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Sweet science has sickly smell
I am admittedly far from a boxing expert. I can't tell the difference between a left hook and an overhand right.
But, near as I can figure, the idea of the whole thing is to hit the other guy more often than he hits you and do it in more rounds than he does.
Boxing, of course, has to be much more subtle than just a punch in the face. That's why referees -- well, two out of the three, anyway -- could see something nobody else -- not the television commentators and audience, not the veteran writers who were ringside, not light heavyweight champ Roy Jones Jr., -- could see.
I watched the Evander Holyfield-Lennox Lewis fiasco in the press room of the Molson Centre after the Canadiens-Toronto Maple Leafs game Saturday night.
I was in the company of several people whose knowledge was such they were willing to wager on the outcome of the fight and started a pool, selecting the outcome and the round it would end.
They obviously didn't know much, because none of them picked the outcome as a draw.
As the fight went on, the pool of possible winners dwindled until only one fellow was left and he had selected Lewis by decision. They gave him the money halfway through the 12th-and-final round.
Unlike Don King and the other credible organizers responsible, the poor guy who won the pool had to give the money back.
Lewis won the fight, hands down.
There have been many interviews with those involved, but my absolute favourite was with referee Eugenia Williams of New Jersey, which I tuned in on WFAN out of New York during the drive back to beautiful downtown Rockland.
When it was pointed out by the interviewer the "Punchstats" showed Lewis had landed 348 punches and Holyfield just 130, Williams replied she did not have the advantage of being privy to the "Punchstats."
Fine. But certainly those stats indicate how one-sided the fight might have been. The referee's job is to watch the fight, get a sense of who is landing the blows, who is being the aggressor. It's hard to ignore 348 blows landed to 130 as an indication of who was carrying the fight.
Then again, boxing has always had a particular aroma about it.
Some have compared it to professional wrestling, but that's an insult to Stone Cold, Sable, HHH and the other actors who use the stage that is the squared circle.
Wrestling knows what it is and doesn't try to pass itself off as anything but entertainment which has very little to do with an athletic competition. A large part of its appeal is its unpredictability. Anything can happen in the ring and usually does, all of it carefully scripted to keep the fans coming back and the television audiences tuning in.
Promoter Don King was gleefully rubbing his hands together yesterday and talking about, "how we're going to do it again."
The alphabet soup of boxing organizations "ordered" a rematch within six months. Like they had to order anybody to do anything.
Holyfield, whose swollen face told the story better than any judge's card, can get another champion's payday despite being a loser. This is like winning a lottery for him.
Lewis, who must know for certain now he can beat Holyfield with only his jab, should have little fear the next time around. He also gets another big payday.
Don King needed the least convincing of all. He has a lot of detractors (many of them district attorneys), but certainly none among his bankers. Like he said, he gets to do it all over again.
He knows, probably better than all of us who saw an injustice committed Saturday night, to the fans, to Lewis, to what small shreds of credibility remain for boxing, that fans will lineup once again to pay for the rematch.
e-mail ceejaystev@aol.com