Boxing combines the best elements of sport–its competition, its physical nature, and its pop-culture relevance–in a potion that even the most devoted of sports fans sometimes find too heady. Its appeal is at once easy to explain and as elusive as the silence before the ring of a bell. Great heavyweights, meanwhile, not only reign over a sector of society that prizes competition at its most basic level, but come to epitomize the era to the society in general. At least, they always have. The eras without a great heavyweight–such as the last ten years–seem a little diminished for the lack of a great fighter. Those days, now, are over.
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Last Friday, the Gaslight showed itself to be a busy place with a large regular clientele–most people knew the bartender as Doug–and, evidently, a number of stray customers who came to see the fight. I walked in a little after 8 PM–the fight was set for 9–and took one of the last two stools at the bar; the other was soon gone, so that the friend I was waiting for would have to stand through the fight, along with the rest of the people who soon cluttered the aisle. The Bulls were playing on the projection television as the place continued to fill. Two things struck me about the people: they were incredibly polite (“A Bud when you get a chance, Doug,” one said; another, greeted by Doug on a first-name basis, made it plain that there was “no rush” on his cheeseburger order) and they knew their sports. The Bulls elicited some interest–although everyone seemed distracted in anticipation of the fight–but all around me hummed the conversation of sports fans. Some people talked about the Blackhawks, while one person explained the difference between a knockout and a technical knockout (“A TKO is when you just can’t go on, a knockout is when you wake up and you’re not in Kansas anymore”).
I first heard of Mike Tyson in a United Press International story of a few years ago, back when he was only beginning to establish himself as one of the high-ranking contenders, back when he was undefeated in some umpteen fights as opposed to today’s 33-0. This was the era of several different heavyweight champs on several different continents, and this story would have been just like any other–“so-and-so knocked out so-and-so in the eighth round”–except for one Tyson quote that appeared in the body of the story. “I try to catch my opponent on the tip of his nose,” he said, “because I try to punch the bone into his brain.”
Holmes, too, resorted to the stereotyping of Tyson to psych himself up for the fight. Tyson, meanwhile, showed an awareness of history by citing Holmes as a childhood hero and one of the great fighters. He said that saying Holmes wasn’t a great fighter would be like saying Larry Bird isn’t a great basketball player. Then, in the most telling quote, he said, “I hope I won’t have to take pity on him because I’m not that kind of person.”
Throughout the fight, the bar noise had roared on, sometimes punctuated with encouraging shouts, but mostly a mix of oohs and ahs, and chatter. The best thing about HBO’s coverage is that they stay with the fighters between rounds; the viewer sees their corner men encouraging and advising, the fighters gathering themselves for the next encounter. The best thing about the noise in the Gaslight is that it drowned out the commentators and left us to concentrate on the fight itself. The knockdown changed all that; not that we could suddenly hear the audio on the television, but the entire atmosphere of the bar changed, as when a quick-moving spring storm blows overhead and the temperature drops ten degrees in an instant and the wind blows suddenly in wild gusts. There were no real words or utterances heard but only a background noise suddenly higher in its pitch–that unmistakable sound of people powerless to do anything as they watch others in trouble (I remember hearing it once when a child’s foot became stuck in an escalator at Water Tower). Tyson–in that situation he had foreseen–closed in again. He caught Holmes’s forehead with a glancing blow that sent him spinning to the canvas; it was gravy from the first knockdown. Holmes rose again, looking somewhat more together this time, but Tyson again moved in and it was apparent that Holmes—courageous as he was–was in real danger. He flailed off a few Tyson punches and hid against the ropes. Tyson rolled on, throwing lefts and rights in sloppy but painful combinations that hit their target with increasing frequency. There weren’t 30 seconds left in the round; if Holmes survived them, Tyson would have missed his first big chance. Tyson just missed with a vicious right hand and disrupted the left-right rhythm by coming back immediately with the exact same punch. Holmes rocked right into it. He went down, arms outstretched, legs stiff, and he didn’t get up for two minutes.
