President Reagan appropriated Jack Dempsey?s iconic phrase when he spoke to his wife as he was lying in a hospital bed: ?Honey, I forgot to duck??
Boxing is ugly, stupid, and violent?but boxing fans are beautiful, insightful, and peaceful?well, most of the time.
This horrible blood-soaked sport is a throwback to our violent past. Boxing is a vestige of our dark, irrational inheritance. That?s why it?s so exhilarating.
It?s cultured violence.
Professional boxing has always been under sharp attack because people like to believe they have evolved into a peaceful species with superior values?but look around?there is more emotional, political, social, religious chaos and violence outside the boxing ring than inside it.
True, the most open-minded, learned, and elevated boxing fan struggles with his love of boxing. He is a bit embarrassed by his admiration of the fight game. He pays good money to sit safely in the comfort of his ringside seat while shuddering and gasping at the violent beauty of a heavyweight title fight.
Boxing is the darkness howling at the bottom of each of us. It is unleashed up in the ring for everyone to see. What could be better?
Boxing?s appeal crosses all barriers, race, religion and, today more than ever, the sexual divide, with women?s boxing gaining more momentum than at any other time in the sport?s long and colourful history. Kings and commoners, princes and paupers, movie stars and mobsters, guys and dolls have all been brought together by the sport?s indefinable glamour,? so writes a perceptive Thomas Myler in The Sweet Science Goes Sour.
The ?thrill of the fight? and the ?sensuous experiences of boxing? is a recent topic submitted by Christopher Matthews in his doctoral thesis for his Doctor of Philosophy degree at Loughborough University, England.
Professional boxing is a throwback, a vestige, of our dark, ancestral past. You cannot convince a person to be sympathetic, or appreciate, such a corrupt and irrational sport?a sport where you get extra points for producing brain damage.
Even I have a hard time defending it.
But there are plenty of open-minded luminaries who respect the sport. Who are they?
? a United States President! ? a Pulitzer Prize winner! ? three award-winning actors! ? two critically-acclaimed playwrights! ? two singer/songwriters who have won a total of 26 Grammy Awards! ? a world-renowned philosopher! ? a talented prima-donna opera singer! ? ?and many more!
So take your ringside seat?here are 16 well-known boxing fans walking down the aisle now! One of them might sit right next to you!
DING?The bell has rung!
