On the Chin

by Alex McClintock

  I don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible to retain the same essential method but represent the results in a more viewer-friendly way: one point per round, with bonus points for knockdowns and negative points for fouls. Fight results were often reported like this in the past. It would be simple to bring back, and casual fans might care more about a sport they could actually understand. Alas, as is so often the case in this dispiriting world, nobody asked me.

  •

  That’s the scoring part. Now for the corruption, a subject with as long a history as prize fighting itself.

  Like the parents of a rowdy child, we learn with disappointment but no particular surprise that a boxer was the first to fix an Olympic competition: in 388 BCE Eupolus of Thessaly bribed his three opponents, including the defending champion, to take dives. The foursome were forced to pay for six bronze statues of Zeus bearing an inscription that warned future competitors victory is to be gained not by money, but by swiftness of foot and strength of body.

  Sadly, the message did not reach the Regency prize ring, where the enormous amounts of money gambled on bare-knuckle bouts only increased the temptation for shady types to engineer their desired outcome. ‘Crosses’, as fixed fights were known, were rife. In one high-profile example, Tom Hickman claimed to have taken a dive in his 1821 fight with Bill Neat in exchange for 1,800 guineas. The bout had been huge news: it was attended by 22,000 people and £200,000 in bets were laid. Hickman later recanted, but Pierce Egan reported he was seen cashing a £1,000 cheque at the Bank of England after the bout. William Hazlitt, who had attended the fight and written about it, denied the fix was in, but the Fancy was left to wonder.

  Still, that was nothing compared to the eyebrow-raising skulduggery involved in Paddy Gill’s defeat of Tommy Griffiths in 1850. It emerged afterwards that Griffiths had been approached in the lead-up to the bout by unsavoury characters who pressured him to take a dive. He refused, but the gamblers wanted their money, and in the break after the first round a poisoned sponge was placed in his mouth, killing him.

  Betting on boxing under such circumstances (to say nothing of participating) was a dangerous proposition. Criminal elements moved in, and before long even attending a fight was unsafe. Understandably, gamblers and fans took their money elsewhere. Ruined by its own crookedness, boxing in Britain entered a dark age from which it would not recover until the introduction of the Queensberry Rules.

  While gloves made the sport semi-acceptable to the authorities, they did nothing to clean it up. Around the world, boxing remained a twilight world of gamblers, criminals and miscellaneous lowlife. Things were so bad that Jack Blackburn, one of the great lightweights of the early twentieth century and later Joe Louis’ trainer, wore boxing boots two sizes too large. He needed the extra space for his money, which he couldn’t leave outside the ring for fear it would be stolen—by his own manager.

  The most famous and extensive period of corruption in boxing history stretched from the late 1920s into the early ’60s when the mob, looking to diversify its portfolio after the end of Prohibition, took control of large parts of the fight game. It was a sign of things to come when Owney ‘The Killer’ Madden, who, if the nickname didn’t tip you off, was a gangster, guided Primo Carnera to a shot at the heavyweight title in 1933. Carnera, who had been discovered working in an Italian circus, was an impressive physical specimen but lacked boxing skills and, indeed, basic coordination.

  Not to let such minor details get in the way of a good thing, Madden and his associates bribed, intimidated and even drugged dozens of his opponents. Poor Primo had no idea—he thought his success was all on the level. After winning the title from Jack Sharkey in a fight that Sharkey swore till his dying day was legit, Carnera was obliterated by Max Baer and left the sport penniless, despite having fought for huge purses. I wonder where the money went.

  The criminal influence became even more pervasive after World War II, when the mob controlled many weight divisions through the Boxing Managers Guild and the International Boxing Club (IBC), the promotional monopoly that ran the sport’s premiere venue, Madison Square Garden. Not every fight of the period was fixed, but when there was an opportunity to make some money, the wise guys didn’t hesitate.

  Many fighters and managers were confronted with a choice akin to the one faced by Terry Molloy in On the Waterfront: work with the mob or don’t work at all (the film’s screenwriter, Budd Schulberg, was a long-time boxing columnist). Some boxers, such as Sugar Ray Robinson, were big enough or lucky enough to keep their noses clean. Others—including Art Aragon, Kid Gavilan, Willie Pep and Rocky Graziano, all household names at the time—were not.

  Jake La Motta, the subject of Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull, was frozen out of a shot at the middleweight title for years, until, exasperated, he agreed to take a dive against Billy Fox. This would have been business as usual, but the mob didn’t count on how unconvincing La Motta would be when he slumped to the ropes in the fourth round. The crowd was furious. ‘Jake was in danger of being picketed by Equity at any moment for not having an actors’ union card,’ wrote Dan Parker in the New York Mirror.

  ‘If this doesn’t kill boxing in New York, one more like it will,’ wrote Bill Corum for the International News Service.

  But there were more like it. Boxing survived nearly another decade of dives and paid-off judges before US Senate hearings led by Estes Kefauver and prosecutions by Attorney-General Robert Kennedy finally broke up the racket. Even then, there were suspicions that the influence of organised crime continued. When Sonny Liston, a brooding, mobbed-up former street tough with a John Waters moustache, defeated Floyd Patterson to win the heavyweight championship in 1962 it launched a new bout of apocalyptic thinking, though James Baldwin thought the obsession with Liston’s criminal past was a little dramatic: ‘The Sweet Science is not, in any case, really so low on shady types as to be forced to depend on Liston.’

  Maybe it didn’t need to rely on Liston, but it could have. He was a ramrod puncher with underrated skills, but as a champion he was a disaster, and it’s possible he threw the fight in which he lost his title. Not that the press had many kind things to say about the boxer who succeeded him. In fact, reading the newspapers of the day you’d have thought the ascension of a young man named Cassius Clay was another nail in the coffin of a once manly and unimpeachable art.

  Clay’s embrace of the Nation of Islam was a further disaster in the eyes of the mostly white press, and the Liston rematch did little to convince them otherwise. ‘The Bear’ went down in the first round on a ‘phantom punch’ that few saw, prompting widespread speculation that the fix was in again. (This was the context of one of the most famous, and most misunderstood, photographs in the world—Neil Leiter’s colour image of Muhammad Ali shouting down at the recumbent Liston, telling him to get up.) Ali went on to become the most recognised person on Earth while Liston died alone in suspicious circumstances in Las Vegas. The era of the mob was over for good.

  One of the strange contradictions of modern professional boxing is that the more you know about it the less corrupt you assume it to be, at least up to a point. In other words, the general public, it seems to me, assumes that the fight game is about as authentic and trustworthy as professional wrestling, while those who follow it assume boxing is mostly on the level.

  I am by no means trying to suggest that boxing is an honest sport, but even the most cynical fan would have to admit that outright dives are now uncommon (or commendably well disguised, I suppose). Paul Briggs’ twenty-nine-second collapse against Danny Green in 2010, which was linked in the media to a betting plunge led by a Lebanese gang called the Sword Boys, stands out for being one of the few suspected dives in recent memory. Leaving aside the career-building mismatches discussed a couple of chapters ago, these days most pro bouts involve two fighters who are trying to win.

  Today’s malfeasance is less transparent. Observers of boxing, even journalists, constantly find ourselves in the strange position of trying
to work out whether controversies happen because of ineptitude or corruption, and if it’s the latter, whether it’s what you might call hard corruption—out-and-out bribery and fixing—or soft corruption: home-town favouritism and the chummy relationship between promoters and officials.

  I’ll give you a recent high-profile example. In 2017, after trying for years to secure the fight, Gennady Golovkin, the fan favourite middleweight puncher from Kazakhstan who endearingly calls his fallen opponents ‘good boys’ and promises a ‘big drama show’, finally signed to face Canelo Alvarez.

  After starting slowly, Golovkin picked up steam and from round four seemed to connect harder and more often than Canelo. The CompuBox punch-counting numbers, which are not always a great measure of who won a fight but in this case were indicative, showed Golovkin throwing two hundred more punches than Canelo and out-landing him 218–169. Most observers scored the bout eight rounds to four for Golovkin. Ringside judge Dave Moretti had a similar score of seven rounds to five.

  Then, as they often do in boxing, things got controversial. Judge Don Trella saw a six rounds to six draw, which was surprising in its own right, but nothing compared to judge Adalaide Byrd’s inexplicable total of ten rounds to two…in favour of Canelo. With the three judges unable to find agreement on anything at all, the bout was ruled a split draw.

  Byrd, who middleweight contender Danny Jacobs memorably labelled ‘The Adolescent Bird’, was suspended, but it did nothing to change the outcome. Not for the first time, Canelo seemed to have received preferential treatment because of his star power and the backing of a big promotional firm. The boxing internet erupted with accusations of corruption and favouritism.

  Sixteen months later they met in a rematch (it would have been sooner but Canelo failed a drug test, natch). The fight was much closer than the first outing, with Canelo turning the tables and playing the aggressor, but the majority of observers still scored it either as a narrow win for Golovkin or a draw. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Nevada judges saw it differently: they handed Canelo a split decision. Golovkin stormed out of the ring without giving an interview.

  Many a fight fan has suggested that in both of these cases, as in more egregious examples where the scorecards appear to have been filled in ahead of time by naked mole rats, the judges were bought and paid for. But it’s more complicated than that. First, there has to be some allowance for the subjective nature of scoring a fight, as previously discussed, and the fact that anyone can have an off night. Hometown fans cheering every time their fighter throws a punch can also change a judge’s perception of a fight, and things can look very different from ringside than they do on TV.

  Still—and without saying anything specific about any humans living or dead et cetera—it’s worth considering the fact that many athletic commissions, the bodies that assign and manage officials, are funded through the sale of tickets, and therefore have an incentive to prop up the sport’s cash cows. Even more problematic is the close-knit nature of the boxing fraternity and the cosy relationship between officials and promoters. In many jurisdictions, not only do promoters pay judges and referees’ wages through fees to the local athletic commission, it’s not uncommon for them to treat officials to complimentary travel and lodging at plush hotels. Maybe the fox isn’t guarding the henhouse, but he’s certainly paying for the chicken wire and taking the contractor out for a nice meal.

  But to make matters even more complicated, while wacky scorecards almost always favour the home-town fighter or the big star, sometimes they don’t. Take Manny Pacquiao’s fight with Tim Bradley in 2012. Bradley was a very well-regarded boxer with no particular fan base. Pacquiao was an international superstar who hoped to set up a ridiculously profitable fight with Floyd Mayweather. Outside the Bradley household, a win for Pacman was in everybody’s interest.

  I watched on the big screen at Sydney’s Star City Casino. After eleven rounds of Pacquiao belting Bradley, the international feed cut out and the auditorium, which besides me was filled with hundreds of well-hydrated Filipinos already celebrating their idol’s certain victory, plunged into darkness. After several minutes of frustrated confusion, during which quite a few Pacquiao fans headed cheerily for the exits, the stream was restored and the room was treated to the sight of a slightly sheepish-looking Bradley holding his hands aloft. As I’m sure you can imagine, this caused the atmosphere to sour considerably.

  I just shook my head. Unless boxing’s puppetmasters were thinking eight moves ahead in a three-dimensional, fight-fixing chess match us mere mortals could never hope to understand, the only explanation was sheer, innocent incompetence. When you look at it that way, it’s almost heartwarming.

  DAVID VS GOLIATH

  ‘YOU’RE IN SHAPE, you’re on weight and you didn’t get beat up: let’s fight again at the end of the week.’

  Paul, David and I were sitting in the brittle winter light at a reclaimed wooden table, drinking flat whites and eating free-range eggs. It was the day after the win, the morning air was cool on my face and it felt good to be alive. Any remorse I felt about beating Jake had been blunted by Fritzy’s churlishness. Paul, who had felt no guilt in the first place, was grinning from ear to ear.

  ‘I’m serious, and David, you should have one too. It’s the best thing, you’ll feel incredible.’

  I flashed David a dubious look.

  ‘Can we get someone with the same nose as the guy Alex fought the first time?’ he said.

  ‘I can look into it. But seriously, if you feel up to it, the two of you should fight this Friday at Norths.’

  Norths was North Sydney Leagues Club, home of the North Sydney Bears rugby league team, another sprawling pokie den that occasionally hosted C-list country music, touring hypnotists and amateur fight nights.

  ‘What about my weight?’ I asked, eyeing the deep-fried potato rosti supporting my poached eggs.

  ‘What do you mean? You were on weight last night, it’s in two days. No big deal, just don’t eat any Big Macs between now and then.’

  ‘What about training?’

  ‘We’ll do some light pads tomorrow, but you’re already in shape. Better to save your energy. Go for a recovery run this afternoon, four or five kays, nice and slow.’

  This was a new concept for me; I had always thought of a run as something you recovered from.

  ‘This is what you need. Fight as many times as you can, whenever you get the chance. Face different opponents, try different things. Last night you brought a lot of pressure, next time you can concentrate on boxing. After a while you might even want to try a fight as a southpaw, or going for the knockout. That’s how you get to be a good boxer. That’s how you end up winning state titles, national titles.’

  The mention of national titles was all I needed, no matter how far-fetched it was. I was so into the idea of being a top boxer that if Paul had told me fighting four guys with baseball bats in a dark alley would be good for my development, I’d have done it. But I wanted David to be part of this too. We had started together, after all.

  ‘I’ll fight if David fights too.’ I didn’t think of it as throwing him under the bus. Once again I’d forgotten about the dread and angst of the build-up, and was only thinking about the rush of victory. But I knew David wanted to fight: he couldn’t say no to an extreme experience. He just needed an extra push to get him over the line.

  We looked across the table to our stocky friend, who raised his hands and smiled bravely.

  ‘My parents are going to kill me,’ he said.

  The day before my date at North Sydney Leagues I was at university, sitting in the back of a featureless brick room in the back of a featureless brick building. Though it was early evening it was already dark and the windows were steamed up. The space, which had a mildly stale odour at the best of times, was now fully musty thanks to the presence of two dozen Spanish Language and Culture 3 students who’d arrived in the pouring rain.

  Everyone was ignoring the tutor, a long-suffering Chilean woman
in thick glasses who was attempting to explain the different uses of the preterit and imperfect past tenses, in favour of discussing their weekend plans.

  I took the opportunity to try and impress Claire and Steph, the girls I sat and flirted with each week, with tales from my short ring career. Steph was the shorter of the pair, with a roguish grin, thick blonde hair and a full figure. I had the hots for her in a big way. Claire was tall and waif-like, with a sardonic smile and mocking, affectless manner. Actually, I had the hots for both of them.

  In the retelling, my first victory had become a vicious knockout and my second a tactical masterstroke. Paul’s brief mention of the national titles, meanwhile, had transformed into a concrete plan to make the 2016 Olympic team. Claire and Steph bore this all with the impressive patience of young women accustomed to listening to young men talk about themselves.

  ‘Anyway, I’m fighting again this Friday, you guys should come. It’s only thirty bucks for a ticket,’ I said optimistically.

  ‘Sorry, I’m busy on Friday,’ said Steph, putting a diplomatic hand on my arm.

  ‘I’ve got, like, other stuff to do,’ said Claire, unapologetic. ‘But I knew you were going to be there Friday because the guy you’re fighting goes to my little brother’s gym,’ she added in the same tone she might have used to check a textbook answer.

  I sat up straight. Paul, who’d been in touch with the organisers, had told me the name of my opponent—Shaun something—and which gym he came from, over the phone earlier that day. I didn’t know anything else about him. As with the separate dressing rooms, there was a certain comfort in ignorance.