Another month into this strange time.
A few weeks ago, just after my previous column went live, I reviewed the current issue of The Ring magazine for NewPages. They usually focus on more “literary” goings-on, but that issue of The Ring just felt so urgent, so relevant. Published at the beginning of lockdown, it spoke to the moment: wanting to do justice in covering the pre-lockdown fights of the previous month, but also speaking to the new-present with articles about the fight-world adjusting post-lockdown.
At that point in April, March already felt so far away. And now in May, April feels just as distant.
I watched some of UFC 249 last Saturday, the prelims on ESPN (I didn’t spring for the pay-per-view). Dana White never got his “fight island”; they held the matches in Florida, following in the footsteps of the WWE (who held WrestleMania during the last week of March). There was no audience screaming alongside the octagon, there was social distancing and (some) masks, but otherwise the broadcast followed a pretty standard format. Luque-Price was a big action fight, stopped in the third by the ring doctor for cuts to Price’s face. The big difference was the audio – without crowd cheer and chatter, you could hear the fighter’s landing every blow. You could hear when their breathing downshifted from strong to heavy.
Here’s the set up tonight inside the arena at #UFC249 pic.twitter.com/bhUL3F7n3x
— José Youngs (@JoseYoungs) May 9, 2020
I can understand the desire to be the first sports promoter back up and running, and I’m sure there is business sense to it, but who wants to be responsible for a potential outbreak? One fighter had to cancel due to testing positive for COVID-19 (along with two of his cornermen). I don’t know how it was for other viewers, but for me, that fact was just as present as the fighters in the ring, and weighed heavily.
In an effort to stave off cabin fever, I also opened a free Hoopla account. I watched the 2018 movie Float Like a Butterfly, a coming-of-age story about a young Irish Traveller girl who idolizes Muhammad Ali. I also saw the documentary The Pretender, which isn’t about boxing per se, but a Pennsylvania man who’s dream in life is to actually be Rocky Balboa (and amazingly, he’s pretty much succeeded). In other non-fiction, I highly recommend the in-depth series “The Twighlight Rounds” from The Grueling Truth about Rod Serling and his lifelong interest in boxing (Rounds 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, with more to come). It’s a thoroughly researched consideration of how a writer can visit and re-visit the same material over and over throughout the years, always shifting his stance just a little to find a fresh perspective.
I’ve also been re-reading some boxing literature, most recently Jack London’s “A Piece of Steak,” which I believe may be the most ubiquitous bit of boxing-fiction around. It’s a parable of social realism from London, who was a staunch socialist but also an atrocious racist who despised heavyweight champion Jack Johnson and wrote horribly about him in newspapers at the time, referring to him with a racial slur in “A Piece of Steak”. In the story, Tom King is an aging and impoverished boxer. On the day he is to fight a man named Sandel, he cannot afford a proper meal, and the butcher will not give him credit enough for a piece of steak. Tom gives his all in the ring, but Sandel’s youth allows him to absorb the punishment and recuperate, while age and hunger eventually wear Tom out. It’s Age versus Youth, but also Man versus Capitalism. London makes poverty the opponent who defeats the fighting man.
I had forgotten how well-observed the story is. The plot is quite a simple construction, yet buttressed by enough finely-wrought details to hold together nicely. I had also forgotten London’s long, stylistic sentences and how well they read aloud.
In one paragraph, Tom observes the now distended veins in his hands, and recalls how when he was younger they had an elasticity that gave him endurance.
No longer could he do a fast twenty rounds, hammer and tongs, fight, fight, fight, from gong to gong, with fierce rally on top of fierce rally, beaten to the ropes and in turn beating his opponent to the ropes, and rallying fiercest and fastest of all in that last, twentieth round, with the house on its feet and yelling, himself rushing, striking, ducking, raining showers of blows upon showers of blows and receiving showers of blows in return, and all the time the heart faithfully pumping the surging blood through the adequate veins.
There are observations on the minutiae of boxing strategy and ring generalship:
As the round neared its close King, warned of the fact by sight of the seconds crouching outside ready of the spring in through the ropes, worked the fight around to his own corner. And when the gong struck he sat down immediately on the waiting stool, while Sandel had to walk all the way across the diagonal of the square to his own corner. It was a little thing, but it was the sum of little things that counted.
And there are animated portrayals of the action:
He feinted with his left, drew the answering duck and swinging upward hook, then made the half-step backward, delivered the uppercut full to the face and crumpled Sandel over to the mat. After that he never let him rest, receiving punishment himself, but inflicting far more, smashing Sandel to the ropes, hooking and driving all manner of blows into him, tearing away from his clinches or punching him out of attempted clinches, and ever, when Sandel would have fallen, catching him with one uplifting hand and with the other immediately smashing him into the ropes where he could not fall.
Revisiting this old story (from 1909) gives me some measure of comfort. In all that time, boxing has remained relatively unchanged. Descriptions of a fight from a century ago could easily pass for descriptions of a fight today. Jabs, feints, hooks to the body. The referee steps in, the bell dings, etc. What the body could accomplish a hundred years ago is consonant with a body today. The repetition of those simple gestures feels awfully human; for all our flailing and our failure, it feels dependable and reassuring.
Boxing can be an utterly repetitive sport, and as a writer I’ll admit this sometimes gives me trepidation. Jabs, feints, hooks to the body. The referee steps in, the bell dings, etc. Over and over again. Like Monet painting water lilies in the morning, water lilies in the afternoon, water lilies in the evening. An artist returning over and over to the same point.
We’re being told that when we emerge from lockdown, we’ll all emerge a little different than when we went in. Undoubtedly this is true. When I talk about Monet, I often talk about the water lilies. Too often I forget that what Monet was really painting was the light. The lilies were incidental. He was painting the morning light, the afternoon light, the evening light. That’s why every canvas in the series feels so new, so fresh. When we look too quickly, we see repetition. A lifetime of study allowed Monet to see the originality.
In the cover image for this column, the boy is standing alone. He is smiling, looking completely hopeful. He wears boxing gloves. We do not know what he is up against, and I think quite naturally, we wonder if he knows what he will be up against. It might sound cliche, but none of us ever really know until we’re in the thick of it. That’s just as true for boxing as it is for writing as it is for this pandemic.
If anything keeps me smiling during this strange time, it is this: the artist’s ability to come up against repetition and create something more profound than duplication, to separate the light from the lilies.
There is no set date for live boxing to return, although practically every day a different promoter throws out a different “maybe.” (The current “maybe” is June.)
Mike Tyson has talked recently about stepping back into the ring, as has Evander Holyfield, in some exhibition fights for charity. Given the interest online in the training videos Tyson posted, this could be a big event.
In other boxing-related news, two major personalities from the Strongman world – Hafthor “The Mountain” Bjornsson and Eddie “The Beast” Hall – have announced they are going to box each other in a grudge match set for September 2021, billed as “the heaviest match ever.” In addition to boxing, I’m a big fan of the sport of Strongman, so this definitely has my interest.