I don’t have a TV. Once a month I stay out of town with some family that has the whole cable universe at their HDTV finger tips. So, this past Saturday night I was up all night long eating junk food and watching fights and documentaries like an old bald 15-year-old. I am no longer a boxing fan, but just a student of the art. The politics of boxing have destroyed it as a sport, but the combat art is still there. And, even as the game is gutted of talent by MMA, there is a change for the better.
Ambitious fighters, who do not occupy the top position in their weight-class, no longer seek the perfect record, but the perfect crowd-pleasing performance. This is an example of how MMA is affecting boxing for the good. In a recent broadcast Max Kellerman, the smartest man in the boxing broadcast business, even used MMA ground fighting [see Boxing on a Dime] to explain the crowd booing a good boxing performance.
It seems now, that more and more HBO matchups are beginning to look like the best fights of the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s. Timothy Bradley [29-0 with 12 KOs] seems to be the reincarnation of Henry ‘Hank’ Armstrong. Ruslan Provodnikov is naturally a little bigger for a welterweight and has a face like the venerable Soviet battlewagon, the T-34 main battle tank.
I liked everything about this fight: the animated and intelligent announcing—and especially Roy Jones giving up on pronouncing certain names, and labeling the Russian fighter ‘Whatever-his-name-is’; the courageous fighters; HBO score-master Lederman; the caring keen-witted corner men Joel Diaz and Freddie Roach; the even-handed and un-intrusive ref; and the lack of hugging.
If you are a fighter pay attention to Ruslan’s inn-fighting, specifically the wing block and old time overhand right; a parallel short punch that does not loop. He did best when he jabbed his way in, even though he is a human tank.
Bradley got hurt early and repeatedly throughout the fight. He pulled out the win by actually boxing through rounds 7 and 9. He might be billed as a hard-headed genetic freak, but he put on a mid-fight clinic against the harder-headed genetic freak from Russia. I would have to rate Timothy’s combined body-punching and jabbing as one of the best examples of the integration of two aspects of the fight game that are generally assumed to be the province of different types of fighters.
Rather than recap the ring war round-by-round let me leave you with some quotes from ring side:
Kellerman: “What is Timothy Bradley made of?”
Joel Diaz: “I will not throw him [Bradley] in there for him to get hurt again.”
Roy Jones: “Well, he better get ready to stop it because he [Bradley] ain’t listenin’”
Harold Lederman: “He’s [Bradley] won three rounds in a row. He’s bustin’ the guy up.”
Freddie Roach to Ruslan: “We need a KO to win. You need to go out there and show him you can do that or I’ll stop the fight.”
Kellerman: “He [Ruslan] has way too much heart for one man.”
Pat Russell, the referee: “It was an honor to ref this fight.”
The one thing that MMA cannot provide is such a long, grinding test of the human spirit, in such brutally contrived circumstances. Men like Timothy and Ruslan are the reason why boxing will always have its stark niche in our collective psyche.
James, 4/8/13
