It was the sport’s equivalent of Pearl Harbor. Where were you when, in the middle of a major televised sporting event, the former heavyweight champion bit, not once but twice, the ear of his heavyweight challenger, and then spit it out?
I was in an Irish bar with a roomful of suddenly silent Irishmen. It was one of the single most stunningly telling televised moments I’d ever had a chance to be part of.
It was not the sports nadir that so many hand-wringing businessmen who were concerned about “what this might mean for the sport” thought. It was a real and true moment of honesty wherein, Zeuslike, a competitor’s desire to move beyond competition into the whole elemental consumption thing was acted on.
Since then, since that fall and the rape conviction that precipitated it and the subsequent years in the wilderness, wandering and wondering, Tyson pops up on the periphery of my consciousness, as well as my person: sitting next to me at the AVN awards show in Vegas, where porn stars jostle for a chance to be photographed with the murmuring Tyson; or suddenly flanking me in the media row at the Ultimate Fighting Championship, where I find myself standing between him and The Rock. And our conversations always seem the same, with him blankly mumbling consent to some entreaty to “do a piece.”
And while it was and sort of remains convenient to bifurcate our understanding of how this all played out in black and white with the biter, Tyson, the villain, and the bitten, Evander Holyfield, the victim, what a difference a day makes. Or an athletic commission ruling.
In August 2005, the New York Daily News dropped a blockbuster: the New York State Athletic Commission banned the forty-two-year old Holyfield from boxing in New York, regardless of his passing a raft of required tests.
Boxing loves its conspiracies. Was it the fact that Holyfield was never the company guy, paddycaking it with the goodfellas over at HBO? Was it the short-order losses to the likes of Chris Byrd (who?) James Toney, and then Larry Donald (who? WHO?)? Or was it a public aversion to watching a now-old man flame out like some wasted, punchy and pencil-pushing pugilist?
Who knows? What was known was that all through the ear-biting imbroglio nobody had really asked him about it because they felt like they had already seen it. Fools.
That’s where I come in. Driving through the monogrammed gates of Holy-field’s palatial digs in Fairburn, Georgia, it seemed to me that none of the usual questions that you might ask someone who had suffered ear avulsion at the hands of a bipolar ex-con (“Were you afraid? How afraid? Like crap-your-pants afraid?”) really applied, especially when the bipolar ex-con had been in the process of getting his ass handed to him.
Then, standing in the entryway to his place, a surreal scene-by-scene remake of Tony Montana’s spread from Scarface, I make my way to the living room and I ask him the only way I know how.
Tyson?
“Look, Tyson is a good example of a guy that they used to promote because he had talent but didn’t know the game. And if you don’t know the game, they prostitute you. If you know the game, they want to get you out of there and get somebody else young and stupid. To make money off of him.”
Holyfield’s a solid chunk, even allowing for age.
“So they promoted Mike and made him bigger than life because when Mike came to town everybody got paid. They did the same doggone thing to Ali. It’s almost like they got paid to call him the greatest, and that was because they were ripping him off. They’re still ripping him off. I guess he allows it because he wants them to love him.”
Minus the ripping-off part some might have accused Holyfield of similar desires for public acclaim, given his resistance to the ban and his continuing to fight in off-market places like Dallas, where he faced a so-called insurance salesman and Kentuckian Jeremy Bates (who?) on August 19, 2006. (Holyfield was victorious—ref stoppage, round two—in a fight that Scott Kelly from Combatmusicradio.com called “a sad and horrifying work [unevenly matched fight, possibly fraudulent] that nonetheless showcased the talents of a great fighter.”)
But the ear.
You know in both of your Tyson fights I think you used dirty tricks. I think you just didn’t get caught. You were head-butting. You were wrestling, hitting after the bell, and so on.
And there it is. A little salt. I sit back on his cream-colored couch and watch him grow more animated than he’s been the whole time I’ve been here.
“Wrong. Absolutely wrong. He was jumping off of his feet to head-butt me. My head was just harder than his. My attitude was ‘That’s what you get, sucker.’ I don’t go into no game cheating, but if you do it to me, I’m going to do it back to you.
Did it hurt?
“Yes.”
And the breakdown of the post-bite surgery and so on and I’m only half listening because an idea is percolating. In my head.
Do you have a training ring here?
I mean it did not seem that there was anything that the house did not have. There had to be a ring there. But even though I was asking, he was clearly not telling.
Where do you train when you’re here?
“Why?”
Well, out with it.
I figured you and I could go one three-minute round. You know, just for fun.
He laughed, stood up, and walked into a smallish bathroom off the living to take a leak. I could hear him chuckling, and he was still chuckling as he came out after straightening his clothes.
Hey, I train too. I’m a COMBAT ATHLETE, JACK!!!
“Look, I’ll give you a ride to wherever you need to go.”
I’ll just write that you were afraid to fight me if you don’t.
And again he chuckled. I wasn’t quite so sure whether I should be a skosh offended at his complete refusal to take my challenge seriously, or thankful. But as we wended our way through Atlanta traffic, with him waving after well-wishers, fight fans, and the starstruck, he got to a part in the conversation where he started to demonstrate to me how the combinations another fighter was throwing at him were coming in.
And as I sat and watched his hands, I knew in that moment that if I was to move my hands as fast as humanly possible, for ME, to demonstrate the same thing, there’s no way I could move them THAT fast. Add in him squared up across from me, and his twenty-plus years in the fight game, I see that I narrowly averted a large-scale personal national tragedy. To wit: a savage beating that sees me getting savagely beaten. Because if I did well, I’d shame him into giving me one. If I didn’t do well, as many might predict, I’d be shamed into FORCING him to give me one. Thank goodness neither happened, I think, in honest appraisal. He’d have killed me. Unless … and here’s the fatal flaw that fuels those one-too-many-drinks-for-their-own-good guys when they see guys like Holyfield out and about … unless I somehow took him down to the ground, where my real skills lie.
Yeah. Unless. If. Maybe.
The road to hell is paved with suchlike words.
Setting my bags on the curb, I notice him unconsciously rubbing his ear with the one hand as he waves me off with the other. And I take a last look at it.
Yeah. It makes sense. Tyson-esque sense, but sense nonetheless.
I coulda been a contender.
TEN BEST
BOXING MATCHES
IN HISTORY
(THE CHEAT SHEET TO HELP YOU FAKE LIKE YOU
KNOW A FEW THINGS ABOUT A FEW THINGS)
Joe Louis v. Billy Conn, 1941: In my household Joe Louis was always pitied, and his plaintive, possibly apocryphal, post-fight cry of “I’m glad I won, Momma” was the signature of a champion who died almost undone by business and his inattention to it. But back in 1941, if you watch the film, Louis, who ended his career with 68 wins, 3 losses, and 54 knockouts, stumbles the entire fight until he delivers a right upper-cut quickly followed by a salvo of rights and lefts to Conn’s head. And these were rights and lefts with those tiny friggin’ gloves they used to use when fighters ended up selling pencils on street corners from brain damage after their careers were over. And finally: the right that put Conn to sleep in the 13th round. Classic come-from-behind win from a champion whom many had wanted to declare dead. Greatest heavyweight of all time? Goddamned right.
Gene Tunney v. Jack Dempsey, 1927: Jack Dempsey, history books have finally indicated, was a motherfucker. In that same motherfucker class that included Ty Cobb, and in which some would include the car wreck that “Iron” Mike Tyson’s become, Dempsey tarried with gangsters, routinely attacked women, and took seriously his standing as one of the toughest men in the world. To wit: he did exactly what the fuck he wanted. Except at Soldier Field in front of 100,000 fans when Tunney, after a questionably long count, came back to give Battlin’ Jack what all. Though Dempsey was later decried as being “old” and “soft,” this fight was more good because of the snapshot it took of a fighter in decline than for any show of boxing brilliance. Like Bang the Drum Slowly. But for boxing.
Muhammad Ali v. George Foreman, 1974: There’s a reason so many movies have been made about this fight. Movies made, books written, column inches inked, all in the name of what everyone thought would be sport-sanctioned murder. I watched it on a Zenith TV in Brooklyn and from halfway around the world my mind was still blown: rope-a-dope? Goddamned right. Ali redeems himself for his highly questionable and career-besmirching win over the compromised Sonny Liston.
Sugar Ray Leonard v. Tommy Hearns, 1981: Right after this? Yeah: exactly when boxing started its long march into total sports insignificance brought about by greed, confusion, and general stupidity. Leonard wins with a 14th-round TKO, not the way we like our fights to end (we of the rock-’em sock-’em class), but a great study all around, and a reminder of how good Leonard was/is.
Rocky Marciano v. Jersey Joe Wolcott (I), 1952: After getting his ass handed to him by the bigger and apparently tougher Wolcott (he who had laid low Joe Louis one time when) for the ENTIRE fight, Marciano came back with one right hand that said it all at 43 seconds into the 13th round, spinning Wolcott’s head around like a top and ever so solidly removing the crown from that head upon which it sat. Look up “gutted out: win” and you’ll see Marciano’s face somewhere there.
Julio Cesar Chavez v. Meldrick Taylor, 1990: I started loving Chavez when, late in his career, on his way to his much-vaunted, much-wanted 100 fights, he fought some bum named Hagen. Hagen, in trying to generate some heat for a fight no one cared about, started taunting Chavez, making the claim that to get to 100 fights he must have fought a whole passel of Tijuana taxi drivers. The normally bloodless Chavez, rather than putting Hagen down right away, as it became clear he patently could have, kept him standing the whole match just so he could punish him and punish him and then punish him some more. After the beating had subsided, and Hagen admitted in a post-fight interview that they “must have been [some] pretty tough cabdrivers,” Chavez had earned a place in my heart. This fight was no different. Though covered by the taint of confusion that marked boxing in its decline (Taylor clearly won the first eight rounds), Chavez’s dogged and continued attack during the last rounds made this a good ’un. Like Scorcese good. Tough cab drivers, indeed.
Archie Moore v. Yvon Durelle, 1958: We love this one simply because we love the spectacle of old age getting after youth. The almost 45-year-old Moore against the 29-year-old Durelle fought this fight when fighters fought fights: Durelle’s record was 81 wins, 20 losses, and 2 draws, Moore’s was 173 wins, 22 losses, and 9 draws. Most of us will never do ANYTHING significant 173 times, much less win something, and so it was with great joy that I’ve watched (time and time again) Moore knock down the game Durelle, time and time again, before pulling out a totally tough win in round 11. Age before beauty, baby.
Marvelous Marvin Hagler v. Tommy “The Hitman” Hearns, 1985: This fight had such seismically significant ripples that one need but look at the aftermath to track its later trajectory: Hagler subsequently decamps to Italy, never to return; Hearns gets picked up in 2006 on a domestic rap for fistfighting with his son at home. (Over? Maybe who was going to take out the garbage?) But the first round of this fight is the most brutal many of us will ever see, and when Hagler wins it in round 3 you’re almost relieved, like YOU were the one getting your ass kicked.
Riddick Bowe v. Evander Holyfield, 1992: Forget the later ear-biting debacle, forget the Bible-beating and his late-in-winter refusal to acknowledge that the circus has pulled out of his town, Holyfield and Brooklyn bomber Bowe fought a fearsome threesome of fights that stand (the Fan Man, the lunatic who parachuted into the ring in the middle of the fight, debacle aside) as some of the greatest ass kicking ever.
Muhammad Ali v. Joe Frazier (III), 1975: Frazier said before the fight that he was prepared to die in that ring. Ali said afterward that it was the closest to death he had ever come. Well, death took a holiday this night, but what Ali had proclaimed “a killa and a thrilla and a chilla” when he got “the gorilla in Manila,” showed two consummate endurance artists fighting forward and clearly choosing not to quit, and they didn’t. The fight was called when a merciful Frazier corner, Frazier himself with his eyes swollen shut, called the fight. Standing to celebrate, Ali passed out from exhaustion. Balls. In great evidence.
“I guess I just didn’t play well with others,” she laughs, her voice a light trill.
She?
Yeah, Kelsey Jeffries, the Road Warrior, the IFBA featherweight (126 pounds) world champ, the IBA super bantamweight world champ, the WIBA intercontinental super featherweight champ, and the WIBF America’s Featherweight champ. That she.
You know, the she who labors on in relative obscurity, trying to make her bones at a day gig as a firefighter because, ironically, chances are you’re probably much more familiar with Michelle Rodriguez’s star turn as a “girl” boxer in 2000’s Girlfight or more famously Oscar-winner (and former Karate Kid) Hilary Swank’s Oscar-winning Million Dollar Baby, than you are with Jeffries’ past twelve years in the ring.
Doing the math, that’s twelve years, 53 fights (44 as a pro), 34 wins, a few KOs, and all of it summing up to a few pressing realities: tough things come in small packages, is one of them. Her being able to kick your ass is another.
“I was pretty introverted, I had issues at home, I was athletic, and I grew up a white girl in Hawaii. So I started fighting early,” says the thirty-year-old fighter. And while the incongruity of beaches and brawls works its way around your head and you hum “Blue Hawaii,” know that there’s a whole other side to the beach culture that readily and quickly asserts itself in face of the fact that while Hawaii is part of the union, it’s also a completely different country. A country where being a 5′4″ strawberry blonde might be viewed as an invitation to remind a minority that they live in the only state in the union that has a majority that’s non-white.
“But it was all tough,” Jeffries laughs. Kind of. “I was what they called a tita. It’s a Hawaiian word, or a Samoan word, for a fighting spirit, I think.” And so from the beaches to three years of karate and a chance meet with Dennis Alexio (super heavyweight kickboxer with a pro record of 70–2 with 65 wins by knockout or TKO) at Gold’s Gym, Jeffries started swinging through territory that, though discovered, has hardly been charted. Or at least not discovered enough to afford its pioneers limos, jewels, and a TV talk show on ESPN.
“Well, it was tough, because there were no women at any of these gyms. So I had to be tough because if I’m training with guys, which I did, and do, there’s no way that they’re going to let me beat them. I mean, if the average person trains at maybe seventy-five percent when they train I was probably always training at one hundred percent because I was training with guys who were training one hundred. Just to not get beaten by me.”
Did you ever manage to kick any of their asses? Completely? Totally? Humiliatingly?
“No. I am too smart for that. If I could find a man I could beat, what would I gain from that?”
And then it dawns on us, that she’s in an interesting place in space: she’s fought both men and women. In the ring. Not over a kitchen table or something. Is there a difference? I mean, outside of the fact that most men would rather die in the ring than be publicly seen losing to a woman (and they fight like it when they do)?
All things being equal, how’d the experiences compare since from the outside, women’s fights, like all lighter-weight fights, seem both faster and meaner?
“The biggest difference is one that’s obvious. The power thing. This is a big difference.”
So what kind of adjustments does the smaller fighter make when fighting a larger fighter?
“Well, I know I’m only going to win that one thinking-wise. And skill-wise. So I try to not get hit and play defense, defense, defense. Which in terms that the average person can understand means lots of head movement, lots of foot motion, which means moving my body. And then mostly I just box. Not fight, but BOX. Most of my fights have been won by decision. And I fight above my weight class as well.”
Have many been lost by knockout?
“I’ve been dropped four times in my career. All from punches I didn’t see. Which means southpaws. Fighting a southpaw is like dancing with a bad dance partner. The angles are all wrong and it’s just not easy. But that’s a Hollywood thing. Generally, in real life, women are not knocking people out. Mostly because knockouts come from fighters fighting fighters that can’t really fight. Look at it 99.99 percent of the time if someone’s got a record heavy on knockouts you really need to look at who they knocked out.”
Spot quiz: Girlfight or Million Dollar Baby—which movie was better from a fight perspective?
“Girlfight. It was a better movie. More realistic.” And working with Al Ramirez as a boxing coach and spending time training with Buddy McGirt, and fighting everywhere and anywhere she can get her hands on one, Jeffries’ dance card, as drawn by the old New York salt Bruce Anderson, has her hitting the bricks old-school style.
“She’s fought in Oregon, Washington, California, Mexico, New Jersey, Florida, Texas, Gdansk, Poland, Berlin, Nevada, Indiana …” Anderson’s voice trails off. “That’s why we started calling her the Road Warrior.”
“Well, my manager likes for me to remain as the Road Warrior,” says Jeffries. “But being from Hawaii I always like to include some Aloha/Hawaiian strength somewhere. Ali’i is a leader, great one, chief, officer, king, or in my case, queen. So Ali’i Warrior. I think you get the idea. It took me my entire career as the Road Warrior to achieve and earn the status of Ali’i. On my fight skirt I wear Pu’ali, which means warrior. I also go by Pukaua, which means fighter. It’s something I know and no one else knows.”
“Ali’i Warrior—confuses yet another,” Anderson opines.
And finally I wonder aloud if being a bona fide ass kicker upends the delicate balance that’s maybe overly reliant on her bearing the mantle of the weaker sex.
“What?”
Well, in nature, anthropologically speaking, it seems that males and females of a species that are more often more evenly matched in terms of size and strength are usually monogamous.
“Um …”
What I mean to say is, are you finding that being a killer makes your close personal relationships into something more like uneasy truces … like when you go home for Thanksgiving or something?
“I’m the baby in the family. But what I do for a living never comes up.”
No older brothers playfully slap-boxing you around the holiday table?
“No. They never talk about it. They don’t joke about it. I mean, not even a joke.”
And I try to envision this weird sort of détente where what you know, as a sort of signpost of what you can do, is enough to back them up off of you. Actually try has very little to do with what I envison since I’m not being entirely honest here because at 6′1″ and 225 pounds I know goddamned well what it feels like.
But I wonder if it’s a heady, intoxicating sensation for someone who is not used to having it. Like you woke up one day to discover that you actually were Napoleon, or something. Or whether the crown is worn much more lightly, much more effortlessly, than it might seem to us lesser-gifted mortals. And as I listen to her, her voice, and the edge in her voice that creeps in as we get closer to when it’s time for her to start training, I don’t wonder too much anymore, as after a certain point it seems like asking someone with black hair how it feels to have black hair.
“Mahalo, my brother,” she says by way of exit, and this I know. And as I say “you’re welcome,” she heads out to get ready for a September 14 bow* against a revolving door of opponents who “keep changing,” according to Anderson, all Burgess Meredith aplomb, “because they’re afraid to fight her or don’t think they’re getting enough money to get beaten by her.” He sighs, and his sigh says, if I’m hearing it correctly, what he then very directly affirms: “Being number one is tough, but it’s much better than not being number one.”
A FIGHT FILM THAT WORKS ONLY IF YOU DON’T FIGHT, NEVER KNEW ANYBODY WHO DID FIGHT, OR BELIEVED ME WHEN I TOLD YOU THAT THE WORD “GULLIBLE” IS NOT IN THE DICTIONARY
BODY AND SOUL (1947) DIRECTED BY ROBERT ROSSEN
I’m not out to make any friends. That much should be clear. And taking a shot at ol’ Johnny Garfield (who was nominated for an Oscar for his take on a prizefighter), with apologies due to Andy Applewaite, the biggest John Garfield fan I know, is almost necessary if you manage to move out beyond the penumbra of Hollywood’s magical glow. A glow that has the perfectly-believable-as-a-gangster Garfield, standing up in this Oscar-winning flick, playing Charley Davis, a prizefighter tilting against the Mob and coming out The Winner. You think it works this way in real life? Well, we got a bridge in Brooklyn, or a hotel room in Vegas, that Sonny Liston could sell you, if so. Yeah, this film looks great, all noir-ish sheen and great editing, but the fact is not changed that nowhere is the gap wider between fighting and acting like you’re fighting than here. Remember, just moving your boxing-gloved hands does not a fight make.
The movie was Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. The scene was this caper-esque discovery by some robbers of a poorly placed meter maid. Or meter man. Or whatever the hell they’re called. When the meter man regains consciousness after being head-butted into the un- side of the whole consciousness equation, one robber says to the other, “Knock him out.” And they sort of stare at each other and the other one says, “Knock him out?”
It was a great set piece because the reality of it is most people have no idea not only how to knock someone out, but why they get knocked out (“From getting hit on the head a lot?”), or what happens when they get knocked out.
For this we went again to Dr. Steven Ballinger, whose qualifications as an orthopedic guy are beyond reproach and who holds the enviable title of “Strongest Hands in the County.” The county? Camarillo, home of the mental institution made famous by Charlie Parker, Zappa, and Dr. Steven Ballinger, a former wrestler par excellence (hence the honorary title). We decamped to his digs in Eastern Texas, and, fired up by the spirit of Plato (and Socrates and Glaucon), decided to find out what happens when the lights go out. For the purposes of those fans of The Republic, Dr. Ballinger will be playing Socrates, and I myself will be playing the taciturn toady Glaucon.
Is it not true that essence precedes existence with regards to face punchitizing?
“Well, the amount of damage inflicted by a blow to the face is related to a number of factors; foremost are the force of the punch and the area of the face that the force is spread over. Force can be estimated by using a simple equation, or by observing a well-delivered blow directly. When a punch is optimally delivered by a fighter standing on a stable base, slow-motion analysis will show a very slight backward movement of the fighter delivering the blow, and a complex mix of movements in the one receiving the lick. Force equals mass times velocity squared, so in the best scenario the force of the blow must be a little greater than the inertial mass of the puncher, hence his slight backward motion despite a wide base and good traction.”
I concur. But what of the size differentialistics?
“Look, the equation is force equals mass times velocity squared. That is why a smaller guy with a fast fist can hit as hard, or harder, than a huge, slow guy—the velocity is squared, and the force increases logarithmically as velocity of the fist increases. Increasing the mass of the fighter or holding a roll of quarters in your fist only increases the force of the blow linearly—if the mass is doubled, the force is doubled. If the velocity of the fist is doubled, the force is quadrupled (2 × 2 = 4, Einstein). If you have a choice of guys lined up in order to hit you in the face, and one is twice as big as the other but the little guy is twice as fast, which should you choose?”
The guy without the gun.
“Very funny. And while largely correct, in the spirit of this discussion, fairly useless. Okay, a big guy of mass 100 kg and fist speed of 5 meters/second will deliver a blow of 2,500N, but a little guy with body mass 50 kg and fist speed 10 meters/second will deliver a blow of 5,000N! Add to that, the smaller guy’s fists are smaller, so the blow is concentrated on a smaller area, and it’s easy to see how some of the most heinous thrashings in history came at the hands of an average-sized man.”
I understand that Tojo had a hell of a left hook.
“Once the fist hits you, the amount of damage you take is also related to a number of factors. Taking the blow in a relatively soft place, like your fleshy jowl or cheek, diffuses the force of the blow radially and absorbs some of its power. When the blow lands far from your center of gravity or in a pendant structure (easily moved, like your head), some of the energy of the blow will be lost as rotational force, whipping your head around or knocking your jaw back. Getting knocked off your feet will also soak up a bunch of force and can protect your brain from injury (as long as you don’t land on your head in the street, immediately cashing the force check good fortune has written you). If your jaw, tooth, or eye socket fracture (or if you are lucky—your nemesis’s hand fractures), much energy will be absorbed by the bone breaking. Once that is done, however, all of the residual force will be translated into a shock wave that rattles your brain.
“You see, the brain floats in the skull like a yolk in an egg. When a rapid, intense force is applied to the skull, one of several things will happen. If the force is concentrated in a small area, the skull will fracture, like when an egg is struck with a hammer. If the force is diffused enough for the skull to resist cracking, the whole skull will move. The faster the skull is accelerated—here we see the importance of velocity squared again—the more likely the floating brain’s protective system will be overwhelmed. The inertia of the brain floating in the skull will keep it still while the skull moves: hydraulic pressure will dissipate some of the force while fluid displaces from between the brain and the rapidly approaching skull wall.
“If the force is sufficient, all the fluid will get squirted to the sides and the brain will be smashed up against the wall. Blood vessels on the side of the brain away from the blow will get stretched and rupture, producing bleeding on the side opposite the punch. The brain will then rebound, sloshing back to the other side of the skull, and if there is still enough energy left after the brain tissue has absorbed its share, the blood vessels on the side of the brain that got smacked up against the wall get torn off as well. The brain will continue sloshing back and forth, ripping blood vessels and smashing tissue into pulp until the energy of the blow is all used up. The sudden deformation and jolt to the brain will interrupt nerve conduction, and the system crashes. And reboots. If you are lucky. If you aren’t lucky your skull fills up with mushy brain tissue and blood clot, you die with one or both pupils blown wide and your body jerking like a worm on a flatiron.”
You must be great at parties, Doc.
*Kelsey won by TKO in the 4th round.