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.