Protect Yourself at All Times

by Hauser, Thomas

  Whether or not fans who buy the Mayweather–McGregor pay-per-view are satisfied will depend, obviously, on the flow of the fight and what their expectations are.

  Some people will watch Mayweather–McGregor because they think Conor has a good chance to win. They don’t know they’re being hustled. Others will buy it because they look forward to seeing McGregor get his comeuppance. A third group will buy in because the fight is a happening and they’re enjoying the ride.

  “Times have changed,” Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe said in Brooklyn in defense of the fight. “You’ve got to get away from the way things were done before. Don’t get mad at us because we found a way to take this to a whole new level. We’re giving the fans exactly what they want.”

  When Mayweather–McGregor is over, will the people who paid $99.95 to buy it feel satisfied or ripped off? And will anyone involved in the promotion care?

  A warning to would-be buyers who think that the pre-fight spectacle has been great fun. You’re likely to find that the actual fight is less entertaining than the hoopla you’ve enjoyed so far.

  Part Three

  Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor aren’t responsible for the welfare of boxing. There are organizations that are charged with that mission. Still, it’s appropriate to ask whether Mayweather–McGregor is good or bad for the sweet science.

  Some people believe that Mayweather–McGregor is good for boxing because it will bring casual viewers to the sport. But so did the 2015 fight between Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. And what casual viewers saw that night turned them off.

  Also, no matter how the storyline in Mayweather–McGregor plays out, the fight epitomizes the sad condition that boxing is in today.

  There’s a certain purity to signature sporting events in that they feature the best competing against the best. Professional basketball would be in a sorry state if a team comprised of successful rap artists could play the Golden State Warriors and engender better television ratings than the NBA Championship Finals. The fact that a substantial segment of the public is supporting Mayweather–McGregor with its dollars in the belief that it’s the best entertainment that boxing has to offer confirms that boxing is in a bad place.

  If the lords of boxing did their job properly, Mayweather–McGregor would be a sideshow, not a major event. But they haven’t done their job properly. Instead, by flooding the market with more than one hundred “world champions” and too often denying fans the fights they want to see, they’ve created an environment in which Mayweather–McGregor became possible.

  Andreas Hale put the matter in perspective when he wrote: “If you are one of those people who think that this spectacle hurts boxing, then you are overlooking everything from terrible matchmaking and the existence of sanctioning bodies to horrible judging that has marred the sport. This fight absolutely cannot add to that. The only way this fight can actually hurt boxing is if McGregor were to knock Mayweather out. Rest assured, boxing will be in the same state it was before and after Mayweather–McGregor, for better or worse.”

  Similarly, writing for The Queensberry Rules, Brent Hedke observed, “There’s always going to be bad decisions. There’s always going to be horrible broadcasting. There’s always going to be some form of corruption. There’s always going to be psychotically inaccurate rankings. There’s always going to be boring fights. But what there’s maybe not always going to be is an audience. It seems like having two guys punch each other in the face and pointing a camera at it would be impossible to fuck up. But here we are.”

  However, there are issues surrounding Mayweather–McGregor that go far beyond boxing.

  The Mayweather–McGregor media tour was toxic and added to a poison that has been spreading throughout the United States. It was all there. The devaluation of women, racism, homophobia, the use of personal attacks and obscenities instead of rational dialogue.

  Dana White called Mayweather and McGregor “two of the best shit-talkers in both sports” and sought to justify their conduct.

  “It’s funny when people say they’ve taken this thing too far,” White opined. “This is a fight, not a croquet game. This part of the deal; the reality is what’s going on here is just as much of the fight as the fight itself, the mental warfare game. What this is all about is trying to get in each other’s heads. That’s why you’ve seen this thing escalate to where we are now.”

  Oh, I understand it now.

  So if LeBron James called Stephen Curry a “faggot” before the NBA Championship Finals last year. And Kevin Love, after saying he was “half-black, from the belly button down,” simulated sexual orgasm with a handheld microphone between his legs as “a little present for my beautiful black female fans.” And Draymon Greene responded by calling Kyrie Irving, a “cunt,” a “bitch,” and a “ho.” . . . NBA commissioner Adam Silver would say, “This is basketball, not a croquet game. This is part of the deal.”

  I don’t think so.

  The establishment (Showtime, Las Vegas, corporate sponsors) and pay-per-view buyers around the world are coming together to reward these expressions of bigotry and prejudice with two of the largest paychecks in the history of sports.

  Writing in Sports Illustrated, Charles Pierce called the promotion a “glorified cholera outbreak” and “festival of fools.” He then condemned the “racism, sexism, and homophobia” at the core of the promotion and placed it in the context of 2017, noting, “It is a fearful dangerous time. And while there is never a good time for a prizefight that seeks to turn that dread and unease into a big payday, it’s especially not that time now.”

  Sarah Spain expressed similar thoughts on ESPNW.com: “As their exchanges get uglier and more offensive, it’s time to check back in with ourselves. Are these the kind of people deserving of our attention, admiration, and time? If we give celebs like them a pass on homophobia, misogyny and bigotry, how many others will feel entitled to express their own hate?”

  One of the most eloquent critiques came from Tim Freeman of the Daily Beast, who weighed in on Mayweather calling McGregor a faggot:

  To give his ugly litany proper context ‘Punk. You faggot. You ho.’ There it is. Loud. Like a bullet. A knife. Threatening. I’m ready for ‘It’s only pre-match hype.’ It’s all pantomime. This happens in every big boxing match. None of them mean it. This is just boxers trash talking.’ . . . Don’t bother. We can all hear how Mayweather says, and means, ‘faggot.’ He means ‘faggot’ when faggot means ‘gay,’ when ‘gay’ means ‘less of a man than me’ who should be scared of me when I shout ‘faggot’ at him, and know his lower disgusting place. The ultimate, demasculinizing insult. That kind of ‘faggot.’ Mayweather said ‘faggot’ just the way gay men and men assumed to be gay have heard ‘faggot’ shouted, said, whispered, spat at them for centuries.

  If this all sounds a little dramatic and you’ve never been called a ‘faggot,’ here’s a primer. You never know when it’s coming. You might be at school. You might be in a restroom. You might be going to lunch. You might be leaving a bar or club. You may be with friends. You may be on a bus or train. At night. During the day. But every time, it scythes the air. And you think: Now? You may not be out as gay. You may be coming out. You may not even be gay. But the threat is suddenly there. This is ‘faggot’ as the bigots with their fists, guns, weapons, and whatever else they have to injure and degrade gay people intend it to be heard. And ironically, as Mayweather said this as a prelude to beating another man up, it often comes with the threat of a fist or worse. The word can even be carved into both your arms—’Die Fag,’ to be precise—by your attackers. Perhaps Mayweather thinks that sounds pretty cool.

  The genie is now out of the bottle. We might hear statements later on to the effect of, “Oh, we were just doing this to build interest in the fight” . . . “One of my closest business associates is gay” . . . “I love women and black people” . . . “I apologize if I offended anyone.”

  That won’t eliminate the damage that has been done
so far and is being done every day by this toxic promotion. It’s a metaphor for some of the worst impulses of our time.

  And there’s another important point to make.

  During the media tour, McGregor taunted Mayweather for not being able to read at an adult level. He taunted Mayweather for owing millions of dollars in back taxes. He was crude, belligerent, and insulting. But McGregor did not mention the fact that Mayweather was convicted on multiple occasions and served sixty-three days in jail for being physically abusive to women.

  Let’s make that point again so you don’t miss it.

  With all the insults and profanity and bigotry and prejudice that were hurled back and forth, McGregor didn’t reference the fact that Mayweather was criminally convicted on three occasions and spent time in jail for physically abusing women.

  Why not?

  Because to do so might have led to closer mainstream media scrutiny of the underside of Mayweather–McGregor. It might push some potential pay-per-view buyers, corporate sponsors, and others away and cost the promotion dollars.

  Racism, misogyny, and homophobia might be good for business to a point. But reminding people that hate speech sometimes translates into action could pose problems.

  It would be interesting to know if one or more clauses in the many contracts that govern Mayweather–McGregor preclude McGregor, Showtime personnel, and others from referencing Mayweather’s criminal convictions for being physically abusive to women.

  We’re living in a time of hate-filled rhetoric and an assault on human rights. The gains made in recent decades by women, people of color, and the LGBT community are under attack.

  Somewhere, as you read this, men who think that Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor are really cool role models are abusing women. The abuse will psychologically scar some of the women for life. Maybe one of the abusers will kill his victim. Similar abuse is playing out against victims because of their race and sexual orientation.

  This is not a time to glorify and financially reward people who demean others by calling them “bitch,” “ho,” “boy,” “cunt,” and “faggot.” Every person who buys or otherwise supports the Mayweather–McGregor pay-per-view is doing just that.

  Postfight: Mayweather–McGregor in a Nutshell

  The announced crowd of 14,623 was well short of T-Mobile Arena’s capacity for boxing. But as of this writing, it appears as though Mayweather–McGregor will be wildly successful in terms of pay-per-view buys.

  The fight itself continued the false narrative that had been spun regarding the ability of mixed martial artists to compete at the highest levels of boxing.

  Mayweather fought the first part of the fight like a man who didn’t want the matchup to look like travesty. He did virtually none of the things that made him great and landed a total of three jabs through the first five rounds. By contrast, in the first five rounds against Manny Pacquiao (who, like McGregor, is a southpaw), Mayweather landed twenty-two jabs.

  McGregor wasn’t the whirlwind of activity that he’d promised he would be. Conor fought a cautious, conservative fight and looked like a man who was trying simply to survive. Then he got tired.

  In round nine, Mayweather stepped up the pace. He was pummeling McGregor around the ring in round ten when referee Robert Byrd stopped the fight.

  Give McGregor credit for being a fighter. Don’t give him credit for being a top-echelon boxer, because he isn’t.

  As for the overall nature of the promotion . . .

  When Kobe Bryant called a referee a “faggot,” the NBA didn’t post a video of it to market the league. It fined Bryant $100,000. Major League Baseball suspended Matt Joyce for two games after he directed a similar slur at a fan during a game.

  If a Showtime employee tweeted that someone was a “faggot” or sent an email that contained racist remarks or demeaned women the way that Mayweather and McGregor did throughout the promotion, the employee, presumably, would be fired.

  Showtime sanctioned misogynist, racist, homophobic conduct throughout the promotion of Mayweather–McGregor and posted videos of it—videos that engendered millions of hits—as a marketing tool.

  Not good.

  Curiosities

  Tony Middleton: From Fighting to Singing

  A lot of fighters have tried their hand at singing. Tony Middleton made the transition early on.

  The sports heroes and the music of our youth have a particularly evocative hold on us as we grow older.

  Recently, I was watching the Willows—one of the quintessential 1950s doo-wop groups—on YouTube. They were performing at a revival concert in the late-1990s, singing their signature song: “Church Bells May Ring.” I wanted to know more about their lead singer, Tony Middleton. So I Googled him.

  And this came up: “As a teenager, he was working toward becoming a Golden Gloves boxer.”

  That piqued my interest. A week later, I was sitting opposite Middleton at a diner on the east side of Manhattan.

  Middleton was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1934 and moved to New York with his mother in the mid-1940s.

  “I used to fight in the streets all the time,” he says. “I didn’t look for fights. They just happened. Guys would bother me after school. Or something else would happen. That’s the way things were. There was always somebody fighting. I was good on the street. I picked up some moves. I had fast hands. Guys would say, ‘Nobody can beat Tony.’”

  When Middleton was sixteen, he began to explore boxing more seriously and started training in the basement of the Salem Crescent Church in Harlem. For the uninitiated, in 1934, the year Middleton was born, a thirteen-year old named Walker Smith Jr began training in the same basement under the tutelage of George Gainford, who coached the Salem Crescent Athletic Club boxing team. Smith was later known to the world as Sugar Ray Robinson.

  “I could fight,” Middleton recalls. “But I could sing, too. There was a group called the Dovers. Someone told them, ‘This guy can sing.’ They asked me to join them, and I did. I couldn’t fight and sing at the same time, so I put fighting aside. I could have been a professional boxer. I really believe that. I was good at singing and boxing, but there are no regrets. The only thing I felt bad about was, after I quit boxing, I gave my equipment to a guy named Curtis. I don’t remember his last name. He died. His sister came and told me, ‘He’s gone. It’s your fault.’ I felt bad, but I didn’t see it that way.”

  Middleton joined the Dovers in 1952. The group soon changed its name to the 5 Willows and, after one of its members left, to the Willows. “Church Bells May Ring,” which Middleton wrote and sang lead on, was released in 1956 and reached number fourteen on the Billboard charts. It would have gone higher. But many radio stations in the 1950s wouldn’t play rock and roll sung by black recording artists, choosing to play white “cover” versions instead. An all-white group called The Diamonds recorded “Church Bells May Ring” for those who preferred the old order.

  Middleton left the Willows in 1957 to pursue a solo career. He worked with numerous world-class performers and had significant roles in several major theatrical productions. Movers and shakers like Quincy Jones sought him out. He also sang with later incarnations of the Platters, the Crests, and several other groups from the Golden Age of Rock and Roll. Trivia buffs might be aware that, when Middleton was on Broadway in the musical, Purlie, one of the chorus singers was Morgan Freeman. Decades later, the Willows reunited and toured throughout the 1980s. There were occasional concerts until 2009. Middleton is their only surviving member.

  Meanwhile, “Church Bells May Ring” is the equivalent of a world championship in boxing. It’s there forever. Middleton’s place in history is secure. It can never be taken away from him. And he can look back on a lifetime of extraordinary memories.

  “Malcolm X used to preach on the street on a soapbox under my window,” Middleton reminisces. “I spent time with James Baldwin at a bar called Juniors in the Alvin Hotel and got to know Lena Horne. I ran with a lot of big people and liked bei
ng around, but I never made it my business to hang in their lives. I never played the game to stick with them. One time, I was playing a club called Dionysus and Frank Sinatra came in for the show. Another time, I was at the Rainbow Room to hear Duke Ellington and he stopped the show to introduce me. You remember things like that.”

  There are also memories of boxing.

  “I had a drink with Joe Louis at Wells’s Restaurant on 132nd Street and Seventh Avenue [in Harlem]. Just the two of us, talking at one o’clock in the afternoon at the bar. And I had a conversation with Rocky Marciano at the Copa one night when Sam Cooke was playing there. Rocky told me he didn’t want to fight Joe Louis. He said knocking Joe out felt like beating up his own father.

  “I liked Ali,” Middleton continues. “But I was skeptical about him in a lot of ways. When Ali and Joe Frazier fought, I was rooting for Joe. Joe was my man. We were together from time to time.”

  Asked about Frazier’s singing, Middleton responds diplomatically, “Joe had a rough voice, but he sang with enthusiasm. And he had a good band.”

  Then Middleton’s thoughts turned to boxing today.

  “I watch boxing on TV now,” he says. “But most of the fighters get in the ring without knowing what they’re doing. They’re not trained the way they used to be, and they don’t give what they should give. The last really great fighter I saw was Sugar Ray Leonard. He was the best since Sugar Ray Robinson, better than Ali.”

  Singers, like fighters (and the rest of us), get old. At eighty-three, Tony Middleton can’t hit the high notes the way he once did. But he still has an active career guided by his manager, Phyllis Cortese. And whatever else is on his calendar, he sings every Sunday at noon at the Kitano Hotel at 66 Park Avenue in New York, where he has been a fixture for ten years.

  On a recent Sunday, accompanied by a bass player and pianist, Middleton sang a dozen songs at the Kitano’s “jazz brunch.” He began by introducing himself to the audience: “I’m Tony Middleton. I’m Kate Middleton’s uncle.”