The Disconnect: How Fight Fans Cope With Blood
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Boxing is the most basic and most easily understood of all sports. Virtually any person who ever lived in any place at any time could watch a fight for the first time and understand what the combatants were trying to do to one another.
But fans who attend fights on a regular basis tend to become hardened to the reality of what’s going on. I’m not talking about sitting in the mezzanine, watching tiny stick figures in action or viewing a fight on television, which cosmeticizes the violence. I’m talking about sitting in the first few rows at ringside.
The first time I watched a fight from the press section, I sat transfixed. I could almost feel the punches. The combat was taking place within an enclosure, but I had a sense of violence akin to a street fight spilling out in front of me.
Now there’s a disconnect. I can eat a hot dog while someone is getting beaten up before my eyes.
Cognitive dissonance is a phenomenon that refers to the psychological discomfort a person feels because of a discrepancy between what that person knows or believes to be appropriate behavior and new information that supports an opposing view. When such an inconsistency exists, “something’s gotta give” to eliminate the clash between attitudes and behavior. In most cases, the attitude changes to accommodate the behavior. In other words, fight fans at least temporarily abandon their moral objections to brutality and go to prize fights.
Why? Because boxing, at its best, takes smashed faces and pain and makes them part of something courageous and beautiful. Like other sports, boxing requires skill; more than other sports, it demands courage. Boxers know the dangers of their trade and accept them as part of the challenge. They climb into a ring, virtually naked, fully exposed, to face a terrifying, exhilarating moment of truth when all they have to work and protect themselves with is their hands.
That’s why I can now sit at ringside and enjoy a good fight or simply be bored by a bad one. It’s why, on two occasions, I’ve watched a man be beaten to death a few feet away from me in the name of “sport” – and gone back for more.
But sometimes old attitudes surface. A minority of boxing fans actually enjoys watching someone get beaten up. The rest of us wrestle with the morality of the sweet science from time to time. We ponder, not only how a fighter will feel the following morning, but also what the condition of his brain will be 10 years from now. We’re aware that a “good fight” means that two boxers have engaged in a battle with a brutal ebb and flow and that each man has been been punched in the head and hurt multiple times.
I remember a moment that occurred four years ago at Madison Square Garden, when Shane Mosley defended his WBC welterweight title against Antonio Diaz. Mosley was 35-0 with 33 knockouts. He was coming off a win over Oscar De La Hoya that put him at or near the top of most pound-for-pound rankings.
Shane was too good for Diaz. The latter had acceptable skills, but he simply wasn’t on a par with Mosley – very few fighters were at that time. Shane stopped him in six rounds. I sat there, watching him dismantle his opponent in the manner of a great performing artist at work. There was one punch, a perfect left hook that landed flush on Diaz’s cheek and spun his head around, wobbling his knees and sending a shower of spray into the air. In that moment, I said to myself, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to watch people do things like this to one another forever.”
Fourteen months after demolishing Diaz, Mosley was on the receiving end of the punishment in the same arena. Midway through Round 2, Vernon Forrest staggered him with an overhand right, backed him against the ropes, and followed with a barrage of six punches, all of which landed flush and put Shane on the canvas. He survived the round, but not before Forrest administered a fierce beating, culminating in a second knockdown just before the bell that ended the stanza.
Mosley showed enormous heart and courage that night and worked his way back into the fight. Then, in Round 10, Forrest blasted him with a hellacious hook to the body.
An involuntary scream escaped Shane’s lips. I’ll always remember that scream. Forrest followed with a right uppercut and an overhand right that sent Mosley’s mouthpiece flying.
And right then, the man sitting next to me muttered, “S–; there’s blood in my coffee.”
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WEEKEND ACTION
Boxing fans can watch three pretty good fight cards on television this weekend.
Tomorrow night, ESPN2 presents Rocky Juarez (21-0, 14 KOs) versus Guty Espades (38-6, 24 KOs) and Dominick Guinn (25-1, 18 KOs) against Sergei Liakhovich (21-1, 14 KOs).
On Saturday, rising middleweight star Jermaine Taylor (21-0, 16 KOs) goes against veteran William Joppy (34-3-1, 25 KOs) in a fight that will be televised on HBO along with a tape of last weekend’s matchup between Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales.
Also on Saturday night, Showtime will be featuring heavyweights Jeremy Williams (41-4-1, 36 KOs) and Sam Peter (20-0, 17 KOs) facing off against one another, followed by two title fights.
In the first, Jose Luis Castillo (50-6-1, 45 KOs) meets Joel Casamayor (31-2, 19 KOs) for the World Boxing Council lightweight title. In the second, Jeff Lacy (17-0, 14 KOs) takes on Omar Sheika (26-6, 17 KOs) for the International Boxing Federation 168-pound crown.