility ofviolence permeates every second, it IS violence every second.In addition to that rather large chunk of honesty, it is NOT agame. It is a sport like all the others, but there is NO gameinvolved. You can play football, hockey, baseball, basketball.Nobody plays boxing. You fight. And while there is artistryand skill, the man who "out-violents" his opponent wins thefight. And just to be certain that it goes your way, if youwant to make sure you don't get shafted by backroom politicsin a horrendous decision, you make every effort to cause youropponent a serious enough brain injury that he is unable tocontinue. Such is the nature of the beast.
Perhaps it is the political correctness of the times, but thesimplicity of boxing seems to be somewhat loathsome to theaverage sports fan. It is just so.... BASE. But boxing fansare honest. We appreciate a superlatively skilled fighter likeRoy Jones, but we really all want to see RJ - one guyhammering the other into submission. Tyson's continuedpopularity, despite his obvious lack of ability these days, isa testament to that. And we fans of the sport spend our timetrying to figure out who was the best-ever body puncher - whatfighter was most effective at simply hurting the other guy tothe best of his ability, before taking him out.
Great boxing stylists are appreciated. Muhammad Ali, PernellWhitaker, Howard Davis, Chris Byrd and the like all have theirfollowings. But the majority of fighters are there to knockthe other guy out. Such is the honesty of boxing. And giventhat the majority of other sports have their most interestingand exciting moments based in violence, I still can'tunderstand why so many fans have stopped caring about the onesport that makes no bones about it's goal: to beat up theother guy, and show that of the two men in the ring, you arethe better one......
