I didn’t write right away about the last Fury “fight.”

Okay, bone spurs suck.  I’ve got some in my wrist, and I can’t have surgery soon enough.  So I sympathize with Fury on that score.  He needs to get elbow surgery, let him have it.   Funny though, remember when Usyk beat Joshua the second time?  He called out Fury, but said he had first to get surgery (as I recall) on his elbows.  And Fury, of course, did the gentlemanly thing and signed a contract to fight Usyk as soon as he was healed up.

Ha ha! I make a funny joke!

No, he railed against Usyk, calling him cowardly, etc., then he mounted the greatest campaign of non-fighting chicanery I have ever seen a champion do. I won’t bore you recounting all his lies and machinations here, you can read about them below.  But he ducked Usyk, Joshua, Joyce and other mandatory challengers in order to fight Chisora; a fight no one wanted to see. (By no one, I mean me.  I have a pretty high opinion of myself.) And the denouement of this sordid tale?  Fury is now doing precisely the same thing that he railed at Usyk for.

They need to take his belt away. Come on, WBC.  Grow a pair.  Put this fallacious gasbag back on the outside, looking in.  Maybe then he’ll want to fight.

Maybe we can get Joyce his long-awaited return bout with Usyk.  That one I will pay to see.

 Fury’s sideshow? No thanks.

And I am so glad he is.  He did it just the way I hoped he would, with his mythological, fantastic power.  He only landed three punches.  OMG that’s amazing.  He is back.  He is all the way back.

Yes, I believe that like me, everyone on the Wilder team figured this to be a easy night, and like Fury’s fighting Schwartz this was a little seedy, a little cheap.  The difference was Wilder coming off back-to-back knockout losses, Fury was coming off an extended bender.  We wanted, no needed to see if the monster inside Fury had survived  (See That Terrible Miniaturization below).

Here is my sincerest hope for the heavyweight division:  That someone beats Fury, and with no stinking rematch clause in their contract.   Let the Big Tosser wait in the wings, floating in cloudless climes and starry skies, ever hoping to get his hands on a title shot that remains just out of reach…  That would be some poetic justice right there.  It also might allow some real compelling fights to take place.

I just wrote about the long list of ‘mandatory challengers’ (see Bottleneck, below)  Add Wilder to that list.  What remains is for the Wanker to sign to fight one of them.  Seriously, if he follows through with his plan to fight Mahmoud Charr, he needs to have his belt taken away.  That way it could go to a man willing to fight for it.

But back to Wilder: The punch that leveled Helenius was very reminiscent of the ‘Phantom Punch’ that felled Liston in 1965. Wilder, like Ali was moving backward, then planted his right foot and delivered a short, chopping blow that removed his man from his senses. 

This is making me reconsider my opinion on Ali / Liston.

At first, many years ago, I saw the film clip at normal speed and without zooming in and I didn’t see the punch either.  This was a great mystery to me. I did not want to think of Ali cheating somehow, so I let it be a mystery.

Then later I saw a slowed down and zoomed-in version in the film When We were Kings.   They also had Ali describing the punch as his “anchor punch” and he quipped that no one saw the punch because they all blinked at the same time.  But that time I could see the punch, and the impact on Liston’s head and how his left foot came off the canvas.  All these things made an actual knockout seem more plausible.

It was the fish-flop that Liston did that looked phony to me.  I eventually heard some wag (it may have been Bert Sugar, I don’t remember) point out the two hard shots that Ali landed at the opening bell.  They happen so fast that I, as did the man calling the TV play-by-play didn’t notice them.  But Liston noticed.  The theory is that he got whacked right out of the gate, followed by two minutes of fruitless lunging and missing, just like the first fight.  The thought is that he got so discouraged that he was looking for a way out when *Bam!* A flash knockdown!  Here was his chance to escape further humiliation, and thus, the fish-flop.  This was Liston’s clumsy and improvised escape.

Now I wonder…  I don’t think Helenius was faking. 

I read that he was paid roughly a million dollars to get his nose flattened.

Which is somewhat gratifying.  I found it very sad indeed that he was only paid $30,000 to fight Kownacki, and $75,000 for the rematch, where he got clocked in the nuts, several times. At least he got a bigger paycheck for this nighty-night performance.  For I expect we’ll not see much of the “Nordic Nightmare” from now on.  After all, Wilder knocked Breazeale into obscurity in just the same way.

Earlier in his career (2010 and 2011) Helenius beat Lamon Brewster, Samuel Peter and Derek Chisora.  In more recent times, he lost to Gerald Washington and Dillion Whyte, and some fellow named Johann Duhaupas.  All in all a pretty impressive record.  I hope he can take pride in it and find something else to do now. And I hope the million bucks helps him get it started.

And no one is complaining except me, it seems.

There have been three recent ‘title eliminators’ but no movement toward an actual title fight.  It seems that the sobriquet “Mandatory Challenger” has as much meaning as their boxing names, like “Towering Inferno” or “Touch of Sleep.”

A long time ago I made a spreadsheet that created boxing names.  The main joke was that bad nick names, like “Dim Bulb”, “Gelding” or “Nicely Coiffed” were included.  Another joke aspect was that all the names were either Latin sounding, or eastern European, like “Igor “the Switch-Hitter” Mayorga” or “Manuel “Two-Sheds” Solzhenitsyn.  I looked but couldn’t find that one.  I did find a generator that I wrote with all Jewish names, to wit:

	Your Son’s Birth Month		Your Daughter’s Birth Month		Your Birth Month
1	Lester		the Hammering Hebrew		Schwartz
2	Morey		you want I should stop hitting you?		Lieberman
3	Saul		The Dybbuk		Finkelstein
4	Bernie		You call that a Jab?		Rothschild
5	Malcolm		the Smiter		Abelman
6	Abraham		the Horn of Joshua		Lipschitz
7	Hiram		the Pillar of Fire		Rosenthal
8	Cyrus		The Desert Wanderer		Cohen
9	Ruben		the Mensch		Feinberg
10	Chaim		Matzeltov		Liebowitz
11	Benjamin		the Plague of Fists		Abramowitz
12	Rorey		Aaron’s Rod		Morgenstern

(I got “Ruben “the Smiter” Abramowitz”.)

Then I found one that I created that riffed off of the stereotype of Italian organized crime figures, but imagining that they were both boxers, and also office workers:

	Your birth month		Your Wife’s Birth Month		Your Son’s Birth Month
1	Jimmy		The Copier		Rutigliano
2	Tommy		The Kuerig		Giordano
3	Joey		The Shredder		Esposito
4	Pauly		The Dumpster		Romano
5	Rocco		The Stapler		Bianchi
6	Sally		the Copier		Mancini
7	Tony		“Three-Hole-Punch”		De Luca
8	Bruno		the Rolodex		Napolitano
9	Sammy		I.T.		Moretti
10	Guido		The Server		Marchesi
11	Pete		The Gopher		Lucchese
12	Alfredo		The Remote Connection		Angelini

(I got “Pete “the Dumpster” Moretti”.)

You see there was a time when the boxing world was full of Irish men.  Angelo Dundee wasn’t Irish, and his name wasn’t really Dundee, but he wanted his name to sound like an Irish name.  He wanted his name to make it look like he belonged in the sport.  The later Italian men seemed to dominate the sport, men like Marciano, Graziano or LaMotta.   Then black men had a dynasty.  More recently the Latin men and eastern Europeans.  Burt Sugar wrote about this phenomenon and linked it to immigration, etc.  Don’t know if he touched all the bases, but it was interesting.

There was Jewish heavyweight champ once.  Max Baer was Jewish.

Then things got really weird.  This last one was for architects that also were somehow prizefighters:

	The month of your Anniversary		Your daughter’s Birth Month		Your Son’s Birth Month
1	Michael		Notes of Earth		Johnson-Smythe
2	Criss		Whisper of Toffee		Wallingford
3	Thad		Peat Smoke		Patterson
4	Douglas		the Vision		Moody
5	Rory		Dark Sweetness		Evans-Childers
6	Alexander		Learning Pathways		Witherspoon
7	Troy		Innovation Propeller		Samuelson
8	Bruce		Limitless Potential		Montigue
9	Lemuel		Delicious Accent		Buttifoucco
10	Samson		Postmodern Renaissance		Simpson-Prague
11	Aldo		Juicy Peach		Whistler
12	Chad		Noble Purpose		Dorchester

(I got “Michael “the Vision” Buttifoucco”)

Architects… really weird people.  Where was I?  Oh, yes.

I refer to Filip Hrgovic, who won a title eliminator against Zhang Zhilie, and is next in line to challenge Usyk for one of his belts, or so they say.  Andy Ruiz also won an eliminator against Luis Ortiz, and he is also next in line to fight Usyk for a belt, and Joe Joyce knocked out Joseph “No Name” Parker and he too, is next in line.  I understand that Daniel Dubois is somebody’s ‘Mandatory’ for some reason too.

Wait, is one of these guys supposed to fight Fury, (who is retired)?  Because if you haven’t heard he’s planning to fight Mahmoud “Diamond Boy” Charr (No, I’m not making fun of him, that’s his name.)  If you don’t know, Charr, whose career has not earned him a title shot, has been shot 4 times in the abdomen, has had both hips replaced, and is 37 years old.

Here’s a picture of him in training.

Inspiring, Tyson.  Real nice.

Being a “Mandatory Challenger” seems to be analogous to being in the “friend zone” with a member of the opposite sex.  There doesn’t seem to be any way out, and you never get the ‘closure’ you desire.

So we have a phalanx of men, qualified men, men who have been tested and have passed, men pounding at the door, and the sanctioning bodies act like referees in  a wrestling match. (“What chair? I didn’t see a chair!”).  Heavyweight boxing is constipated and the only way to get things moving is for the sanctioning bodies (AKA the Tapeworm) to start actually stripping titles from their “champions” that refuse to fight.

Fury should have his title taken away and be forced to wear a tutu for his next match.

I shall retire to Bedlam.

As I predicted, he has withdrawn his offer to fight Joshua, and is looking to fight Manuel Charr instead.  This is as cynical a move as his fight against Tom Schwartz was a couple years ago.  Blech.

It’s cruelty masquerading as sport.

When we were in school whenever a fight broke out, the kids would circle round and watch, shouting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” with enthusiasm.  What were hoping to see?  Pain? Injury? Humiliation?

Maybe we were hungry to establish a pecking order, who was boss of the playground?  Who will be our king?

I really don’t know, if you have any ideas, leave them in the comments section. 

But there might be something to that pecking order theory.  I was challenged to a fight on two separate occasions too see who was the toughest.  I was the biggest, that’s why I was selected for the honor of fighting for the Russel Erwine Elementary School Championship.  The fellow I was supposed to fight was a friend of mine.  I remember his first name was Don, and he was athletic.  He wore his hair in a flat top. That’s all I remember.  Here is the house he lived in.  Still looks the same.

It wasn’t him that wanted the fight, it was other kids instigating this, setting a time and place, etc.  I talked to Don and said that I didn’t want to fight him, that we were friends, and it would be stupid to fight just because these other kids wanted us to.  He agreed, and we walked home.  Some time later, my neighbor Joe (who was also in the same grade) said he heard I had “chickened out” of the fight.  “Who told you that?” I demanded.

“Don did”, he said.

I ran the 200 yards to Don’s house, knocked hard on that side door you can see above and Don answered.  “Come on out”, I said.  “Why?” He wanted to know, and while I can’t quote what I said then exactly, I figure you can guess the gist.  I was angry and probably loud because before I could get my pound of flesh, his mom came to the door and acted like a parent.  I pointed and accused, she made him apologize.  We shook hands.

We continued being friends after that too.

In that case the “King of the Playground” was really the prize and other kids wanted us to fight for it.  Not sure if this explains kids general fascination with all things pugilistic, but it’s something.

My point is that they didn’t ask me to fight this other Don, who was hydrocephalic, Or Dino, who was chubby and six inches shorter. No they wanted me to fight a kid who was strong and athletic (and between you and me, could well have won), someone they figure was a match for me.

But fighting the weaker and less able is what Fury, the Tosser King, is doing.  He’s going to beat up a smaller man for money. 

It’s one thing to do that when you are starting out, or if you are a side-show attraction like Hanford Willis (see ‘the Twister”, below). But when you are the Champ…

Ali fought Alfredo Evangelista.   I remember.  But the press, or at least Howard Cosell didn’t give him a pass for it.  They skewered him, called him out.  Called him lazy, a coward.

And of course we know Ali did take on better competition and paid the price for it too.  I don’t want that for the big Wanker, but he could be providing the public a thrilling spectacle, earing millions doing so, and maybe establishing himself as a great one.

But no, to paraphrase Darryl Philbin, he’s: “Sitting on his biscuit, doesn’t want to risk it.”

To no one’s surprise, Joe Joyce pummeled Joseph “no nickname” Parker to the canvas.  Well, I guess maybe Parker and his crew were surprised, they said they were supremely confident going into this fight.  I don’t know why.  I’ve watched all of Joyce’s fights and have detected a pattern:  Joyce hits his opponents enough times that they quit.

It’s like Buster Douglas said “You just keep chopping, and eventually they’re gonna go”.

Joyce’s style is pressure and aggression.  He never lets up, he’s always moving forward and always swinging.  Not wild swinging, not so he punches himself out. It took him ten rounds to knock out Dubois, and eleven to flatten Parker.  No, he is disciplined in his assault.

My guess is that it’s hard to mount any offense against him because he never lets you pause in defending yourself.

What was a surprise was how durable he is.  We’ve seen hints of it before.  Takam hit him with three good rights in their fight to no effect.  Dubois got in a couple good ones too.  But I lost count of the clean shots that Parker hit him with.  That has to be demoralizing in the extreme when you hit a man with your best shot and he just keeps coming  – without pause, without reaction except to punch you back – hard.

Joyce once compared himself to George Foreman, and at first I scoffed at the notion.  But now I see what he meant. Aggression, power, granite chin.  Check, check and check.

They say he’s next in line for a shot at Usyk, and he wants that one too, having an amateur score to settle with him.  Usyk has said he only wants to fight the Tosser King (Fury) and if he can’t get that fight he’ll retire.  Fury agreed in principal to fighting Usyk, but then started inventing ways to weasel out “Oh you need surgery?  Too bad, I wanted to fight yet this year.  Oh, and I want half a billion pounds too.  You have one week”.  Like Jerrell Miller, he hit the trifecta in excuses not to fight.

Now Fury is doing his little pantywaist two-step teasing us (the flirt!) with the idea of fighting Joshua instead.   

Anyway, my point is I doubt that any of the tall ones want anything to do with Joyce.  It remains to be seen if Usyk can be talked into the rematch.  (I looked and that amateur bout was ten years ago.)

We have Wilder / Helenius coming up:

Sorry – I dozed off there for a moment.  (I expect a decisive win for Wilder.)

I sure hope my drowsiness is warranted.  I am not ready to say goodbye to the Bronze Bomber. I hope he stops the bearded Fin in his inimitable fashion: Stalking, stalking, stalking and *BOOM!* Goodnight sweet prince.  I’d like to see him fight Ruiz too, or Zhang, or Hrgovic, or Joshua or Whyte.  If Helenius pulls off the upset… well I’ll be upset.

Speaking of Zhang, remember how I said his “loss” to Hrgovic would not hurt his placement in the ratings? Indeed I was right. He actually moved up to number ten in Ring magazine’s poll (Hrgovic is number eight.)

And in their wisdom (I may have to take back the unflattering things I’ve said about them.  Well, some of them.) they do not have the big Wanker on their list. The man said he was retired, and until he signs a contract to fight, he’s still retired in my estimation.  I wish the WCB would take his belt too.

They currently show:

1.  Usyk
2.  Joshua
3.  Wilder
4.  Parker
5.  Ruiz
6.  Whyte
7.  Joyce
8.  Ortiz
9.  Hrgovic
10. Sanchez
11. Zhang

Of course the Parker and Joyce positions will change shortly, but other than that I think this list is solid.

The IBO “computerized” (supposedly objective) list has:

1. Usyk
2. Fury
3. Joshua
4. Joyce
5. Parker
6. Ruiz
7. Whyte
8. Sanchez
9. Chisora
10. Pulev
11. Ortiz

I question Pulev being on there.  He has newer impressed me.

Lastly, the Transnational (Teddy Atlas’ baby) has:

1. Usyk
2. Joshua
3. Wilder
4. Ruiz
5. Parker
6. Joyce
7. Whyte
8. Wallin
9.  Ortiz
10. Michael Hunter
11. Martin Bakole

I know, right?  I’ve heard Michael Hunter but not Bakole.  I looked and he beat Maruisz Wach and Tony Yoka and lost to Michael Hunter.  The rest of his resume is no-names.  Hunter, on his part, lost to Usyk, and had a draw with Povetkin.  His most recent fight was a draw against Jerry Forrest.  Not very inspiring. He needs to get those bums out of there (and Otto Wallin too) and put Zhang, Hrgovic and Sanchez on the list.

So many good fighters, and it takes so long to make a good match. I continue to hope that Joyce and Zhang get their chance before they age out.

(The following is entirely a work of fiction):

They called me “the Twister” because when I’d hit a man with a right cross or a left hand he’d kind of spin as he fell.  That’s because of the fat thing. 

I suppose if I was to train hard and eat the right diet and all that I’d weigh something like 260. I’m a big man, so there is muscle under all the flab, but I am fat.  Right now I’m about 330 pounds, and I’m six foot five.  I tell you all that not because it’s interesting (it ain’t) but because it is part and parcel to this story.

See I’m tall enough that I can try to keep a fellow off of me with a jab (if you don’t know what a jab is, I think maybe you’re reading the wrong story). While I’m doing that I’m watching for a chance to hit him on the head with an overhand right, or an uppercut or sometimes just a straight one. That generally will make him wobble, then I can throw “the Twister”.

The fat thing comes in at this time.  I have only fought guys that are shorter than me, so they need get close to me to hit me.  Or if I hit them first, they try to hug me.  When they get inside and their head is right about where you’d be holding a basketball before making a free throw, right there is where I got my power. 

Other fighters throw long looping punches and can put some Chinese mustard on them too.  I ain’t that fast or athletic.  But put that head on a tee right in front of me and I can turn, sort of pivot, and put my weight into it.  This is why they would sometimes spin as they fall.  People enjoyed watching me do this and I made an embarrassing amount of money doing it.

I had a crisis of conscience early on, felt bad about it.  I’ve been a boxing fan my whole life, but understand that I was not a sportsman engaged in competition on a level playing field.  No, I was hurting men for money, and that seemed a little sordid.  That is, until I realized that the guy cheering for me in April was standing in the ring with me in May, and the guy I knocked out in April was now in the crowd hollering for me to lower the boom, to apply “the twister” to his buddy.

“C’mon let’s twist again, like we did last summer

Let’s twist again, like we did last year

Do you remember when things were really humming?

Yeah let’s twist again, twisting time is here…”

It all started as a dare.  It was Louie the bartender. I know that sounds like a cliché, like a made-up name; “Louie the bartender at the Boxing club” but that’s his name.  If it wasn’t I would tell you different. They got other bartenders there, but it was Louie that night.

They generally had a fight night once a month or so, maybe six weeks.  Once a year they would have an amateur night, a “tough man contest”.  This is a chance for a bunch of regular guys to blow off steam. They get drunk, they issue a challenge, they pay an entry fee and they fight. The club hires referees, and a doctor, a ring announcer and they even bring in some ring-card girls. To keep it safe, these fights are real short, like three one minute rounds.  Even at that distance, maybe half don’t go the full three minutes.  Everybody drinks a lot of beer and shouts a lot.

There is no round-robin, no prize money.  The winner of each bout just gets bragging rights.  Most fights are two buddies that want to fight each other.

It was an off-night (no fights) and the place was near empty so Louie and me are just having a conversation.  The annual tough-man contest was coming up in a couple weeks, and he starts in suggesting, at first, but eventually ramping up to full-on nagging that I sign up to fight.  He said there was a heavyweight that had signed up but didn’t have an opponent.

Basically I said yes to shut him up.  It made me nervous though. I started doing sit-ups and running in place every day so I wouldn’t be quite so soft as I had become.  My only experience boxing was a class I had taken at the Y when I was 12.  I was 38 years old when I entered the tough man contest.

The fellow I fought was about my age and about my shape (pudgy).  He was both shorter and smaller than me, at six foot two and 280 pounds.  I dropped him twice in the first minute.  The first time was a right to the head, the second time an uppercut to the breadbox.

That earned me an invitation to fight at the next event as a “professional”. Stan Martel was the fellow’s name.  He was the promoter, the guy that arranged and managed the actual boxing at this club.  Somebody else ran the foodservice and booze, Stan ran the boxing.  He offered me $200 to fight “another stiff”. That’s how he put it.

I told him I was no boxer, I just did the tough man contest as a lark. He said I had some natural talent and he thought we could have fun and maybe make some money. I laughed and thanked him but said no.

You see, back in those days the heavyweight fighters were smaller, the champ was just six foot nothing and two twenty.  I was a freak of nature.  I think Stan wanted me as a side-show attraction: “Come see King Kong squash some dude” or “David vs. Goliath” or some-such.

The typical fight card back then would feature mostly local guys, young kids just starting out, and a half-dozen real fighters, from out of town; men hoping to make a living at it.  The main event would be two of these guys, both with a winning, if not spotless record, hoping to win and move up one notch to something less skeevy. Stan, I believed, wanted to present me as a novelty on the undercard in an effort to sell more tickets.

Of course I was right.

I changed my mind.

A couple days go by and I can’t get it out of my mind.  Winning that fight, I don’t know, just felt good.  I was like a kid again having just won a little league game.  I had a smile in me that started at my spine and kind of radiated from there all over. I wanted to see if I could do that again.  Maybe a couple of times.

So I went to the gym that Stan runs and told him if the offer was still good I was in.

I started training a little then too.  That was tough.  The other boxers there looked down on me, like I was a joke.  They called me “Pops” and other, worse things at first.  That went away in time when they saw that I was going to stick with it.

I sparred a little bit and hit the heavy bag, but mostly I wanted to work so I could have more stamina.  I didn’t want to get beat because I got winded.

My first pro fight was a lot like the tough man fight.  This fellow was about the same size as the guy I fought that night, but where the first guy had a long hair and a beard this one was bald-headed.

And I knocked him out in the first round.  Just like I told you above.

Sure enough, a month later Stan put a picture of me on his poster, down in a corner under the names and photos of the real fighters as an “Added Attraction: King Kong Willis vs. TBD”

And that’s how it was for my first five fights. One or two rounds, and a KO.  And Stan’s hunch was right.  I had fans.  People came to see me wallop somebody.

On one of those occasions, somebody (who had come to watch somebody else) saw me and approached Stan (I didn’t have a manager or nothing) and Stan came to me and said “They want to put you on TV”.

I was immediately nervous “Look I told you I’m not looking to “advance my career” here.  I mean, I don’t mind getting hit, but I don’t want to be embarrassed, especially on TV!”

Stan went on to explain that they wanted me to fight four rounds, just as I had been doing, and they wanted me to “knock some guy through the ropes” just like I had been doing. 

I paused.

“There’s money in it.  They’ll pay you $5,000.”

I paused.

“I can help you.  I’d like to help you if you want to do this.”

I had to get new elaborate and shiny trunks, ka-ching! And new shoes, ka-ching! And I had to hire a cut man, and now I had to pay Stan as well, as I agreed to let him be my manager / trainer. Ching! Ching!

The $5,000 melted down to less than $1,000 by the time I added up my expenses, but man, it was fun.  And less skeevy.

The locker room didn’t smell.  That in itself was a miracle.  I liked that too.  It made what I was doing seem more legitimate.

I hit my man in the first round with a right cross counter (more on that later) right after my opponent threw a left hook.  He missed and I connected and he was off balance and he did a pirouette with both arms out helicopter-style and flopped to the canvas.

Everyone called it a counter punch, but I don’t really think it was.  I think we both swung at the same time, but mine just took longer to get there.  It did make me look like I knew what I was doing though.

The clip of that punch was shown on TV again and again.  It even made it to ESPN’s top ten.  And this is when things really got rolling.

A few months later they invited me back, and I had to go to three rounds, but I knocked that fellow out too.  This one got some attention, but not as much as that first one.  I hit him with a straight right and he started to fall backwards, but turned and tried to get his feet under him and he kind of ran across the ring and fell down face first with his head poking out through the ropes.

For both of those fights I was introduced as Hanford “King Kong” Willis.

The third time I was on TV I had to fly to Vegas.  That was fun, too.  I had never flown before and I got a kick out of just looking out the window.  Stan sprung for dinner that night at a nice restaurant. I liked that too.

When fight time approached, I got dressed and wrapped and gloved and when the ring announcer called my name I started out the tunnel into the auditorium and the PA started playing “Twist Again” by Fats Domino.

Come on, everybody, clap your hands!

Aw, you’re looking good!

Gonna sing my song, and it won’t take long

We’re gonna do the twist, and it goes like this:

I don’t dance, but I smiled and kind of bounced as I walked to the ring.  I walked a little slower too, enjoying the moment

A minute later, the ring announcer introduced me as “the Twister”

My purse for that fight was $15,000 which, like before, largely melted away after expenses.  But I didn’t care.

I put on a show that night.  I was riding high on the excitement. I liked the new nick-name.  I liked the crowd cheering for me.  I like the flight and the steak dinner and I wanted more of all of it.

I feel bad for the guy I faced that night. I was extra motivated.  I had my heart set on getting back to the highlight reel.

I didn’t get the helicopter or knock him out of the ring, but what I did do was knock him out in less than a minute.  It was the first punch I threw.  He had to move toward me to hit me, and I just caught him coming in.  Boom! One and done.

After that we negotiated a contract for five more fights at $25,000 each.  Not exactly screw-you money, but it was an improvement to my lifestyle, even after expenses.  I was fighting for them two and three times a year, and in between times I’d still fight at Stan’s club.  He paid me more than $200 too. I had some notoriety, I put butts in the seats.

I was 40 years old, getting close to 41.

Round and round and

up and down we go again

oh baby make me know

You love me so…

One night at Stan’s club I fought some guy with an iron chin.  Couldn’t put him down.  The fight went the full four rounds. I won the decision, and he was swollen and bleeding.  I gave him the customary brief hug after the fight and thought we were OK.

In the parking lot, as I was headed to my car, I got cold-cocked by his brother.  I fell on my ass, hard.  Before I could get my hands up to block, this guy whacked me two more times, knocking out a tooth.  Then he spit on my leather jacket. Then he turned around and shouted “I just knocked out the Twister! He ain’t so tough, he ain’t nothing!”

I had to spend a fortune getting that tooth replaced with an implant, but the spit…that really pissed me off.  When I found out that he was a fighter too, I asked Stan to get me a match with him.  No. I insisted that he get me match with him.  No police,  I just wanted to take care of this myself. 

He wasn’t as tough as his brother, and I knocked him out in two rounds.  Afterward I gave him the little hug and said, “That’s how it’s done, asshole.”

So I was 41 years old, 14-0 with 13 knockouts.

Who’s that, flyin’ up there?

Is it a bird?

No!!

Is it a plane?

No!!

Is it the twister?

Yeah!!!

I started to believe my own hype, that was my problem.  My weight had dropped to 300 – 305 but then bounced back up after I started making money.  I started asking Stan to get me better fights – harder competition. I had no designs on a title – I was not delusional.  I just wanted to reexperience the emotional peak that I had that night the first time they called me “Twister”.  I still enjoyed the crowd, and my new car and so forth, but the buzz was wearing off.

At first he would remind me of what we set out to do, that is, put on a show. We were successful in that.  Why take chance at losing our audience by getting whupped? I would argue with him, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t make a lot of sense, because his was a good point.  I just came back with “because I wanna!”

Then he stopped arguing with me, saying “If that’s what you want, okay!”  I talked with the TV guys and they said they were on board too.  I only had two more fights under my contract, I wanted, no I needed them to be special, to be highlights of my career.

What Stan did was lie to me.  He’d tell me “this guy has wicked power” or “fantastic footwork” (my footwork was crap) but I’d nose around and look up their record and in reality they were just more turkeys.

I realized that Stan didn’t believe my hype.  He thought I would lose to a better fighter, even a slightly better fighter, and the money would dry up.  He was using me, stringing me along, just so he could continue to take his percentage.

Then the TV guys called with an offer.  They had a fellow, they said was “a significant step up” that was willing to fight me. It would be a co-featured event and they offered $50,000. The catch was I had to agree to fight eight rounds.

I had long thought that would come up. When you say you’ll only fight four-rounders you are basically saying “I’m not a real fighter!” “Don’t take me seriously!” “I’m a side-show!”  This is what I thought back at the beginning, back when they called me “King Kong”.  I knew I was freak then and nothing had changed in the years that followed but my appetite for it.

I had time to prepare, some ninety days, but not enough time to get fit.  Besides at almost 42 I could never get into the same shape a 30-year-old could. So, I thought about it and thought about it and thought about it.  It was damn frustrating, the very thing that I wanted was right there, but I was not sure I could pick it up.

Of course, I decided to do it.  I fired Stan for his lack of confidence in me, and hired Mauricio, another fellow from the gym to be my trainer and manager.  We continued to work in Stan’s gym and he pretty much gave us the silent treatment.

That was okay – an understandable reaction.  And I didn’t have time to worry about that – I had work to do! I had get ready to go 8 rounds.

I focused like before on strength and endurance.  I did lots of running, lots of calisthenics.  After a couple weeks I could see improvement and that built up my confidence, thinking that I was going to be in the best shape of my life.

And I was. After eight weeks my weight was down to 306 and I had to order new trunks. 

At ten weeks, for the first time in my life I attended a press conference.  Sure, the main event guys were everyone’s focus but we got five or ten minutes on the platform as the co-featured fighters.  We exchanged some polite trash-talk and posed for photos with our fists raised.  It was pretty stupid, but I loved every minute of it.

My opponent was 24 years old, he was 6’-3” and fought around 220 pounds. His record was 12-2. (I was now 17-0 with 16 KO’s).  I was very pleased that they didn’t try to bullshit me like Stan had done before, this really was a step-up fight, and if I win this one, the next one will pay even more.

At fight time I weighed 304 and my opponent 224.  This was the lightest I had been in my career. So I felt good, confident.

When the fight started my opponent met me at the center of the ring, then started backing up.  He backed up till he reached the ropes then he ducked right and continued backing up.  This forced me to chase him.  And as I told you back at the beginning, I am not athletic enough to leap forward with big wide swings.  I could not hit him. He would pause for a moment, me lumbering toward him, and sting my eyes with a jab.

This was pretty much how it went.  Round after round, me pursuing, occasionally catching him on the ropes with a couple shots, many of which he blocked, and him retreating and jabbing and sometimes counter punching.

By the eighth round I felt like I had sandbags tied to each limb.  He was fresh as a daisy and that spelled the end for me.  He stopped retreating and started pot-shotting me, rapidly getting more and more comfortable in range, and by the middle of the round he was on flat feet, hammering away at my head.

Next thing I know I’m in bed, curled up and comfy with my pillows and quilt and dreaming of a ride in a colorful spaceship the size of a sports car.  I was zooming along, miles above the earth, having a great time, when “Five!” What was that? I looked to my left, and blinked and “Six!” I blinked two more times and “Seven!” I opened my eyes and “Where was I?” and “Eight!” And I heard a roar, a crowd cheering, and I saw a very happy man waving to the crowd across…

A boxing ring! I was fighting! Why can’t I stand up?

About that time the doctor showed up and started looking me over and saying things I couldn’t hear over all the noise.  Eventually he got me to my stool where I continued to spin for a time.  At length I slowly got up and walked toward my opponent who saw me coming and he raced over and lifted my right hand in the air.  The crowd roared at this gesture.  I looked at him and said “You done good.” He smiled.  “Did I do good?” I asked. “Fuck yeah, that was a great fight”. I later looked it up and if I could have made it to the end of the fight on my feet, even losing the eighth, I would have won by decision.  The judges gave me all the early rounds because I was more aggressive.

The sportswriters and talking heads all said the same thing, that I had exceeded expectations. That they had watched, as some described it “through their fingers” fearing that I was in over my head and going to get hurt.

They said I rocked him several times but was not quick enough to get in the second or third shot I needed to close the deal.

The powers that be (I heard someone call them “the tapeworm” once) decided that since they had paid me double for that last fight, that my contract with them had been fulfilled. I doubted that, but I sure wasn’t going to hire a lawyer to take on those guys.  They could hire five attorneys that could run circles around anybody I could afford.

So, I had some time to reflect, you know, and drink.  I know, when you’re a prizefighter and you get depressed, you’re supposed get hooked on cocaine, but I couldn’t afford that either.

Richard Brautigan once wrote “I feel like a sewing machine that just sewed a turd to a trash can lid”.  And if you don’t think it proper for a prize fighter to quote a hippie poet, well fuck you too.  I think that quote about described my mental state perfectly.

I got knocked out.  At age 42. They said I fought the fight of my life, but nobody wanted to take chance on me.  I get it.  I was too old to try to climb the hill.  Had I won, then yeah, maybe I get a shot at a gate-keeper fighter. But I didn’t and no-one wants to be the one responsible for hurting an old man.

It was like a death in the family.  This thing, this all-engrossing avocation, this fantasy, this enchantment that supported the weight of my ego…just disappeared… 

I already told you what happened to my ego – you know, the sewing machine.

And I did not know where to go, or how to get it back.

So in time I went back to the gym to apologize to Stan, to tell him he was right but I had to see it to believe it.

I told him I was available to knockout a stiff or two if he had a mind to it.  He said “Why don’t you try training a younger fighter?  You get the same rush from winning, you don’t have to watch your weight, and it hurts a lot less.”  So I started doing that.  It’s like drinking white wine when you really want a whiskey, but at least it scratches the right itch.

What’s that?  You want to know what did before I started fighting?  I did your mother, OK?  That ain’t the subject of this interview.  The thing I did before I fought I did while I fought too.  Up until that last fight, then I quit in order to train.  I’m still doing it, but I ain’t talking about it.  Same goes for my family. I ain’t talking about them either.  Just forget it.

My message?  I would say the point of my story is this: getting old sucks, but you adjust, you go on.

Peace out. That’s what the kids say.  Used to say. I don’t know.

If life were a comic book or an action movie you’d know that one of these two is soon to put a right cross on Vladimir Putin’s lips that would knock him clean through a brick wall, or into the waiting mouth of a dinosaur or something.  Olexander Usyk would be their side-kick.  All three would then go home to a buxom wife and drink vodka straight out of the bottle while the closing credits rolled.  I can even hear the theme music, you can too.

But if you don’t know, those aren’t actors.  This is no movie. That’s Vladimir and Vitaly Klitschko, former heavyweight world champions.  Yes, they are on the front lines along with  Olexander Usyk (current heavyweight world champion), in real life, fighting the Russians.

All these men, and (Vasiliy Lomachenko too,) are proud Ukrainians.

God, “real life”, how I hate it at times.

I have seen these men in combat over 100 times, and I have never seen them look as grim as they do in that photo above.

I recently wrote about how I didn’t like to think of boxing as “entertainment”, that the sacrifices of these men (ironically, we call them “warriors”) deserve a more dignified characterization.  I felt that a black eye or a broken nose was as real as life needs to be.  I believe that war should have looking over it a supreme authority, someone to penalize a low blow, or a head butt, and to ring the bell to signal an end to hostilities.  

I have no place for rockets and madness.  That crazy son of a bitch fired on a nuclear power plant!   When you get to him, Vladimir, lean into it.  Don’t hold anything back.

But of course real life exists.  Of course these men are fighting for their homeland, their people.  There is an order to things, and real life far outweighs entertainment.

And in real life there is the “out there’ aspect, things beyond my control and even my comprehension.  Things like international politics.  I can’t begin to make sense of it and it worries me that other people claim that they can.  I think all I can do is pray, then wait and see what happens.

So then, the Joshua / Usyk rematch is indefinitely postponed.  We were supposed to get this one out of the way so we could resume hoping for a unification bout, one to name an undisputed champion.  But the four belts that Usyk owns will be unavailable for challenge till this madness stops. 

Of course, the tapeworm could start ‘stripping’ him of one title or another in what would be a singularly tasteless and callous act. They could then put those belts up for grabs for lesser men to fight for. 

I read where, since Usyk is unavailable, that Joshua is going to fight Otto Wallin.

Fury is fighting Dillian Whyte.

Wake me up when it’s over.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll watch both of those fights, but I am not inspired by either of them.  I grieve that we seem to be letting so many potentially great matchups fade to nothingness as all these men continue to age into the sunset.

Usyk is 35 years old already.  Fury is 33.  Joshua 32, Wilder 36.  Joe Joyce is 36 too, and even Andy Ruiz is 32.

Derek Chisora and Chris Arreola refuse to go away (38 and 41 respectively).

At least we haven’t heard from Shannon Briggs for a while (50).

Eddie Hearn is only 42.  Let’s put him in the ring with Luis Ortiz, who is also 42.  I’d definitely pay to see that one.

Don King and Bob Arum are both 90 years old.  They say only the good die young so I guess the fartheaded live forever.   Makes sense.

There is a good one coming up that is supposed to be a done deal: Hrgovic vs. Zhang.  Two undefeated prospects in a title eliminator.  The winner is supposed to be the IBF mandatory challenger for Usyk.  I hope they don’t scrub this because Usyk may be unavailable for a time.  But this one too may disappear like a mist.

Zhang is 38 by the way.

Anyway, it seems all the best matchups, (like Fury / Joshua) exist only in the mind of boxing fans; the loyal but beleaguered boxing fans.

*Vitaly’s nickname for Vladimir. You can hear him shouting this from the corner during his first fight against Samuel Peter.

Back in July Jonnie Rice stepped in to replace Gerald Washington (who had covid) to fight undefeated prospect Michael Coffie.  This was supposed to be Coffie’s ‘gatekeeper’ fight, the win that would propel him into the upper echelon.

We remember Washington.  He defeated such men as Robert Helenius, Eddie Chambers and Ray Austin on his way up.  He made it that far, but then stalled out, being stopped by Wilder, Kownacki and “Big Baby” Miller.  Now he mans the door – if you want to break into the top ten, you have to go through him (or others like him).

But Jonnie Rice is not a gatekeeper.  He is a journeyman, a professional opponent, a sparring partner. His record the night of the Coffie fight was 13-6-1.  Coffie was his third undefeated opponent in a row, and he had lost the last two. 

The luster of the evening must have been somewhat tarnished in Coffie’s eyes.  He was going to fight a man who had been in with the very best, and thus raise his own stock.  But instead he found himself relegated to knocking out yet another chump, a journeyman, a tomato can.  Maybe he started at a psychological disadvantage, thinking he had very little to gain.

Meanwhile Rice recognized that this was an opportunity. While he had gone the distance with Ajagba, and was competitive, he later criticized his own performance. “I didn’t take the risk” of opening up offensively was how he characterized it.  In other words (mine) he was fighting like a sparring partner. Before the Coffie fight he vowed not to do that again, saying “It’s time for me to beat one of these guys.”

As you know, he did just that, stopping Coffie in the fifth round.

He earned $55,000 for that fight. He said that wasn’t enough for him to quit his job (bouncer).  But after he won the rematch, he got a three-fight deal.  He has quit his job, and for the first time, at the age of 34 he is a full-time boxer.

How many guys, in their thirties, after losing two in a row, just pack it in?  How many knuckle-down, saying “this is my last chance” and train harder?  Maybe that’s a fifty/fifty split.  The boxing world is full of tough guys, and not a lot of quitters.  But even tough guys have to look at the facts and weigh the pros and cons.  Everyone eventually gets to that place.

Many carry on when we wish they wouldn’t.  Tyson kept fighting past his prime. He said he needed the money.  Muhammad Ali never said why he couldn’t stop, he just couldn’t stop. 

How rare it is, when a 34 year old with a mediocre record and back-to-back losses knuckles down and makes for himself a whole new career.  If he keeps winning the competition will get tougher and the purses will get larger.

Jonnie Rice will fight on.  “But for how long?” you ask. 

Three fights long. That’s how long.

And God bless him.  He has given us all a thrill.  We love to see a fighter get up off the canvas and turn things around.  How much more when the man’s career seems to be over and yet he rises to new heights?

I remember, as we were taking our seats one night, hearing the ring announcer open his remarks by saying “Ladies and Gentlemen, for your entertainment, a night of professional boxing…” That phrase kind of startled me.  It was a little jarring to hear it described that way. I don’t like to think of boxing as entertainment, but in truth, it is.  I want it to be something more, the way that a symphony is more than a pop song, a sonnet more than a limerick.

It made me feel a little sordid, like an ersatz Nero watching the gladiators. 

I admire the skill, agility, craftiness, toughness and artistry of boxers, and their strength of will, their “heart”.  I’m a straight guy, but I am not unaware that many of these men (like Rice) are fine-looking individuals.  I admire this quality too. 

I am also aware of the enormous sacrifices they make, and the huge risks they take to present this spectacle to me.  To call it “entertainment” feels like a discount, an insult.

For every fighter we see on TV there are hundreds we don’t see, men that never make it that far. Blue collar men, and some drunks and ne’re-do-wells too.

They too contribute to the spectacle.  They are the rubble, the ballast that televised boxing is built on.  Without losers there could be no winners.  For every 10 – 0 prosect, there are ten men with a black eye and a concussion. Rice surely looked to be one of those before the events of last year.

And all these men too deserve our respect and our gratitude.

Rice is not yet a star, or even really a prospect.  All he has done thus far is earn for himself a chance at a better life.

Foreman and Ali were stars. I count them among my heroes.  The fame they achieved in the ring put the spotlight on otherwise exemplary lives.  They showed us how it is done.  Life that is.  They had their faults, surely.  But they both lived out their convictions.  In that they were examples to follow. 

We don’t all get to be examples.  We don’t all get Dragons to slay or mountains to climb.  I wrote about this before.  If you scroll way the hell down you can find a post entitled “The Big One” that talks about that.

Rice’s achievement, of course is much smaller, and so far is really only a potential achievement. Maybe a dragon with a small “d” has been given him. 

His story seems more like an endorsement of that cherished canard: “Never give up and you can make your dreams come true”.  We all like to cling to the belief that we are somehow in control of our destiny.  We look at Rice and say “See?” He did it! I can do it too!”

That’s still a fairy-tale, but when the Ballad of Jonnie Rice is written, I hope it ends on a high note.

I can forgive the loss.  The possibility of greatness is not an obligation.  He doesn’t owe us a spectacular career.  It was fun watching him up till now.  But that last one was frankly an embarrassment.

I did not expect him to slow down, to fight off the backfoot. That was the surprise. I thought he would double-down on his four-alarm-fire, both-arms-swinging assault technique.  It worked for him the last time.  Don’t forget, before Hellenius knocked him down, Kownacki was peppering him with both hands.  But he chose incomprehensibly to fight from long range with a man who had longer arms.

Hell, the fight became target practice for Hellenius, and he had Kownacki’s eye closing in the first round.

So, he was frustrated, he was scared, he felt sure that Hellenius was going to knock him out again, that he had no chance at winning.  So he was immature, and he was an embarrassment.  He punched Hellenius in the balls.

On purpose, repeatedly. 

The talking heads correctly said he was looking for a way out.

It reminded me of a film I saw (and I have seen so many) I couldn’t tell who it was that made film, regarding Ali / Liston, the rematch.  This fellow pointed out something I hadn’t noticed before.  Right at the opening bell, Ali meets Liston at the center of the ring, and *Boom!* *Boom*! A left and a right, both hard, flush shots.  They happen so quickly that I had (as did the guy calling the fight) overlooked them.  Go see – watch for yourself.

Then he proceeded to dance, moving around the ring flicking out his punches like lightning, and ducking, shucking and jiving, slipping everything Liston threw.  Liston could not find him with anything.

He had to be thinking “This is going to be just like the last time. How can I get out of this?”

Just then, a flash knockdown!  A right to the temple knocked him down.  “I might as well let this be it” thought the already beaten man.  He stayed down, and despite Jersey Joe Walcott’s comedy routine, was ruled loser by first round KO.  He avoided the pain of continued humiliation.  He could take a punch, he couldn’t take being made to look ineffectual, insipid, inert.

There have been lots of guys that impressed, amassed an undefeated record, that accumulated a following only to end up too close to the sun and like Icarus fall to the sea.  We all thrill to watch the meteoric rise (and how does that phrase make any sense?) but the meteoric thud is distasteful affair, and we look away as soon as we can.

Kownacki’s record had a blemish,  he had a single “L”.  Lots of guys have one loss.  Even champions have a loss or even two, or more.  It happens. But now his record bears the freight of a used diaper.  The stink of that “DQ” is going to limit his choices of opponents, and will hamper his negotiating leverage in his second attempt at the comeback trail. And he lost more than just the fight,  I think he lost a lot of fans, this one included.

April 30, 2021

Chris Arreola put up a good account of himself in his last fight. Against Adam Kownacki he went the distance and in so doing set a record for most blows thrown by a heavyweight. The fight wasn’t particularly competitive in that he lost most of the rounds, maybe all, but in each one he was engaged and competing. His performance inspired a blog post too (see ‘Props to the Nightmare’).

In that post I mentioned that he had said before the fight that if he didn’t win, he would retire. I defended that decision, saying it was great to see a warrior go out in one piece, his dignity intact.

“I’m too old to start over, and that’s where I’ll be if I lose, back to square one.”

So I cringed when I first heard of the matchup. But then I thought about it: Why would Arreola change his mind about this?

No doubt if he pulls off the upset, there will be a big payday yet in his future. Maybe even another good showing in a losing effort will yield for him another lucrative fight. And even if he gets stopped, he is still getting $500,000 plus a share of the pay-per-view receipts for this one (maybe as much as $1,500,000).

He is forty years old, but in a sense he is still in his prime, if he can make that kind of money. It’s his profession, what else is he going to do?

As for Ruiz, everybody wants to see him trimmed down. I’ve read that he is down to 255. I’ve seen some photo-shopped pictures, too. We’ll all see the real Andy tomorrow night. I can tell you, 255 on a 6’-2” frame is not trim. If that number is accurate, he’ll still have some upholstery on him.

And this won’t matter against Arreola. He has always fought with a spare tire too. What will make a difference is Ruiz’s speed and superior boxing skills.

Ruiz by stoppage.

May 2, 2021

Arreola continues to be the story. He continues to surprise me. First, he weighed in at 228 – the lowest of his professional career. Second, he’s an Angelino. I was under the mistaken impression that he was Mexican by birth and not an English speaker. During the pre-fight hype he said that this fight was not about the paycheck, that he wanted to best Ruiz since Ruiz had done what Arreola felt he should have done (win the world title). Given the amount of work he put into training, I believe Him.

He has changed his mind about competing at the top. He plans to continue.

And he fought a good fight. Good enough that he got all pissy at the judges scorercards, thinking he had won more rounds than the one or two they gave him. He was wrong, but I believe he was sincere in that belief. (I was a little surprised that he went all potty-mouth in front of his six year old son.) In his mind, it was a close fight.

He had a great fight strategy that had him winning until Ruiz figured it out. Too bad he didn’t seem to have a plan B. Ruiz racked up round after round with hand speed, counter punching and boxing finesse.

As for Ruiz, I was a little disappointed. Sure, he won, and won convincingly. But we all knew he would do that. He was a 20 – 1 favorite. I wanted him to mow Arreola down in 1 or 2 rounds. Had he done that the tapeworm

would likely put him at the front of the line to face one of the tall-and-lazy ones. You know, the ones that won’t fight each other.

I suppose now he’ll have to face Ortiz or Wilder or Whyte. Or, God help us all, a rematch with Arreola. Can’t we make that illegal? You can have a return bout, just not back-to-back.

And they should start stripping titles from these wankers that would rather dicker over money than actually fight. I mean suppose you were looking at a fifteen million dollar payday. Would you put the whole thing in jeopardy by insisting on sixteen?

Me either.

Wankers.

December 11, 2020

I’ve been waiting for this one for quite some time, like Dubois / Joyce it seemed like the day would never come. But here we are.

I’ve thrown some shade Joshua’s way in the past mainly because I’m pretty juvenile and I’m a huge Klitschko fan.  After the frustration of Fury’s becoming a boxing champ by not boxing, followed by the frustration of him flaking out on the rematches, I would rather have seen Joshua get knocked out.  Then Klitschko could have retired as champion, with one more enormous plume in his well-feathered cap.

C’est la vie.

Pulev is to me, a puzzlement.  He is 28-1 with only 14 knockouts.   He  He’s 6’-4” and fights around 250 – a big man.  How come he can’t knock anybody out?  He’s fought some real fighters recently. He beat Derek Chisora, Samuel Peter, Kevin Johnson, Hughie Fury – I guess I’ll have to look these up on youtube and see how that happened.  I just can’t picture it.  I’ve only seen the Klitschko fight.  In that, he was embarrassed.  Not only did he get knocked down 4 times, but like so many other Klitschko opponents, his offence was stymied to the degree that he looked like an imposter.  Like Leapai or Pianneta you had to wonder “is this guy a real boxer?  He looks like he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do.” 

That’s what I expect to see tomorrow.  Joshua will stymy and embarrass Pulev.

December 12, 2020

Well I wasn’t wrong.   I didn’t see the CompuBox numbers but it had to be very lopsided. And Pulev looked so small!  I mean they were supposed to be nearly the same weight and only two inches apart in height but it looked more like there was six inches and twenty pounds of lean muscle between them.

I was charmed to see him smiling, blood on his face, giving Joshua a high-five in what looked to be a hearty congratulation after the fight.  I’ve seen fighters do that before, but not Pulev.  When Klitschko decapitated him, he said “He got lucky” and “I want a rematch”.  Maybe he was just glad to get one more big payday at 39 years old. 

Or maybe he’s nuts.  It was pretty creepy how he grinned while getting his ass kicked in round three. He made it a point to show the crowd and the cameras that he was grinning, lifting his mug up into the light for all to see, almost getting nailed with a right cross as a consequence.  He mugged for Klitschko too after the first knockdown.  I guess maybe he’s just not used to getting hit that hard and it brings out the Pee-Wee in him “I meant to do that.”

I hope he retires with some dignity left, and doesn’t wear himself out trying to get a third crack at the title.

Eddie Hearn indicated that he might possibly consider a unification bout with Tyson Fury in the next year. Joshua said he wanted that fight sooner. Let’s start a pool – how many months before this fight takes place? Or maybe just go over/under on 24 months.

As a fan one can only hope.  Sigh wistfully and hope.

Meanwhile lets see these other fellows mix it up.  It’s time for Ruiz to make an appearance. Kownacki needs to get back in the saddle too.  Dominique Breazeale needs a match, as does Junior Fa. Joyce has called out Usyk – let’s see that fight.

As for Joshua, it was good to see him engaging again, you know, actually throwing punches with evil intent, not playing patti-cake  like he did in the Ruiz rematch.  He looked to be back in top form, his confidence restored. 

My buddy (that I was watching with) was rooting for Pulev, having become exasperated with Joshua’s “I’m God’s gift to boxing” comments.  They irritated me too, but I think that’s just a necessary attitude for a champion to have.  Like Iron Mike said you have to believe “I’m the greatest fighter God ever blew air into” to succeed.  Certainly his namesake likes to boast. And if those two ever get together (and please God, let it happen) I will not be making a prediction, just watching eagerly.

Of course I watched Povetkin vs. Whyte.  It was the first heavyweight fight of note in God knows how long.  And I enjoyed he crap out of it too.  There was a fair amount of drama, and a surprise ending.  Who doesn’t love an underdog win?  The lack of fans still bugs me, though.  It’s confusing – when someone gets knocked down, there should be an accompanying roar.  I mean there always has been.  Without the roar I find myself asking “What happened? Was that a slip?”

But worse than that is the number of masked men.  All the cornermen had them, the cameramen, and even the ref was wearing one. Of what possible use are they?  Are they suggesting that they could not check these men’s temperatures, or swab their noses before the fight to determine if they were carrying the bug?  Are they suggesting that even with the numbers reduced to, what, a dozen, that it was simply too many to test?

Welcome. To. Florida.

I think they refused to allow that measure of common sense to win the day because they wanted to present an optic. They wanted to show the world a group of hard, virile, and “toxic”. males kowtowing to PC nonsense.  It’s exactly the same reason they coerce football players into wearing pink on Sundays.

They don’t like football, and they don’t like boxing.  In their minds violent sports are a key part of the socialization that molds young innocent boys into overly-aggressive toxic males, soldiers of the patriarchy.  They do launch frontal assaults too.  If you look for them you can find Op-ed pieces decrying the number of injuries that occur, dain bramage, etc. calling for a complete ban on contact sports. But they also work these more subtle angles, suggesting rule changes, shortening durations, adding padding, and so on. It’s the little-by-little strategy. 

It’s like the guy that left the construction site every day with his tool belt and lunch box in a wheelbarrow, and every day the security guard checked his lunch box and tool belt and never found a thing.  Finally he asked “I know you’re stealing something, but I can’t figure out what it is. Please tell me.”  And the guys says “Wheelbarrows.”

They are thinking “First we will make them wear the mask, then we will take away their sports and then their guns and automobiles!”

Actually it’s probably more like “If we can make these tough guys do this dumb thing, It will be that much easier to get the next wheelbarrow past the hoi polloi.”

“Let them have their transgender restrooms.  The Cleveland Browns are wearing pink, I guess anything goes!”

In the preceding paragraphs I used the word “they” over a dozen times.  “Aha!” You say.  “Who then is this “they” that you revile?  Do “they” even exist? Or is your tinfoil hat screwed on too tight?”

Shut up. 

They are the ones that oppose boxing, that want to abolish football, guns and cars that burn fossil fuels.  These are the ones that are sure that they know better than you do what is good and right. They believe that you are ignorant, and that if you were only better informed (Speak Out Against Violence!) you would join them.  

You call them what you will.  I will stick with “they”.

But they and their monkeyshines didn’t ruin the event. It was an interesting matchup, a top contender versus an old wizened warrior.  And I don’t mean old in the sense of creaky or derelict.  Povetkin seems to be as solid as ever.  And Whyte is the boogeyman that nobody wants to fight, it seems.

And they looked pretty even, and to me, well matched, Despite Whyte’s lead on the scorecards. Each round was competitive.  Then the two knockdowns happened, but Povetkin didn’t really seem hurt by either.  It did seem though that Whyte had sorted him out and was soon to lower the boom.

The combination that ended with a left uppercut to the point of the chin was thrown by Povetkin, not Whyte, and “boom” indeed.  Sheer brilliance.  Fast, too.  The old warrior still has a good chin and some spring in his step.

It was not that big of a surprise.  Klitschko beat him, but felt he had to cheat to do so.  I was more impressed with Povetkin’s restraint, not bitching about the holding, than I was with Wladimir’s knockdowns.  His only other loss was to Anthony Joshua, and to my way of thinking was ahead in that fight when he got caught in the 7^th.

I was initially pumped, thinking we would get to see Povetkin in another marquee matchup.  Maybe against Ortiz, or Ruiz, or even Fury.  But no, it seems they had one of those damnable rematch clauses in their contract and Whyte wants the rematch, is vowing to knock him out.

I don’t really want to see a rematch.  I don’t really want to see Fury / Wilder III either.  Miocic and Cormier just fought their “rubber match” in the UFC, and I didn’t want to see that, either. I wish they would just move on, fight other guys, give someone else a shot.

There have been numerous worthy trilogies over the years – Ali / Frazier leaps to mind.  Ali / Norton too.  Pacquiao fought Marquez four times (a “quadrogy”?) but these series did not occur consecutively.  They happened over a number of years with fights against other opponents intervening.  I mean I love (LOVE) watching Ohio State butcher the Wolverines every year, but I don’t want to see them do that every week.  It would just get a little stale.

There’s lots of good heavyweights out there, waiting for their chance.  Ajagba, Zhang, Joyce, Usyk, Fa.  Let’s stop the never ending rematches, clear our schedules and book some new fights (not Tom Schwartz, Tyson) against new and exciting talent.  Or old and cagey talent, like Alexander here.

Once upon a time, a lifetime ago it seems, I watched a night of boxing held in an empty ballroom.  We were innocents then, virgins as it were to quarantines and masks and watching sports reruns on YouTube.  Back then it was supposed that the thing to be avoided was a large crowd, so they held the fights with just the principals, their corner men, and their immediate families.  Some officials and cameramen rounded out the number. 

We briefly thought that was the new normal. I had no inkling that we were about to enter a dystopian world devoid of sport.

Then they canceled the NCAA tournament, then NBA, and NHL, and MLB and on and on.

Joyce vs. Dubois has been moved to July, as has Whyte vs. Povetkin.  All the news is about who wants who – Breazeale wants Ruiz, Usyk wants Fury, Whyte wants Miocic.  Miller just wants to fight. 

Fast forward to Easter Sunday and I went to Ying’s.  Ying’s is the neighborhood Chinese greasy-chopstick.  Every neighborhood has one, and if they don’t, they wish they did.  The food is good and inexpensive, the service unreliable but that’s okay when you can get soup, appetizers and entrees for two for $36.00. 

They have their menus printed on what look like placemats, laminated plastic affairs printed on both sides. One menu is westernized food, with your egg-foo this and moo-goo that, the other menu has authentic Chinese dishes.  

Looking online for the fish soup that Lisa likes (It’s one of the Chinese dishes), I  could I not find it.  I didn’t see any authentic dishes at all, except for a short list of “Chef Specials” on the last page. Wondering what was up, I drove down there to find out (It’s just two miles) and was surprised to see ten cars (I counted) parked in front.

Because of the virus and the governor’s edicts, they had tables lined up blocking entrance to the dining room, creating a small waiting area.  There were no chairs there, to discourage loitering I suppose. Three Uber or Grub Hub drivers were  waiting for their food, but there was no one at the cash register.  After a minute a masked and harried woman emerged from the kitchen and got rid of two of the drivers, then spoke briefly to the other, then turned to me “And you? What you want?”

“I wanted to order for carryout” I said, “do you have the Chinese menu?”

“No Chinese! American only!”

“Oh.  Can I see a menu then?” I swear she practically threw one at me. “You call!” She seemed genuinely irked that I had showed up in person to make an order.  I said something about the menu changing, and she gestured to the one in my hand.  I nodded and said “Yes, I know, and I’ll keep this one.”

Then I ordered and paid and she again raised her voice, “Twenty to thirty five minutes!” I said okay and drove back home.

It wasn’t always this way.  The original Ying herself moved back to China years ago.  But when she ran the place, there were many original dishes, I mean her own inventions, including several salads, which are unheard of in China. Then her husband took over for a time, and it became a more mainstream western menu. Then some young Chinese men bought it and they introduced the little hunks of meat on a skewer and cooked over a flame thing- chicken hearts, whole little fish, even sheep testicles. That didn’t last long.

The current owner is the somewhat grumpy lady above, the author of the two-part menu and it’s demise.

Through all these changes, one thing stayed constant. The staff never seemed happy to be there.  It’s as if a curse of gloom enveloped the building.  They may have tried, but they never pierced that darkness.  I suppose a poor location is to blame – they just never get enough business to really make it worthwhile.  Also contributing is their miscomprehension of ‘service’- or at least the way we Americans comprehend it.  They could be slow, they’d forget something that was ordered, bring the entrée before the appetizer, etc.  Plus, wearing a long face while waiting tables is not the way to win big tips and enthusiastic return customers.

I’m a return customer and the grumpy lady knows me.  She knows what I order too. She has met my wife and all my children, as I go there to eat pretty often. I have decided long ago to look past the service stumbling for the sake of the good food. Instead of complaining I try to bring a smile to their face; to be, as much as possible in this context, a friend.

I came back in a half hour and there were ten different cars parked in front. My food was ready, I could see it on a table beyond the barrier.  I could hear her and a man yelling at each other in Chinese back in the kitchen.  That brought back painful memories.  I spent ten years cooking in various restaurants, so I’ve been in those stressed-out, blaming each other shouting matches. Not fun. 

In a minute or two she appeared, saw me standing there (with a new crop of Uber drivers) and walked briskly to the front and handed me my bag.

I held out my left hand, with a $5.00 bill in it.  She either didn’t see it or just ignored it, walking past me to answer the phone that was next to the cash register. I laid the bill next to the phone and walked out. It was just a token, a gesture.  Like a card when you’re sick “Hey I saw you. I’ve been there.” I heard her say something that might have been “thanks”, or she could have been talking on the phone, I wasn’t sure.

On the drive home, I thought about Forrest Gump and his shrimp boat. How he struggled to catch any shrimp at all until his luck changed, and then suddenly he was hip-deep in shrimp.  He and Lieutenant Dan didn’t curse the shrimp.  No, they reacted to the new circumstances with eagerness and gratitude.

They became wealthy.  May my Chinese friend do the same.

There is an opportunity for the same thing to happen in boxing too. (See? It is too about boxing!) Not long ago we had 2 or three fight cards on prime-time TV every week. So much boxing that I honestly didn’t watch it all.  I would DVR them and then look at the names to decide which ones to watch.  We had a wealth of televised boxing and then: *Urk?*  No boxing. 

The spigot has been turned off.  Now we wait and hope for a Forrest Gump, to bring boxing back to TV.  

I’ll have the number seven and some crab Rangoon. 

But I fancy a bit of pugilism, what do you say?

It’s shaping up to be an exciting Spring. As long as the money-grubbing – behind the scenes – sanctioning body weasels don’t ruin it. And that’s more than semi-likely, truth be told. But for now, lets bask in the possibility of these things coming to fruition and enjoy what Carly Simon and ketchup producers alike have extolled as one of life’s keenest pleasures: anticipation.

First is the tantalizing potential for a Dillian Whyte / Andy Ruiz April or May showdown. Word is that a seven figure offer has already been made and Ruiz is already training. (I know, he said he was training for Joshua 2 too but come on, stay focused! We’re being positive here!) If Ruiz can get past Whyte (and my guess is that he can) then he’ll get a shot at the winner of Fury / Wilder! (So they say). That would be awesome. Let’s see these guys mix it up while they are all still in their prime. Fury and Wilder have mutual rematch clauses, meaning whoever loses can opt for the trilogy, and that can stretch things out a bit, but even having the possibility of a Ruiz / Wilder or Fury match this close to reality is exciting. I thought it would take much, MUCH longer.

Kownacki meanwhile is apparently going the wanker route, fighting Robert Helenius in March. This has frustrated Dominick Breazeale, who was trying to get a match with him in order to reinsert himself at the top echelon of the division. The picture I saw of Breazeale accompanying that story was the angriest face I’ve seen on him. That was the face he should have had on when he fought Wilder. Maybe he can get a bout with Jarrell Miller. I’d watch that.

Usyk is involuntarily wanking, taking on Derek Chisora this Spring because well, a man’s gotta make a living I suppose… but then (assuming he gets past Pulev) he is next up to fight Anthony Joshua. That could be very interesting if my hunch about Usyk is right (that he’s fast enough and talented enough to compete with the big boys.

Conner McGregor is seeking a fight with Manny Pacquiao. Talking yesterday with a friend I mentioned this and and after noting that they will make a buttload of money said something like “This is stupid, he’ll just get knocked out again.” My friend replied “Well then everybody gets what they want.” Frankly I kind of doubt Manny would sign on to a farce like that.

But first up is the rematch between Fury and Wilder and I can’t wait for this one.

I was recently challenged to publish a prediction, so he goes: understanding that I already reported the fight as even money, my gun-to-my-head I have to pick a winner prediction is…Wilder by K.O.

Deontay Wilder cleaned another clock last night. Did a whiz-bang job of it too. Seriously, I was impressed.

I was originally impressed after his first match against Stiverne. Up till then, I bought into the rap against him, that he hadn’t fought anyone, that he was just a clubber, etc. Seeing him go twelve rounds, and against a champion, well that pretty much settled that issue, huh?

Well no. As you could see from his comments last night if you sat through the pre-fight hype show, that he still hears the same critique. He can’t box, has got no footwork, blah blah blah. Funny thing is, I get to thinking it too. Even after seeing him defeat Ortiz the first time, Even after he knocked out King Tosser Fury.

He was patient, looking, feinting, jabbing, studying his man, waiting for the opportunity to drop his payload, the “bomb” that he talks about. Boom! One shot, and the bogeyman was down.

And we’ve seen it before! He beat Szpilka and Washington in precisely the same way.

He may be the very best. I’m starting to think so. I want it to be Ruiz, cause he’s just so damn likable, but I think it’s probably Wilder. I hope most of all that we get to find out. Not five years from now, but now. 2020. Let’s get the big fights moving forward.

Now Ruiz / Joshua 2 is coming up fast. I can’t wait.

Tyson Fury keeps calling Deontay Wilder a dosser. At first I thought he was saying tosser, but no, dosser. So I looked it up, and it means “homeless person” or “a city person who does not have a permanent home and sleeps in the streets or in very cheap hotels.” In other words, what we used to call a hobo, a bum.

And that makes sense. As long as I can remember, “bum” was an accepted boxing pejorative, along with palooka and mook.

But I like tosser. It means the same thing as wanker, one who plays with himself. And that will be Fury’s new title on this blog, the Tosser King. He wants to be recognized as the Lineal Champion, and calls himself “the Gypsy King” but for now around here it will be “Tosser King”, for him, the wanker.

“What”, you are asking, “has turned you against the big Brit?”

I wanted to be a Fury fan, really I did. After the Wilder fight I had to change my opinion of his boxing abilities. He is quick and slick and hard to hit. And I loved his demeanor after the fight. You could see that he was disappointed with the draw, but he kept smiling and being gracious. He did a similar thing after the Klitschko fight, where to settle a bet, he sang a song acapella into the mike, not afraid to make an ass of himself. He looked to be (in both cases) like a man on an adrenaline high who just loves his sport.

And he dropped all pretense of hostility toward his opponents, he hugged them, complimented them, thanked them, told them he loved them.

It kind freaked Wilder out. He went with it, but you could see him thinking “WTF?”.

And I LOVED it when he called out Joshua, flapping his arms and clucking like a chicken. That was both funny and charming.

At that time, I was a converted Fury fan, looking forward to watching him fight again.

But then, as I have theorized elsewhere, Slugworth got to him and convinced him to abandon reaching for the lofty goals of title belts, unification, etc., and sink down into the fetid swamp of maximum moolah.

So we got Fury / Schwartz. Not Fury / Ortiz or Kownacki or Rivas or Whyte. Schwartz. And we were treated the spectacle of a grown man being treated like a kitten treats a ball of yarn. It was sad. It was shameful.

And he went right back to the trash talk. I even heard him go back in time and throw shade at Klitschko, which makes no sense. The man is retired, he’s not going to come back and fight you again, let him be.

And now he’s chosen to fight Otto Wallin. Another “not-ready-for-prime-time player.”

Oy.

“Butt Otto Wallin is professional boxer, and he’s undefeated.”

Yeah, and Francesco Pianetta was a professional boxer and undefeated when Klitschko fought him, (I know, because being incredulous, I looked it up). He was 29-0 and his opponents up to that point in his career had a combined record of 448-273. He had victories over Oliver McCall and Frans Botha on his resume. Yet Klitschko made him look like some couch potato that fell asleep and just dream-wandered through the wrong door and found himself in a boxing match.

Otto Wallin is 20-0 and his opponents have a combined record of 271-259.

I expect he’ll get a rude awakening too.

As for his claim to the lineal championship:

Bitch, please.

He gave it up when he failed to show up for the rematch with Klitschko. Not getting into the ring isn’t the same as not being beaten in the ring. He gave it up, relinquished it, let it go. He refused to defend it. Sure, he had good reason, but that doesn’t change the fact that he didn’t show up. You don’t win championships on the kindness of others and you sure as hell don’t keep them that way either.

Then Joshua and Klitschko duked it out for all his hardware, and in reality the lineal championship as well. In the case of a gap in succession (like when the champ retires), the protocol is to award the title to the winner of a confrontation between the number one and number two fighters in their weight class. No, I don’t know where Klitschko and Joshua were ranked when they fought, but if they weren’t one and two I’d like to know who was.

So Joshua wins the fight, reels in all those belts and the moniker “Lineal Champ.” Subsequently he lost it to Andy Ruiz, so to my way of thinking, Andy Ruiz is now the lineal champ. Prove me wrong.

Sadly, I think Tyson Fury is a very talented fighter who has been shanghaied – placed under a spell by some money-grubbing dream-weaving bastard of a promoter. He’s stuck now in a rut fighting tomato cans and wee girls, waving his paws like a trained bear in a cage so the kids will throw peanuts at him.

And he roars “I’m the best! The one true champ!” And like the Emperor showing off his new clothes, he swats at Tom Schwartz and the kids shout “Yes! You’re the best!” and he swings at Otto Wallin and they all swoon “You’re our champion!”.

He doesn’t’ know that the kids work for the promoter. And none of them will tell him that he’s disengaged, disconnected from the rest of the boxing world, that he’s living a fiction, in a fantasy world.

These fights don’t mean anything. He’s not working toward a title shot, he’s saying “I’ve already got one!” like the French guard in Monty Python’s Holy Grail. Maybe he should try to fight Shrek next. It would mean as much.

He can’t see that he’s lost in a magical land* called Irrelevancy. And no one has the guts to say that really he’s just playing with himself.

The big Tosser.

*I didn’t say it was good magic.