Have you ever been caught watching...'specialist' pornography? Not the common and garden, front page of PornHub variety, I mean something really niche; the kind of stuff you'd only get from a certain kind of grubby video stockist back in the day. Even then it'd be under the counter, away from public view and likely involving any number of large vegetables, ball-gags and a willing farmyard animal. That's sort of how I felt watching Evander Holyfield 'box' Vitor Belfort last night.
I don't just mean 'caught' as in your best friend seeing your browser history, either. I'm talking pants-around-the-ankles, red-faced and mopping up your indiscretions as granny walks in, looks over your shoulder and asks what 'feltching' means. As 'The Real Deal', once regarded among the sport's elite big-hitters, shuffled around the ring (even stumbling through the ropes at one stage), I felt dirty. When Belfort finally made a connection and sent the 58-year-old reeling, I felt ashamed.
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| Eeeew. |
As long as combat sports exist, there will be someone willing to exploit 'vulnerable' fighters for a quick buck. Let's face it, the majority of people that watch combats sports don't really care about fighter safety. Even in the relatively small social media bubble, those with genuine concern are in the minority compared to those who just want to appear that way. 'Chasing clout', is what I believe the kids are calling it these days.
Symptom of the Universe
Old, broke fighters are a symptom of the industry. Now you could argue that the people who promote these fights are the ones out there treating those symptoms, giving fighters like Holyfield one last chance to make a decent buck. In reality they're just back-alley chemists allowing people to self-medicate. You don't cure an illness by treating its symptoms, you cure it by rooting out the cause.
The cause in this case is the fight business itself. While the Ali Act offers some professional boxers additional financial protections over their MMA equivalents, just like every other combat sport there are no pensions, no financial planning and little after-care available to those who participate in what is a ruthlessly cut-throat industry. Until that changes, we're just stitching cuts and dishing out pain relief.
We're all aware of the old boxer stereotype; punch-drunk and down on their luck. It's been a media trope since Rocky V. It's also been relatively easy to ignore; people outside the industry rarely have to confront the issue until something bad (or sad) makes the headlines. Social media is changing that, slowly but surely. MMA fans will remember Jason 'Mayhem' Miller live-tweeting a stand-off with armed police, or the recent videos of Ultimate Fighter legend Stephan Bonnar confronting officers in the midst of doctor-shopping for pain pills.
As time rolls on and the Twitter, Instagram & Tik-Tok generation of athletes are faced with the often unkind prospect of life after fighting, it'll be much more difficult to sweep the issue under the rug.
Holyfield may be the most recent example of the trope, but he's also one of the best. Legitimately among the most successful prize fighters in history (with earnings from boxing estimated in the region of $300 million), as of 2019 he was living in a two-bed apartment, having lost it all to a litany of bad business dealings, divorces and frivolous spending.
There will always be stories like his.
The majority of fighters would kill to earn one-percent of what 'The Real Deal' has made over the course of their careers, so spare a thought for those who won't be able to blame bad investments when they end up in the same spot as Evander; 58 years old and humiliating himself and his sport for a payday, in a 'fight' that - let's be honest - should never have happened.
You can't blame the type of fan that this circus was aimed at for slaking their bloodlust; they don't know any better. You can't even blame the promoters (to an extent) for doing what they've always done and meeting demand with supply. You can blame the Florida State Boxing Commission though; the people who are supposedly there to govern, and save fighters from themselves. Although given that this is the same body that found it could sanction bare-knuckle fighting because it'd forgotten to define what a glove was in its legislation, what did we expect?
Final Thoughts
- It feels massively hypocritical to go from tearing down promoters, fans and the combat sports industry in general to admitting that I got some enjoyment out of seeing Anderson Silva merk Tito Ortiz last night, but here we are. I guess there's a sense of schadenfreude in seeing someone you vehemently dislike getting spanked by someone you do, and while Ortiz' striking should never be spoken about in the same breath as Silva's, with both being 46 years of age and former UFC champions, it at least seemed a somewhat fair fight.
- Alana McLaughlin beat Silvia Prost by rear-naked choke on Friday night. McLaughlin was out-struck in the first round, surviving the frame after being rocked by her opponent, before claiming her first professional victory in the second. Ordinarily this would be of very little consequence, but for the fact that McLaughlin is the second openly-trans fighter to compete in professional MMA.
This is a very new, constantly evolving issue and as such there's a whole spectrum of opinions on the topic... and that's fine. It's also possible to throw your hands up and admit that you don't know nearly enough about the subject to have a fully formed - and informed - opinion (which I expect is most of us), or to just say nothing at all. I'm very much in this camp, and until I'm not, I'll leave it to people much smarter than me like Rosi Sexton to weigh in.
Also, this is not a discussion best had on Twitter.
- The biggest rematch in modern British bare-knuckle boxing took place on Saturday night, as Rico Franco and Jimmy Sweeney ran it back following the former's upset victory in their 2019 thriller. Sweeney put on a vintage performance and looked every bit the BKB king of old, earning a fourth-round stoppage. The real story though is Franco, who returned from death's door just nine months ago (including major surgery to remove his bowel) to compete at the highest level.
That's true grit.
Until next time,
B.W.
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