What's "unsportsmanlike" in the brutal sport of boxing?Commentary by Terry Plowman, published in Delaware Coast Press
I have to be careful when I lampoon the so-called "sport" of boxing -- the last time I did, I was invited to get in the ring with a former boxer who disagreed with my point-of-view.But it's hard to avoid that risk after witnessing the uproar that followed Mike Tyson's attempt to give pugilism another method of maiming your opponent.
Was there ever higher irony than the sanctimonious criticism that followed Tyson's animalistic ear-bite?
Here you have outraged boxing fans flying the "unsportsmanlike" flag over a "sport" that requires competitors to beat each other senseless with their fists, a "sport" whose highest achievement is rendering your opponent unconscious, a "sport" that often results in broken ribs, bleeding and swollen faces and eventually, scrambled brains. It requires more hair-splitting than I can muster to figure out which parts of boxing are sportsmanlike and which are not.
As Newsweek wrote, "Had Tyson bashed Holyfield's brains in, he'd be judged a great champ, not a beast."
In my last criticism of boxing I wrote that the "sport" and the multibillion dollar business which surrounds it celebrate our baser human instincts. Could Tyson's action be any better example of those instincts?
The sad fact is that while boxing officials spout holy criticisms as they revoke Tyson's boxing license and fine him $3 million (leaving him $27 million of his paycheck from the three-round fight), the promoters, the arena owners, the hangers-on, the broadcast systems and the advertisers who support boxing will continue to get rich off this human cock-fight.
Isn't it strange that our society has laws against putting dogs or roosters into a ring to maul each other, but it is not only legal, but celebrated, when two human beings are led into a roped-off ring for that purpose.
Fight promoters will continue to do just that, all the while licking their chops for Tyson's eventual megabillion dollar return to the ring.
All the boxing commissioners' pronouncements aside, they know that Tyson, who at age 31 has no other marketable skills, will ask the Nevada State Athletic Commission to reverse their decision after one year.
If they do so, the paltry fine and revocation will seem like a slap on the wrist -- which would be an usually nonviolent action in the boxing world.