A few Saturdays ago a stocky 32-year-old went to mass at the quaintly named Gaylord Texan Convention Center in Dallas, Texas. Later that day he had an altercation with a 34-year-old Ghanaian. Records show that he threw over 1,000 punches at the older man during a half-hour scuffle. Countless bystanders witnessed the brawl but not one called the police.
Why not? Because the violence was sanctioned by the World Boxing Organization. The welterweight title fight between Manny Pacquiao and Joshua Clottey attracted almost 60,000 spectators, the third-largest audience in boxing history. Days earlier a raucous crowd had filled Oxford Town Hall for the 103rd Varsity boxing match. The event drew one of its biggest ever crowds, despite ticket prices as high as £60. Should we worry that our finest young minds are forking out to watch medical students wallop economists and chemists pound the skulls of historians?
It’s still slightly embarrassing to admit to liking boxing in nice, middle-class circles. It’s like confessing to a fondness for steak tartare at a meeting of the Vegetarian Society. But perhaps that’s about to change: the sport is undergoing an unlikely revival, just as observers thought it was going the way of bear-baiting.
My love affair with boxing began, like many a young nerd’s, at the cinema. In Rocky IV the plucky but ageing Sylvester Stallone takes on the seemingly invincible Soviet fighter Ivan Drago. The film had two basic messages: communism is evil and boxers represent the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. I absorbed them both eagerly.
I could barely contain my excitement when I first pulled on a boxing glove. It was at a pierside amusement arcade in front of a machine that tested punching strength.
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