UNCLE LEO
Ogdensburg, NY- The youngster asked the tired old reporter, “Why do you suppose he wouldn’t just let them go ahead and take the samples and test for the drugs if he was clean”? The old man spoke slowly and thoughtfully, “Son, do you suppose the entire thing was only the first act of the play.” “But old-timer,” he returned, “If that’s just the beginning then where do we go from here”? “Well son, it’s like this. What if you always wanted to be the biggest thing that boxing has ever known? How would you go about it? Possibly the best way, and certainly a good way, would be to win the biggest boxing event of all time. What’s that you say? Why you’d have to create it, it wouldn’t just happen by accident.” The young man then asked, “Do you mean you think that was just a smoke screen to something that’ll be an even bigger event than what the match was going to be? It was already thought of as the most sought after match in history”? “You’re learning son, you may make a reporter yet, if you keep thinking like that. Now think a little more. In order to become the superstar of boxing, beyond all who came before you, you must win the perceived biggest event of all time. Before you can win it, it has to exist, and before that, you have to create it. To create an event that will be thought the greatest boxing match of all time there has to be a bit of mystery to it. Everybody likes a good mystery whether it’s a book or a TV show.” “But old-timer, how can you make a mystery of a boxing match? It’s usually quite a simple thing. Two men get in the ring and duke it out to see which is better at the sport.” “Son, you got to work at this trade. If you were that boxer wanting to be the superstar, you got to think up some sort of mysterious way to really draw attention to, not yourself particularly, but to the entire event. Then, once the event is established as the greatest fight of all time, all you got to do is win it. That’s the easy part. The hard part is establishing the event in the first place.” “So then, old-timer, you’re saying that the drug screening fiasco was no more than a huge publicity event”? “I didn’t say that, you did.” “But, old-timer, you implied it.” “Yes, I did, and maybe that’s exactly what our want-to-be-superstar could have been doing also. He didn’t say anything, he merely implied it, and now that everyone is talking about it, think how big of an event it’ll be somewhere down the road after each of the fighters has had a match or two with others in between.” “But old-timer, what if either one of them gets beaten in the meantime”? “That’s where the mystery comes in son, that’s where the mystery comes in.”
