Sorry I forgot about the ESPN2 program, but I still don’t think it comes close to touching FNF…
Oh, and Teddy drives me nuts, though the champ can be entertaining.
Sam
They paid him millions of dollars to punch another man into a stupor. What did you want him to box like?
No, he begged, pleaded, his handlers greased palms and hired very expensive lawyers to get him back into the ring and economics won out over sense…
Sam
Then again his title is from an organization that seems itself washed-up. And now he holds it by default. So it’s kinda fitting.
I don’t understand. The end result was him receiving millions of dollars to punch other men into stupors. If violence is the job description, it’s pretty stupid to call somebody a bully for succeeding at it. What, since Muhammad Ali looked pretty while punching men in the face, he’s an artist, but since Tyson just fucked people up, he’s a thug and a bully? At the end of the day, they’re all paid to try to kill each other, so why kid yourself about it?
This would be my totally uninformed, unenlightened, instinctive impression of the activity. Anybody wanna explain why it’s wrong?
(And WTF is up with all the boxing movies?)
Heh. That was going to be my first comment, too.
Admittedly, i didn’t see it either, but the reports i’ve read suggest it was an excellent match, and that Hatton looks like the real deal. Thing is, if i hadn’t been reading UK and Australian websites, i never even would have heard about the fight at all. American sporting parochialism is just as bad in boxing as it is in every other sport.
Interesting response. I don’t remember saying that wasn’t the case, however. In fact, I don’t see anyone denying that boxing is a brutal, nasty sport which makes men into monsters and causes brain damage. While you say it doesn’t matter because he was paid to be a bully and a brute, I disagree. Nobody, but nobody has ever taken boxing to the deep, dark depths that Tyson has.
In the past, some powerful men went into the ring and beat the shit out of each other. Today, Tyson goes into a match using any tactics available to him to get some sort of advantage-pre fight press conference brawls, maiming people in the ring-you name it.
Sam
I like watching martial arts contests where the blows are pulled, but the judges award points.
There are several problems with boxing:
- as Qadgop states, the clear way to win is to inflict serious injury.
- the sport seems infested with people trying to make money in dodgy ways. Why, for example, are there so many ‘World boxing organisations’?
- why are up and coming boxers fed a diet of weak opponents?
How is that a problem? In any sport you start at the bottom and work your way up. Put a promissing young boxer in with too highly competent an opponent and they will get beaten just by experience.
I’ve linked to it before, but this thread seems like another good opportunity to recommend that people read this article by long-time boxing reporter and documentary-maker Jack Newfield.
It’s a few years old now, but most of what Newfield wrote in 2001 still applies to the sport of boxing.
Well… yeah. He’s a menace to society. I tried to write this post like four different ways to argue my point, but who am I kidding? I know he shouldn’t have been allowed to fight. Really, what it boils down to is I know he’s dangerous, but I like him. I feel sorry for him.
I feel sorry for him as well…the kind of pity you feel for a wounded, but dangerous animal kept in captivity crossed with the pity you feel for a grown man with the intellect of a 2nd grader who is constantly being put on by his peers in order to extract his lunch money from him.
Sam
If you ever travel through Easton, PA Airman stop at the Larry Holmes Plaza and view the “Wall of Fame” in the lobby. I got to meet him when we were building the banking suite on the ground floor. Every time he stopped by the jobsite, workers were pulling out Polaroid cameras and having buddies take their picture with the champ. 
Maybe, but boxing’s barely on the radar as it is. Unless it’s a big name boxer that everyone recognizes, there’s a good chance you won’t hear about it anyway.
That’s true.
I love it when all these people who have lined up to suck Tyson’s cock over the years finally realize what a chump he really is. They also need to realize that at least 20% of Tyson’s package as a fighter was intimidation. He was built up by the promoters and the media and when he lost, his power was diminished considerably. Any big fucker with a nice jab could keep his ass at bay.
But I think this thread underscores something of the racism that is in American sports nowadays. The heavy weight division is no longer any good cause a white guy holds the title? Tex Cobb, Clooney, and McBride are chumps? Tyson is washed up because he lost to a (gasp) WHITE BOY? I have news for you and some of these dumbass posters in here: The white athlete is just as good as anyone else. The Irish boxer, when he dominated, boxed without gloves in contests that would go into the 100+ rounds. There was a ten count but as soon as you started to get back up, the other guy could begin to pummel you again. They would continue to box with one of their eyes hanging out of it’s socket. The person who implied that Irish and English boxers are chumps needs to stand their and let me sock them in their fucken face to see how weak an Irish/English person can hit.
But back to the racism in American sports: Don’t you know that white boys can’t jump? I got it a lot of this in high school. You need to be a certain color for this or that sport. It was all bullshit. Recently, Larry Bird sits there on TV and talks about how white people can’t play basketball while Anthony and James laugh about it. The funny part is that they then go to the Olympics as another incarnation of the “dream team” and lose to some Europeans who apparently didn’t get the word that they weren’t supposed to be good. The irony was better than any media overreaction which would have occured if it was a white guy saying anything about any other race. It all goes to show,
Don’t believe the hype.
You’re an idiot.
Yes.
Tyson’s a bigger chump them McBride.
Give him some credit.