Boxing is about suffering, enduring pain, and subjecting oneself to possible humiliation in order to seek, in the end, something like a state of grace?
NEW YORK, New York?It is fight night and I?m not sitting, like I usually do, in the nosebleed section. I?ve been gifted a yellow plastic ?Official Press Credential.? It?s now dangling around my neck, and it gives me the special privilege to sit ringside.
There is something very exciting about sitting ringside, especially in The Theater at Madison Square Garden.
I?m sitting two rows from the brightly-lit, blue ring. The HBO boom-camera is pirouetting quietly overhead, circles of swirling light are dancing through the arena, and three scantily-clad ring-girls with long legs and stiletto heels are primping and preening about ten seats from me. Unfortunately, not one of them smiles or notices me, even though I?m wearing this prestigious ?Official Press Credential.?
Tonight, this prestigious credential makes me special. I?m covering two important title matches: Sergey Kovalev-Igor Mikhalkin for the WBC crown, and Dmitry Bivol-Sullivan Barrera for the WBA crown. Even though today?s mainstream media don?t deem these two title matches worthy of much attention, I do.
So do the boxing fans sitting here in Madison Square Garden?it?s sold out.
The light heavyweight division is teeming with fistic talent: tonight?s four fighters, plus Adonis Stevenson, Badou Jack, and young Marcus Browne are seven volatile men who have harnessed their personal rage and violence to become forces in their division. They are men who have learned to turn their psychological problems into a paycheck.
Over to my left are tonight?s HBO commentators?the polished Jim Lampley, Max (love or hate him) Kellerman, and great former world champ, Roy Jones, Jr. They are standing fifteen feet away, looking into a television camera, assessing tonight?s matchups.
Writer Tony Paige is to my right, hobnobbing with another well-known writer, whose name I have forgotten. Michael Buffer, the millionaire ring announcer, is signing autographs directly in front of me.
The man sitting beside me is Bob Cannobio, the inventor, and owner of CompuBox.
?Hi,? I say.
?Hi,? he smiles.
?How long has CompuBox been around, 10 years?? I ask.
?Sixteen.?
CompuBox is the punch stat system used by almost every major network that carries boxing. There are two operators who take one fighter each. Each operator has four keys: jab connect, jab miss, power punch connect, power punch miss. As the rounds progress, the jabs and power shots are counted producing stats which are shown on the TV screen as talking points.
The prelims promptly begin and by the fourth bout I notice a pattern: house fighters are always placed in the red corner, and their corner men are always quiet and composed. By comparison, the visiting fighters?from Georgia, Ohio, Alabama, Miami, the Dominican Republic and Mexico?are placed in the blue corner. I notice that, without exception, the corner men are always loud, uninhibited shouters. It becomes painfully obvious that despite their passionate screaming of encouragement?ITALIC?Jab ?n hook!…Walk him down!…Fire back!??these trainers are powerless to save their fighters from defeat. Are their fighters even listening to them?
Each visiting fighter loses?either by unanimous decision, bloody TKO, or dramatic knockout. I wonder how many of these fighters will be escorted to a hospital?s emergency room.
Tonight?s co-main bout is next up?Dmitry Bivol versus Sullivan Barrera. This is the bout I?ve been waiting for. It promises to be the most competitive fight of the night.
People who have never climbed into a ring?the great majority of humanity?tend to malign the sport as reckless or barbaric. It certainly is. But boxing can be heroic. Boxing is about suffering, enduring pain, and subjecting oneself to possible humiliation in order to seek, in the end, something like a state of grace.
This state of grace is exactly what tonight?s crowd got from Dymitry Bivol, a 27-year-old Russian, hailing from St. Petersburg.
The fight was a perfect example of ugly beauty.
In the first round, Bivol, the champion, sustained a half-inch cut on the side of his right eye from a head-butt.
But he endured the pain and kept fighting with poise. He was fighting like a duck?on the surface he was all style and grace, but underneath he was paddling like mad.
?Bivol?s punch count is two-to-one,? I think I heard Canobbio tell his operator, sitting to his left.
Bivol, for twelve rounds, slowly and systematically chopped down an aging Sullivan Barrera, who was, at the beginning, filled with enthusiasm, high hopes, great expectations and energy, but slowly became discouraged, old, and a shell of himself.
In the twelfth and final round, Bivol threw a jolting right hand which dropped Barrera to the canvas. Barrera?s swollen, close-up face, televised on the HBO screen, showed his eyes were open, but his brain seemed to be swaying in and out of two worlds.
Bivol?s knockout of Barrera was a different form of sublimity?Bivol weathered a dangerous opponent and a perilous cut eye for twelve furious rounds to emerge victorious, with the WBA belt still wrapped around his waist.
Sergey Kovalev beware?Dymitry Bivol is the future of your division.
The main event, by comparison, was painful to watch. Igor Mikhalkin, a defensively-minded boxer, bravely climbed up the ring steps. His boxing career, up to this point, has been a big success (21-1 with 9 K0s). He is the current European champion and boxing has been an expression of some odd, immutable aspect of his personality.
His fistic ambition and determination has brought him here, to The Theater in Madison Square Garden, but his chances of beating ?Krusher? Kovalev are slim to none. That is exactly why Kovalev has picked him as his opponent.
?We friends in Russia, since we 17 years old,? revealed Kovalev at the press conference. ?But in ring we not friends.?
Igor Mikhalkin realizes that with Kovalev, he?s brushing up against the elusiveness of fame and fortune. All it takes is one good punch.
The bell rings.
It?s a good fight and Mikhalkin fights bravely, but by the seventh-round it?s obvious?Mikhalkin is the meat; Kovalev is the knife.
Igor?s battered face, with an angry slice on his cheek, becomes a bloody red mask.
Igor, tonight?s final TKO victim, will certainly be visiting the emergence room. It will take months for his face to heal.
At the end of the night, I realize not one of the ring card girls has smiled at me all evening. I take off my plastic ?Official Press Credential? and leave the arena. I walk to my car and drive home to my wife?a woman who is prettier than all of those scantily-clad strumpets. She realizes I?m someone special?even without a prestigious press credential dangling around my neck. And she will smile at me at soon as I walk in the door.
