I used to be a boxing fan.
I’m a fan of the Olympics, as well. These two fandoms were birthed at the same time: the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.
I distinctly remember watching Bob Beamon do the unthinkable in the long jump:
Those old fashioned graphics in white standing out from the gray, the lighter gray, and the lightest gray on our old black and white Zenith.
I also remember Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their fists in protest on the medal stand and thinking they were so happy to win medals, they’re acknowledging the crowds with pure joy.
And then there was George Foreman taking out a balding guy (I later found out he was a Russian) for the gold medal. My patriotic pride swelled (there’s a term that’s aged poorly).
I still love the Olympics.
They’re weird and jingoistic and sometimes controversial, but the spirit of competition mostly shines through, judging mishaps and strange technical rulings aside. I kept up with the fights through the next decade or so, too, mostly because of the transcendence of Ali, who all of my high school friends worshipped, mainly for his skill in the ring and his effervescent personality outside of it.
We didn’t understand most of his political/religious stuff. We didn’t care to.
What was most important was that he was cool, he was voluble, and he was, from time to time, the heavyweight champion of the world when that meant something to the sporting public. And when he wasn’t the HCOTW, we discussed why he wasn’t and why he should be. Less good, we vilified his great rival Joe Frazier, who was by all accounts a swell guy.
On the other hand, he was also known as ‘Smokin:’’ One of the best nicknames of the day. It was a time.
My boxing fandom grew:
Through the unfathomably great ‘76 Olympic USA Boxing team (Spinks bros, Sugar Ray Leonard, et al), the rise of Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns, and Marvin Hagler. Wilfred Benitiez. Jose Cuevos. Carlos Palomino. I knew of these men, I knew their styles, their records, their upcoming bouts. I even knew – and loathed – the differences between the WBC and WBA. It wasn’t baseball to me (nothing is), but it filled a slice in my sportsgame pie, bigger than hockey, smaller than basketball or tennis.
I never was able to understand the subtleties, the science of the ‘sweet science,’ though.
I was awed by the athleticism, entertained by the spectacle, and, yes, experienced base, lizard-brain pleasure at watching two men try to beat the crap out of each other. I never questioned following my favorites, or looking forward to the next big bout.
And then came Aaron Pryor v. Alexis Arguello.
Billed as ‘The Battle of Champions,’ the 1982 bout had it all:
Contrasting styles both inside and outside the ring, each fighter holding a championship belt, controversy and possibly shady doings, celebrities sitting in seats close enough to be sprayed with sweat.
But the thing I remember most is how much punishment each man doled out and took in.
After a while, eight or nine rounds in, I couldn’t help but flinch at every effective punch.
- How could they still be standing after so many blows?
- How much pain would they be able to withstand?
- What drove them to follow this path and end up in this ring and suffer through so much physical abuse?
(If you answered money, well, let’s talk about the pros and cons of capitalism next!)
And then, for the first time, I asked myself:
Why was I watching this?
What is the point? All the answers I came up over the days and weeks afterward were personally uncomfortable and unsatisfactory. I was trying to be a civilized human being in the 20th century.
Did I really need to satisfy my need for amusement by repeatedly watching a sport this nakedly bloodthirsty?
It took a bit, a year maybe, but finally, I answered myself: there was no reason to witness this. There is no point to it. I haven’t watched a boxing match on purpose since.
Now I find myself in the same place regarding the NFL.
I’ve never lived and breathed the sport like baseball, but have followed my team with clockwork regularity for nearly half a century. I’ve worn their gear, cheered their championships, looked forward to every season.
While not as nakedly brutal as boxing, a good measure of the sport’s allure are the big hits, violent collisions, men at the very top of the in-shape pyramid heaving themselves at each other at impossible speeds with precision and discipline.
Granted, they’re ensconced in the latest high-tech armor, but the sight of one player crumpling another is cause for celebration. Injuries are rampant and go unquestioned.
Is there more nuance involved here as opposed to boxing? I suppose. Two men facing off in a ring is a good deal less complicated and more brutal than 22 racing around on an artificial turf field while being hemmed in by a novel’s worth of arcane regulations. There are opposing and often complicated strategies applied to the offense and defense as a whole, and every individual on either side, as well.
It’s dense, even to the long-time fan.
Playbooks are thick as Russian novels.
The official NFL rule book is enigmatic as Tolkien’s dwarvish runes.
But the toll on players’ bodies is immense.
Some escape unscathed, but others less fortunate live shorter lives, are more susceptible to mental disorders, limp and ache and live with disabilities. Why do this? (Again, capitalism.) And are we, as fans, responsible for at least a little bit of the carnage the game inflicts on its athletes?
I’m still struggling with the answer. I have a longer history with football than I did with boxing.
I have countless memories involving my family and friends and the bonds we forged (at least a little) through shared victory and heartbreak.
My kids are fans (it was osmosis, I promise!), and I look forward to sharing those kind of moments with them, as well. But the question is still there.
I’m going to have to answer it at some point.
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I appreciate the thought you bring to this, Stob. I suspect a good chunk of the continuing success of both sports is an appeal to the more visceral and not thoughtful parts of us. I do think that, at least in football, people are trying to find ways to minimize the risks of life-changing injury. But the dangers remain — and I suspect that will remain part of the appeal.
Thanks, cst. There are, I guess, base urges humans may never get rid of, no matter how much civilized wallpaper we hang across ourselves. And we probably shouldn’t. You never know when we’ll suddenly be thrust back into the Stone Age.
After getting my clock cleaned in an after school fight when I was about 12 years old, I thought that I could maybe use a few pointers.
Our local Catholic Church had a youth group, which, of course in those days was often separated by gender. One of the things that they had offered to the boys was boxing classes from a Local townie who was some sort of a semi pro fighter.
I went to one of the get-togethers one Saturday afternoon and sort of lurked in the back of the room. He noticed me he says, “hey kid, come on up get closer so you can see what’s going on.”
I went every Saturday for months, and, started to get the hang of it. But one thing I could never get over was how bad I felt whenever I won the match. The other boy who I had just pummeled? That was me a few months earlier.
People use the phrase, ”beating into submission“ all of the time as a darkly humorous metaphor. But think about the literal meeting. It is the precise objective in a boxing match. It didn’t take me very long to realize that while I wanted to learn how to defend myself from the bullies, proactively being a “fighter” was not for me.
Been there, mt, being beaten into literal submission. And yet my teenaged lizard brain never connected it to the enjoyment I was getting from boxing. Stupid high schooler!
I give you both credit for even getting in the ring. I threw down a few times in high school, but nothing serious. I got into a fist fight once on top of home plate in gym class with one of my best friends. It may have been one of the worst, lamest fights in history. People were laughing. I don’t even want to know what would have happened had I tried actual boxing. I probably would have been knocked unconscious within 10 seconds.
Boxing was never for me, but among other contact sports, watching MMA matches can be great when you’re sitting next to a bunch of inebriated people in a bar. It helps that no one watching is usually a fan of either participant, making the focus on the fighting above all else.
As usual, George Carlin explained football perfectly.
https://youtu.be/0TOIRv5fA1k
Boxing never interested me for all the reasons you’ve outlined, and I usually only watch the Superbowl, if only for the halftime show. However, we’ve recently cut the cable so I probably won’t even watch that. I may subscribe to the MLB app next year so I can once again watch my beloved Red Sox lose in new and creative ways.
As will I with my own SF Giants. Good luck, and may we overcome our more well-financed and viscerally hateful bete noirs.
Bruce Bochy is the GOAT.
As a Texas Rangers fan, I am a full believer in Bochy!
My fondest non-alma mater sports memory is the Padres beating the Braves in the 1998 NLDS.
I am not a big fan of boxing. I can understand totally why you abandoned watching it. Football is a different story. As the inherent risks became more and more clear a few years back, it bothered me that I was still watching it, knowing what was at stake for those playing, but I haven’t completely stopped watching. I’m not into it or any sports these days like I was, but much of it has to do with how bad the local teams are. I certainly watched my alma mater shockingly beat Notre Dame and celebrated it vigorously. Watching football is so deeply ingrained in me, it’s probably not something I am going to completely give up in the near future to be honest, even though we know what we know more than ever.
Northern Illinois? I work with a couple of Huskies.
Yes!
It is funny (to me), but I watch football now with much less guilt. (I do not enjoy watching people get hurt – I got sick to my stomach several years ago at a minor league hockey game every time there was a fight because the arena crowd started screaming and yelling in bloodlust. I would not have been a good Roman at the Collesium!)
For football, I am glad it is now known about all the risks – both concussion and otherwise. At the college and pro levels at least, the players have enough information to now make their choice to play. I certainly know there is a lot of money to be made if you have the rare talent it takes to play professionally but I want to believe that players these days know what they are getting themselves into.
On another note entirely, I had my first listen to your Thanksgiving playlist for the year today. I enjoy that one a lot. I’m practicing self-control and putting off your Christmas lists until the 29th.
Thank you, ltc. It truly brings me joy to know that.
It’s not that I don’t like boxing. I DESPISE boxing. I despise pro wrestling. I have since day 1. I have never understood the appeal of pummeling each other in a ring. I have never watched a movie about boxing, either. Boxing and pro wrestling are the “Losing My Religion” of sports. I remain bewildered that anyone could like them. And yet, they do.
So why do I like football? I don’t know. I grew up in a family of Steeler fans during their 70s heyday, and I guess it’s just in my blood. BUT, I really do not like college football much at all. Mostly because of the lack of parity and the tendency for legacies to last way too long and be way too dominant. But I am a happily casual fan of the NFL.
Baseball in some ways is my favorite. It is less brutal, and I appreciate that. It does suffer from a lack of parity as well (the NFL has figured that one out). Can I ever hope for the Pittsburgh Pirates or Cincinnati Reds to actually make another run at a world series? (Waiting 46 and 35 years respectively). I don’t follow it as closely, but is there anything better than being on a long car ride, driving into the sunset and getting a random baseball game on a crackly AM station? That’s a little slice of heaven there.
I am happy to attend a baseball game. But I’m not even sure I want to attend an NFL game.
But give me tickets to a boxing match? Thanks, but I’d rather clean restroom stall floors.
If those were my only two choices? Hand me that mop.
I live in this weird nether-region of contradictions. I saw the Concussion movie and read about what CTE did Iron Mike Webster, Junior Seau and many others. It’s horrifying! I rarely watch football, but that’s not the same as never. And I really enjoy playing fantasy football — not for money, but just for the enjoyment. And I rarely think about the effect of those repeat concussions on my own current fantasy team players, like Chris Olave and Tua Tagovailoa.
I’m a self-aware hypocrite (see also my past and current stances towards eating meat).
I’m in a fantasy football league that’s nearing its 40th anniversary, which is more about friends (here or gone, unfortunately) and silly bragging rights, and would be very tough to give up. Here’s to the knotty problem of hypocrisy!
I used to love watching boxing. The bigger and more brutal the tear up the better. Which was totally at odds with me as a person. A scrawny kid who had no interest in personally getting into kind of physical altercation.
It wasn’t any kind of wish fulfilment that if only I was bigger and stronger. I just enjoyed the violence.
That lasted til my late teens. One of the last fights I recall watching in its entirety was the utterly brutal contest between Nigel Benn and Gerald McClellan which began with Benn taking the Ali rope a dope routine to extremes as he was relentlessly battered all over and even knocked out of the ring. Having somehow withstood the barrage for several rounds until McClellan blew himself out he assumed control and gave it all back and more. The fight was stopped in the 10th and moments later McClellan lost conciousness and although his life was saved with emergency surgery he was left severely brain damaged.
It’s hard to take enjoyment in that.
Whereas in boxing you can see the impact instantly, with football (and over here with Rugby) the damage often isn’t apparent til much later. Players are better trained, bigger, heavier and physically more intimidating than in the past – that’s certainly true over here with rugby. Bigger and harder hits increase the spectacle but put the players at even greater risk.
Maybe because the brain damage doesn’t usually become apparent til well after retirement means that there’s a cognitive dissonance that keeps us watching because those problems caused by the sports we love are being stored up for well down the line.
I detest boxing and I always have. My standard comment for years has been that if I saw two people beating each other up in the street, I would call the police. Why would I spend money to watch people doing that to each other in a ring. That comment is simplistic and pretty smart-alecky, but it does stop fans of boxing from trying to convert me.
Football is just a non-issue. I have never enjoyed watching it, and I see no reason to try to develop a taste for it, especially with what we now know about its effects on the players.
I can sympathize with those who struggle with the ethics of enjoying either sport, though. I have similar struggles in other areas. I am working toward more ethical eating, but I still have a long way to go. If only we could enjoy only what is good for us, other people, and the planet.
Quite recently, I was watching Poltergeist. It was a reminder that NFL football used to be the domain of men. The mother is tending to a dead bird. Her older daughter is in the kitchen. Neither woman has any interest in the game going on in the living room. When did that change? Maybe it was the scene in There’s Something About Mary when Cameron Diaz asks Ben Stiller if she wants to go upstairs and watch Sportscenter. All of a sudden, you started seeing women dressed up in NFL-licensed merchandise all over the place. I know the sport is dangerous. I weened myself off the NFL. But I still watch my alma mater. I’ll also tune it to the games that feature my alma mater’s foes, like Boise State and UNLV. A hypocrite, but I’m self-aware of my hypocrisy and self-aware that I’m not badgering myself over this hypocrisy in the moment. At work, I got off the wrong foot with everybody because I didn’t know who Manny Paquiao was.
I’m not sure whether women weren’t interested in football, or whether they were just usually doing the dishes during the game. At least that’s how Thanksgiving played out where I grew up.
I don’t know who Manny Paquiao is either. You would have been on the right foot with me.
I don’t really get the appeal of sports. To me it’s the same as a carnival sideshow; “See men perform superhuman feats!”
I especially don’t get the appeal of combat sports. Violence is glorified enough without making a game out of it.
Mrs. Zeusaphone, OTOH, loves sports and especially loves boxing. She’s a weirdo. 😉
Nationally organized carnival sideshows with millions of followers. What Barnum could have done with that.