Another Day in the Fight Game

26 August 2017

“May the odds be ever in your favor!” -Effie Trinket

Err, no! It is not another day in the fight game! It’s D-Day! And the worst thing about it is that deep down inside nobody knows what’s going to happen. Tonight’s ticket, Floyd Mayweather, Jr. vs. Conor McGregor, brings two worlds colliding. The raw brutality of MMA meeting the sweet science of boxing has everyone on edge. “Mayweather will take McGregor to school”, “McGregor will destroy Mayweather,” cries the wind! Again, I don’t know what will happen although I am rooting for Mayweather. He's’ the true boxer in this fight, but when you consider the stakes, he’s also the one risking the most.

After a long and successful career on the boxing ring yielding a record of 49-0, Mayweather’s prime years are past him. He’s a natural boxer and after all these years remains a very disciplined one too. He’s super calculated and smart on the ring. He’s a fierce counter puncher and his defense is unparalleled. Anybody wanting a piece of him has to go into the ring more than determined to get it and I can't’ think of anyone more qualified to do that than Conor McGregor. For me, that’s what’s scary. Mayweather has chosen an exceptional opponent for none other than his last professional fight. He'll go out with a bang, any way you look at it. 

McGregor has many attributes too. He’s super smart on the mat. He’s nimble, fast and powerful. He doesn’t miss a beat. Actually, he creates the beat-ing. This is amply demonstrated by material UFC evidence. He’s so fast and powerful that on UFC 194 Aldo didn’t know what had hit him until after it was over, literally. Yes, that Jose Aldo, who had been a dominant UFC champion for over 10 years, lost his belt to O.N.E. notorious Conor McGregor left punch. It was nasty and quite frankly, as far as the fight game is concerned, masterfully beautiful. Truly reminiscent of Ali's’ first round lighting rod to Liston’s jaw in their second bout.

However, I’m rooting for Mayweather because I cannot see McGregor beating him. Yet, tonight all bets are off. McGregor may well beat him and not only beat him; he might lay him flat and bid him sweet dreams. It will only take one punch if he’s able to break through and connect.

Mayweather is confident he will win this fight, but is approaching it realistically. He knows he’s not the same Mayweather anymore and has acknowledged as much. He’s slower and hasn’t fought in 2 years. He’s a 40 year old going against a tried and true fighter who’s 11 years his junior.

I will focus on Mayweather once the initial bell rings. I anticipate he will take no chances. One mistake in this fight and it will be Aldo all over again. It’s a true gamble. The potential for 49-0 becoming 49-1 couldn’t be higher. Why, Mayweather, why? Because he is also a tried and true fighter. More so than McGregor. When it comes to boxing history, tonight we’ll witness a history making match. I’m all in.

Allow me to take this for a spin. There are many reasons why the gladiators of millennia ago have remained iconic throughout history. And there’s a reason why in the modern cinematic era of entertainment we can’t avoid glamorizing them from old classics like Spartacus to modern day classics like Gladiator. I didn’t buy the t-shirt, but I have the soundtrack to the later one!

In our broken humanity we’re primed for spectacle and the bloodier it is the merrier. It was not just a matter of size and strength back then. You also had to be skilled and smart on the arena to make it. You didn’t just have one enemy going up against you in any given contest. You had several enemies at once, animal or human. One would think that MMA or boxing is a brutal sport nowadays. Well, not even close when compared to the Roman Colosseum in all its primitive glory. Not only that, your fate oftentimes depended on the whim of god, namely Caesar or the prefect in charge if the coliseum was elsewhere in the empire.

Depending on how well associated or dissociated he was from his own humanity, for human he was after all, almighty Caesar would let you live or die with just one flick of the wrist. So he was god for all the participants in the gladiatorial story- the victor, the victim and the crowd. This latter would egg him on depending in turn on how well associated or dissociated it was from it’s own humanity. We know how historians have depicted the masses for us back then: not any different than they are depicted for us today.

If there’s a difference, it’s that today we have regulatory bodies and commissions the attempt to bring some order and an apparent semblance of humanity to the fight game. There are drug screenings to keep the game clean, there are warnings to keep the game “gentlemanly”, there are doctors when things get too bloody or swollen and there are countdowns, at least in boxing, to give a fighter a chance at recovery if he’s knocked down or too hurt. And yet, "the game’s the game" as Omar reminded us in The Wire, and in the particular fight game we are about to see tonight the same primordial emotions, fears, anxieties, anger (sadly), even joys (believe it or not), run through our souls just as they did in Rome’s heyday.

Most of us wouldn’t get into the ring or the mat to fight somebody pound for pound. I know I wouldn’t. Somebody with my own height and weight can kill me with just one punch to the head or suck the air out of me for a month with just one punch to the gut. I’m not up to it, but we’ll either vicariously get in the ring with our prizefighters or watch them from the sidelines in Vegas or PPV because the fight game is as much a part of us as we’re a part of it.

These fighters train hard and they are good at it. That’s why tonight Mayweather vs McGregor will make pay per view history. They are the best at what they do in their respective platforms and the fight itself is historic. Of course, there were promoters on both sides who knew that there was too much money to pass up on a fight like this, but at the end of the day these two guys have my respect for stepping up to the challenge of risking their reputations as fighters and the reputations of their disciplines with them in an unprecedented way.

When Mayweather and McGregor square off tonight, neither of them will have the presence of Caesar looming over their heads to extend or deny them mercy in the end. This side of the Enlightenment, the fighter himself has replaced god. Remember when in an arrogant lack of judgement, McGregor said as much in the promotional runnup to UFC 196, "Gods recognize gods"? He lost that fight by submission to Nate Díaz. No one saw that coming, except the one, true God, I'd say. 

Tonight’s fight might be a pretty short affair, twelve rounds full of excitement or a total dud. Who knows. The total show, however, leaves no doubt about the brutality of our most basic instincts this side of the Fall. So I’m glad that in the fight game there are some rules that somewhat attempt to help us make a basic distinction regarding the sport as well as channeling those instincts in a healthier way: we will all have to fight at some point or another, but not all fights are the same. Some fights are bare knuckled, some are gloves on, and some don't have to do with fists at all. While most of us might and will be sucked into the whole Mayweather/McGregor spectacle for one brief moment, that moment, that fight does not belong to us. It belongs to them and to them alone. They are taking us along for the ride because we’re willing to pay for it. 

Kudos, by the way, to all resisting to give in to tonight’s boxing hysteria. Granted, that might be a really smart choice, but that’s a whole other fight unto itself. I would rather see the news or history in the making than wait to learn about it in the morning just before going to church! Not that it would ruin my worship game, but it would suck to learn about the outcome of this fight a whole lot later than necessary.

But tonight’s fight makes me think of at least two other things bearing on the battles we ourselves have to fight: 1. We all need help in preparing to fight our battles, and 2. We also need grace and perseverance to stay in our own version of the fight game. Mayweather and McGregor will say “Word!” to point one. Saint Paul the Apostle has a thing or two to say about point two.

In a very real sense -and I myself don’t know if I can grasp the ultimate implications of this- the old world order of boxing and the new world order of mixed martial arts will come to a head in a sports arena tonight. Since the fight game is not leaving us any time soon, I pray the old world order prevails.