My most lasting memory of the 2011 season of ESPN2?s ?Friday Night Fights? will undoubtedly be that of an old-fashioned ice cream scooper. As a hematoma swelled over Pawel Wolak?s right eye in his bout with Delvin Rodriquez, an Enswell looked like a postage stamp on an envelope and was no match for the almost grotesque swelling. One round later, Team Wolak was seen pressing an old-fashioned metal ice cream scooper to Wolak?s eye in a futile attempt to control the swelling. Through it all, Wolak fought on, the only way he knows, straight ahead.
It was a night we were all reminded why we love boxing. A week later, talking to trainer Barry Hunter, he told me that if he ran boxing, both guys would have been millionaires after that fight. So at a time when it?s easy to be critical of the boxing establishment, with overpriced lackluster pay-per-views, (Bernard Hopkins vs. Chad Dawson coming soon), it?s a good time to reflect on a season of network TV fights and why we love the ?Sweet Science.?
Upsets, brawls, bloodbaths, and prospects (both discovered and exposed) all took center stage at one time or another during the season. So I made my list of the reasons I love boxing that were part of ?Friday Night Fights? this past season.
