Whose Last Fight?
I spent a huge portion of my summer vacation reading the great literature of Boxing. Jack London, Joyce Carol Oates, George Plimpton - etc. This was mostly because I had started boxing myself. Writers are attracted to boxing more than any other sport. It's a rewarding subject. And that leads me to let you in on my favorite piece on the internet this week: Norman Mailer covering Evander Holyfield's recent, desperate bout with Sultan Ibragimov, in Moscow. Unlike his subject, Mailer still has something left.
Holyfield, slayer of Tyson and Holmes and Ruiz, he of the iconic missing ear tip, mustached creature of another decade, was seeking big belt number five in the slouching twilight of a career that should have ended in Atlantic City, in the TKO glow of a prone Hasim Rahman. But there was another, yet more dour follower of the Warrior Prophet in his future. The People's ex-Champion, Mr. Real Deal, born into the brick churches and bait shacks of Atmore, Alabama, was in Moscow to stand against and lean in on the Sultan Igrabimov, the undefeated hill kid champ with a blazing right paw from the badlands of Russia's Muslim underbelly of grazing goats and homemade gunshot.
It's short, and the fight itself provided nothing spectacular in the way of content. But do read it.
I agree with the conclusion that Evander Holyfield needs to retire.
It was a decade ago when I regretted not accepting the bets of my fellow classmates - I was the only one betting on Holyfield over the recently released MIke Tyson. Holyfield had been fighting real competition while Tyson sparred with his demons. Tyson's arrest prevented us from seeing the two fight in 1991 - when Holyfield had just ripped the title from Douglas who had seemingly stolen it from the far better Tyson. Iron Mike unfairly lost his reputation as a boxer in his post-incarceration fights. People assumed that anyone who could withstand his initial flurry (Buster Douglas and Evander Holyfield) could eventually beat him.
But it is striking to see how disciplined and defensive Tyson could be in his early fights. Certainly his best chance was to use his blitzkrieg punching power. "I try to catch them right on the tip of his nose because I try to punch the bone into the brain," he famously said. But Tyson kept his gloves up high and his opponents far away if he could - so unlike Muhammad Ali, who deceptively let his arms swing wildly and hang low.
With Evander surely going, hopefully Oscar De La Hoya will also retire and the 90s can finally end.
Michael Brendan Dougherty
in Sports
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Reader Comments (2)
I actually don't think Mailer is traveling anywhere these days.