When Money Talks…

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

An opinion piece from the only Donald worth listening to…

Full Stop – In British English grammar a full stop is a lengthy pause, in the US, you call it a period. In the UK that tends to suggest feminine products. Here it means a period of time where I look at something in boxing in a little more depth. I am typing from my perspective of a fan who watches the sport closely. It’s an opinion. It is my opinion. Don’t like it? There are other opinions out there but if you don’t like it then good, debate and democracy are a good thing. If you do like it, feel free to spread the word.

When Money Talks…

If there were nerves, you wouldn’t have known it. Of course, there have been bigger debuts made on stages that were much smaller than this one, but they tended to be of an amateur fighter in the code who had swept all before them or the son of a legendary fighter of the past. The razzmatazz would be the pomp and ceremony of expectations on the shoulders of the guy we hoped would relight former glories.

But then some Prince or King had money and wanted to court the sport.

And the sport let them in.

And so, there were innovations aplenty. More than one ring. A light show that would have lit up an Olympic Ceremony. A production that would have left Broadway, the West End and even Hollywood in envy – Bollywood would have still been likely to scoff at it. There were celebrities from the world of fashion, music, film and over 60 former world champions in attendance. There was no penny pinching, nothing was financially spared to make this work. Nothing.
Fight week was spectacular after spectacular.

People got rid of their shirts for photo opportunities, future opponents got to lift their future opponents up off the ground, legends of the sport were challenged by former fighters who provide color, and we were all elevated into a fantasy world that was real. All was now possible.

But it needed sanctioned.

And so, the British body got involved and a British title was to be fought for on the undercard, whilst a heavyweight contest for this debutant was to be sanctioned.

Those that were there, were there. Those that were not there, were simply not there. And the ones who thought it was fantastic were the former whilst the latter were those who scoffed and called it a circus.

For the week before it, the headlines it created meant this could literally be put in a box and labelled mismatch, pointless, stupid, daft…

And then, the time came once the aggression had been channeled from face offs and weigh ins for the fighting.

The debutant, Francis, walked to the ring as his opponent, resplendent in crown and gown made his way in, his frame at a heavy price he was about to pay.

The bell went and our debutant began. He was brought to be the animal slaughtered, and he slaughtered every prediction as he bobbed, and he weaved, and he fought with power and guile.

People had talked of a masterclass by his opponent, and he would simply decide when to stop the fight when he had had enough. By the time his opponent had hit the floor, enough had been had, but his opponent was off, his rhythm disrupted by a man who saw little that should frighten him. The debutant gained in confidence and began to take some pride in the FACT, and it was a FACT that he was the better boxer.

But boxing is a cruel sport. Some now believe it is heavily corrupt. Drugs scandals aside, this was a fight where the opponent needed to escape without injury. He got cut. There was a bigger fight for him to come. His future opponent was ringside and watching at times his head in his hands and his heart in his mouth but with hope in his mind – he was witnessing how to dismantle the opponent. It was being provided to him by a novice, a debutant.

Then came the scores. For the story to continue, the narrative to march on, the opponent needed to win. One judge thought he had lost, and people who were there gasped, nodded and hoped that this was going to be a fair result. But the people who were not there were no fools. They had seen how the opponent had been hurt, had faltered, was no longer the best and certainly was not the baddest man on any planet unless it had a false reality: that reality was going to be based on a false narrative.

But the debutant had narrowly lost on the other scorecards from the judges. The result gifted the win to the opponent, the man who had brought such razzmatazz. He had talked of how the Government in this country had looked after him unlike how in his own country the government there did not even notice him. Irrespective of all the money he raised, brought to the community and made for the country. But here, they liked his chutzpah, recognized his cash value. We all recognized, those of us who were not there, the corrupting influence of that cash.

Those that were there have an uncomfortable story to peddle. Those who were not there have begun to unravel. But the thing is that they saw, and they knew, and they were untainted by the spectacle. Postmortems shall continue to follow. The big fight that people wanted to see is on, but not when the opponent said it should be, not when he said he needed hardly any time to train and not when he said if he did not face the man at the ringside in the ring on a given date he would sue. He won’t be suing. He also is unlikely to be fighting again, no matter the money available, before the turn of the year.

The opponent still gets a bigger payday and a tougher opponent – so the narrative goes. His response to the fight and praise for the debutant was given but his colorful father gave the debutant only one round in a fight which everyone else, untainted by the splashing of the cash didn’t. they have either dashed out another embarrassing point of view or have begun baking their humble pie.

For those who know, they know that the new lineal heavyweight boxing champion of the world should be Mr. Francis Ngannou. Boxing witnessed the arrival of a real “wolf in the house.”

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