SLAM! Sports
SLAM! Boxing
COLUMNS
CANADIAN PUNCH
UPPERCUTS
LOOKING BACK
GALLERIES
INTERACTIVE
ALSO ON SLAM!
What's next for boxing?
The wise guys, the gorgeous dolls, the celebrities and citizens at large descend from all over the world.
Just like the rematches of old, Dempsey and Tunney, Marciano and Walcott, Ali and Frazier, the return battle of this generation's two great warriors elevates a sport flawed with more cuts and bruises than a punch-drunk boxer.
But, as with the passing of all great adventures, a sadness floats above the sounds of celebration and the infernal clanging of the slot machines.
A question lingers but isn't asked. No one wants to spoil the moment, but the question simply won't go away.
What does boxing do now?
You can't begin to describe what happened this week.
A guy stops you on a walk through a casino and offers $2,000 US for your press pass. Hours later the price jumps to $3,000.
You rush back to the room. The crush of wall-to-wall people makes the MGM's walkways look like a roller derby track. The noise of thousands of voices irritates.
All the ice cream-eating kiddies from earlier in the week seem to have disappeared, replaced by people named Sly and Sweet Sugar and The Reverend.
It looks like the U.N. in here. A couple Arabs in full dress go by. So do a group in the flowing color of African robes followed by another wave of Latinos.
Brazilian TV gives me a wave, I hang out with the Brits and the Germans and an American cable network interviews me and compares the Dinger to John Candy.
One minute you're talking to a Pulitzer prize winner. The next minute you're having a soda with Budd Schulberg, who wrote the great Brando flick On The Waterfront and talks of Humphrey Bogart and Ernest Hemingway and Joe Louis as if they still live.
I shake hands with Buster Douglas and then Ken Norton.
Hell, even I start to feel I coulda been a contender.
Still the question remains. What does boxing do now?
In this fight world, most come to see Tyson, to see him get knocked on his butt or to destroy. Mike will always be a drawing card.
Holyfield made it all happen. The great warrior returned, ending Mike's string of bums of the month.
Evander remains the good man, the living proof nice guys never really do finish last in God's eyes.
Sadly, time passes. Beyond these two gladiators of the ring lies the abyss.
The pulse doesn't quicken as you gaze out.
Riddick Bowe. He couldn't make the Marines.
George Foreman. Everybody loves George, but it's been more than 20 years since the Rumble. He's almost 50.
Michael Moorer. Who? Lennox Lewis. Yawn.
Andrew Golota. If only the Polish kid from Chicago could hit above the belt. Henry Akinwande or Courage Tshabalala. You get the picture.
So let the parties of the famous and the infamous roar, let the high-priced booze flow. This is New Year's Eve and the Fourth of July all rolled into one.
But, with the dawn, come the sober second thoughts.
Would the last great boxer leaving the casino please turn out the lights?