“A link to the always annoying daily mail shows that female monkeys prefer warrior monkeys. When chimps share a behavior with humans, you know it runs deep. When monkeys share it, no amount of social engineering is going to alter it.”

-Lynn

Lynn, in the late 80s I went to see a Tyson fight at a friend’s house, along with another boxer and some fight fans. This was always an event, like the public executions of old. How long would the victim last against the beast man?

On this occasion we were all excited about an actual fight, as Alex Stewart was a highly regarded, dangerous opponent, not the run and hug Ali imitators or sterile sparring partners normally carted out for execution by Iron Mike.

As the resident expert I was asked for my odds, and I placed Tyson at 3-1 for the first round, 2-1 for the second and 3-2 for rounds thereafter. My wife and my sparring partner’s girl next to me both snorted and nudged each other as they saw Stewart walk out to the ring. They both called it a slaughter and it was. There was something intangible that these women—who both had a thing for dangerous men—detected in Stewart’s composure that eluded all the fistic geekology of the gathered men.

Okay, the meatheads are going to want some tactical deductions here. And there are some to be made. However, these are erased by the hammer equation: in a hammer fight you want the claw hammer your father used to build the shed, not the tack hammer your mother used to hang pictures.