A wonderful fall is almost upon us. We've been enduring the worst of the "new normal" for about a year now. The corporate cynicism -- low sales, high layoffs and "met" earnings -- the political instability, currencies that defy supply and demand, and an increasingly unemployed populace unmoored from reasonableness. Now boxing fans get a little compensation.
The new normal has made fights happen this fall that couldn't have happened the last 10 falls. Fighters with foresight and financial advisers have taken pay cuts to remain gainfully employed. And those without are fighting Juan Manuel Marquez.
From Mayweather-Marquez to Klitschko-Arreola, Pavlik-Williams, Cotto-Pacquiao and the unmitigated joy that remains Showtime's "Super Six" tournament, boxing fans are in for a historic fall. Someday you'll probably tell your grandchildren about one of these fights and the fall that comprised it.
But before we could come to our historic fall we had to pass through a last bit of ugliness and then a gateway. The ugliness came last weekend. The gateway comes this weekend. Let's start with the gateway.
Saturday evening, Houstonian Juan "Baby Bull" Diaz returns to his hometown's Toyota Center -- site of what remains the fight of this year -- to battle Paulie "Magic Man" Malignaggi on HBO's Boxing After Dark. Though the main event combatants are a collective 2-3 (0 KOs) in their last five bouts, Diaz-Malignaggi, fought at 140 pounds, should be entertaining.
Diaz has to be the favorite. Because he'll be gaining the five pounds between lightweight and junior middleweight on his chin, not his fists, he's unlikely to knock Malignaggi out. But Malignaggi knocks no one out. Diaz's Texan supporters, then, should celebrate their man's higher activity rate loudly enough to sway Saturday's judges. And you always favor a volume puncher over a boxer; it's a stylistic rule.
How did Diaz get back on HBO after being starched by Juan Manuel Marquez in February? Three ways. He graduated from University of Houston in the spring. He sells tickets. And when he loses, he does it with unquestionable honor and dignity. Malignaggi, too, loses with unquestionable honor. And not every fighter can say that.
So we come to the residual ugliness of boxing's dreadful summer.
Friday night in Tucson -- as part of what ESPN2 must now consider a programming mishap -- Vivian Harris headlined the worst card in Desert Diamond Casino's otherwise proud history. Its four broadcast fights did not add up to five rounds of boxing.
I should mention that the off-television matches were pretty good. But if you watched Friday Night Fights, you don't believe me, do you?
After complaining about a headbutt in the first round, Harris slammed his left temple off opponent Noe Bolanos' forehead in the first half minute of the second. The spectacle that ensued was grotesque in the denotative sense of the word. Harris stumbled about, went to a corner and collapsed -- eyes closed, body limp.
The fight stopped. Paramedics arrived at ringside immediately. Harris went off on a stretcher. And the Tucson crowd booed as he was wheeled away. The entire scene had unreal air to it.
Ten months ago I called a Phoenix match for GoFightLive.tv that saw Jonathan Taylor removed from the ring on a stretcher. Celebrity Theatre was eerie for the rest of the night. People milled about making contact with wide eyes. An official from the Arizona State Boxing Commission stayed in the hospital with Taylor until after noon the next day.
Friday was nothing like that. Before leads could be written at ringside, editors called to say ESPN2's cameras showed Harris conscious, seated upright and talking. He dressed himself and took a precautionary trip to a local hospital, from which he was released that night.
Here are two facts. Harris told a ringside physician he had no idea where he was. And in the opening four minutes of Friday's match, Harris wanted no part of fighting.
Each person can determine for himself how correlated those facts are, but here's one thing we can agree on: Vivian Harris should not fight again.
The next night a looming tragedy was averted in Biloxi, Miss., when Jeff "Left Hook" Lacy's corner wisely stopped their guy's fight with Roy "Captain Hook" Jones, Jr. Lacy was soldiering forward and being chopped up by Jones who -- put before a spent bullet -- looked good. And so the Jones delusion marches on.
There's an interesting and reflexive thing now happening in Jones' career. Serious fans and scribes disregard the man once imagined the second coming of Sugar Ray Robison. And Jones reciprocates. All that remain in the crowds of his fights today are rabid supporters.
Fired from HBO, dismissed by Joe Calzaghe and banished from television, Jones appears to be enjoying obscurity. He has three dressing rooms' worth of sycophants while he warms up, a father crazy as he is in his corner, and at least a thousand people in most Southern cities who'll pay a small stipend to sit in the crowd, look away from him and yell "Roy!" at a camera.
How does "Captain Hook" reciprocate? He makes a fun show, throwing eight-hook combinations, wiggling his hips and conversing with bystanders throughout. Things get a little heavy when commentators say "I don't think he's ever looked this sharp before," but, well, all theater demands some suspension of disbelief.
We'll probably never know "Hook City's" pay-per-view numbers or the paid gate at the Coast Coliseum. Certainly, they'll never be told to Jones. But so what? There's something charming about a craftsman this blithely unaware of majority opinion. We'll just hope Jones loses interest before he's ever again imperiled.
We're now done with the ugly summer of 2009, either way. Let's rejoice. Saturday takes us to the precipice of a historic fall. Enjoy its every minute. Before you can blink, we'll be settled in for winter -- literally and figuratively.
Bart Barry can be reached at Twitter.com/bartbarry
share on: facebook
No comments:
Post a Comment