Can this fight just hurry up and get here … so we can shoo it out the back door?
Seriously. The best thing that could happen tonight when Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor get into the ring together in Las Vegas is that a phantom punch from above lands upon both these two jabronis simultaneously, knocking them out and putting them in comas.
It’s too bad Muhammad Ali has gone to the great boxing ring in the sky. Maybe he could have given them both lessons on how he landed the most famous phantom punch of all-time — a right that nobody saw when he threw it. People who were there in Lewiston, Maine, when he “knocked out” Sonny Liston still swear it never landed, and that Liston took a dive because he was scared to death Ali would beat him senseless.
Actually, we have Ali to thanks for this sorry spectacle. Until the former Cassius Clay put on the gloves to fight Liston back in 1964, there was none of this phony showmanship. Boxing was a violent sport, practiced by serious men who paid as much attention to style and technique as to substance. It was actually called “the sweet science,” though there’s really nothing sweet about it. Then Ali came along with his “float like a butterfly sting like a bee …” He used to predict victories by making up poems. He famously carried Ernie Terrell for 15 rounds in a championship bout because Terrell refused to acknowledge his conversion to Islam and his new name. He’d cut Terrell open with a punch and then taunt him by asking “What’s my name?”
It would be nice if someone did that tonight to one, or the other, or both.
About 40 or so years ago, Channel 7 in Boston used to have boxing shows in the basement of its building in Government Center. As a fledgling intern for United Press International, I got the assignment to cover one of promoter Sam Silverman’s famous St. Patrick’s Day bouts, in which there was always one boxer — usually of non-Gaelic descent — who had the word “Irish” attached to his name. It was great fun. It was just like “Rocky,” both in terms of the frenetic pace of the rounds and the amount of hemoglobin expended.
In fact, I was warned by my sports editor to bring a newspaper with me. I was curious as to why, as I didn’t think I’d be busy checking the stock market quotes while watching “Irish” Joe Palooka slog through seven rounds.
I found out soon enough. Get a good punch in and that fluid — blood, sweat (and presumably tears) — travels. Those people in the front row weren’t interested in the stocks either. What they were interested in was not getting their suits spattered with blood.
May everyone in the front row tonight need the Sunday Times. I hope there’s just a red haze of blood that forms a toxic cloud over the two of them.
Hey, this is fun, isn’t it? For about a month now, every time these two morons have shown up somewhere so they could stare at each other for cash, we’ve been subjected to it on ESPN, which generally wins the Emmy every year in the “pandering to the mindless” category. Tonight, we get to extract our revenge by watching them and praying one of them gets knocked all the way to Pluto.
And if I had to pick which one, it would be McGregor for perpetrating this farce. I’m sure he’s a great Mixed Martial Arts fighter, but last time I checked, when you get in the ring to play Mayweather’s game, you can’t kick anyone. He seems to think he’ll do OK. Nobody else does, though. He deserves the thrashing he’s going to get. And if we pray real hard, maybe Mike Tyson will show up and chomp on McGregor’s ear.
But what makes it real hard, if you’re a fan of old-time, honest, rock ‘em, sock ‘em boxing, is that should Mayweather win — remember, it’s boxing, and nothing’s guaranteed when the wiseguys are betting serious dough — he’ll break Rocky Marciano’s revered record of 49 straight ring victories. His son, Rocky Jr., says he doesn’t deserve No. 50 by winning what amounts to a boat race.
Maybe Rocky will come down on a cloud and land the phantom punch. That would be worth all the rest of this nonsense.
