By Ivan G. Goldman
We’re in desperate need of a good fight to erase not only the memory of a certain Las Vegas decision, but also the avalanche of stories about it. You know what I’m talking about. I dare not speak the name of the fighters for fear of nauseating us beyond recovery.
I don’t want to be responsible for piling on the last straw that will break the camel’s back and send the whole country crashing down into madness over a decision that’s been discussed way too much already, okay? And by the way, this fight I won’t precisely name wasn’t such a great fight anyway. The match between junior feathers Jorge Arce and Jesus Rojas, now that was shaping into a fight! Fight of the Year, in fact. These guys have to do it again. When you get Puerto Rico and Mexico evenly matched, you usually have something special. This one looked better then special.
And as for big moments on the night of the unspeakable decision, what about that Cinderella uppercut from Randall Bailey? That’s why we watch boxing. No sport that plays against the clock can give you a moment like that. When a basketball or football team is down 20 points in the last two minutes, the fans have left the building with Elvis. At home, channels are switched, fridges are visited. In boxing, Yogi Berra’s saying applies. It ain’t over till it’s over.
Cinderella moments were absent from the fight I will not mention. It was an okay attraction until Michael Buffer had to get up there and tell us the news. And then it quickly morphed into another O.J. trial.
I don’t mind Bob Arum demanding an investigation into it. What I do mind is Nevada’s Harry Reid, the Senate Majority leader, moving it up to the top of his web page. I thought Yahoo sports writer Kevin Iole was kidding, but holy crap, there it is! http://www.reid.senate.gov/
Allow me to explain why Reid has lost his marbles. This week we watched the Senate Banking Committee treat sleazeball extraordinaire Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase like he was a combination of Mother Teresa, Albert Einstein, and George Washington. This is a creep who lost a multi-billion-dollar wager he let his lackeys place using money taxpayers loaned to him at a fraction above zero percent interest and he has the nerve to get upset whenever a senator even hinted that his business ought to be regulated. But few of them did. You can bet that senators, all of them on the take from him and other corporate jerks like him, ran over to kiss his butt when the cameras were turned off. This is indicative of a country in serious trouble.
Dimon runs a banking monster that now, in the wake of the banking scandal caused by banks too big to fail, is even bigger than it used to be. Meanwhile, people are out of work, losing their homes, unable to pay for college, and can’t get health insurance. And Reid, the Senate leader puts a prizefight decision at the top of his agenda? Speaking as a boxing writer, I can tell you he’s nuts!
But I digress. Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. goes in against Andy Lee on HBO Saturday night in a fight that’s probably pretty competitive. It might take our mind off you know what. In fact, the first big tussle will be off camera — Chavez trying to make the weight. Even as he keeps moving up, weight issues follow. If he makes 160 he will probably be weakened against a guy who can punch. If he doesn’t, he’s supposed to lose his WBC title no matter what happens. This will pose an interesting puzzle for WBC eminence Jose Sulaiman, who would then try to find some way to wriggle out of removing the belt from the son of a Mexican icon.
Oh, by the way, you’ve probably heard that before Chavez-Lee, HBO will show another fight from the previous weekend. You know the one I mean. Who can resist scoring it all over again?
Ivan G. Goldman’s latest novel Isaac: A Modern Fable came out in April 2012 from Permanent Press. Information HERE
