On Saturday night I watched the fight between Lennox Lewis and Hasim Rahman. There were two things that I realized watching this fight.
1. I know very little about boxing.I consider myself to have a good level of knowledge about popular sports. I know a lot about sports like baseball and football. I can talk about techniques involved in Hockey and Basketball. I understand the strategy and nuance in auto racing and tennis. I understand the finer points about most popular sports played in America. With all that boxing is a total mystery to me.
Not many of my sports fans friends are boxing fans. The people who I talk sports with do not like boxing. There is this huge divide there. I am old enough to remember Mohammed Ali's last fights. He was not a great fighter when I saw him, but people still talked about him like he was the greatest of all time. As a boy I knew there was some magic there.
In High School it was the Heyday of Mike Tyson. He was the baddest man on the planet. He was a heavy weight champ that would just destroy people. People would talk about his fights, but they would not talk about boxing. He was the only person people were really interesting in. People loved to see Tyson fight, buy that was about all.
I watched these guys fight and I realize that I have a hard time telling who is winning. I could not tell if the fighters had a plan. I could not see the things that I usually like about sports. I could not see the athletes working a plan. They either look like they are tired or they are lazy. I do not see the science part of the Sweet Science.
2. $49.95 is a lot of money to pay to watch something on TV.I watched the fight in a neighbors apartment. I did not pay to see the fight. We watched a couple of the fights before the main event. We did not pay much attention to the female boxers. You can call me sexist, but I do not enjoy watching female box. This is an idea for another time. The under card fights were okay, but they were nothing to get excited about. They are not as good fights as I have seen in the past.
We watched the fight. It ended in the 4th Round. The fight was not dramatic. They were no real mystery to it. From the time the fight started it seemed that Lewis was in control. Neither fighter was really making a show of it. I would have love to see Lewis beat Rahman into the mat. It would have been great to see Rahman frustrate Lewis. Neither of those thing happened. No matter how you cut it, it was not worth that much money.
I know why fights are $50 a pop. I know that most people have fight parties. They expect people to split the cost between them. Even with these facts it is a lot of money to watch something on television. Think about all the other ways you can spend $50 on entertainment, 3 CDs, 2 DVDs, Diner and a Movie for two (no popcorn), a month of digital cable. One fight does not seem worth the price. I think that boxing might find this out a little too late.
Labels: boxing, cost, Hasim Rahman, knowledge, Lennox Lewis, list, Mike Tyson, Mohammed Ali, Money, sports, television
