I've never paid (much) attention to boxing, but having a bout on in my city which attracted a stadium audience of fifty odd thousand, a large international viewership, and a week long build up in the media, I did notice it today. A few observations:
a. It was, I take it, a close win; but the sport does seem to have a credibility problem if some well known figures within it are going to carry on as much about a close decision not going the way they thought it should as they did today.
b. I won't go into the matter of concussion and blood and whether it's a sport that really should be endorsed as entertainment. (As it happens, I don't really have a strong view.) But I was annoyed to see on TV in the post match wrap up that our Lord Mayor (who was thrilled with the national and international publicity his city received for hosting it) had a couple of young, bare female torsos standing prominently behind him at his press conference table. Really, isn't the quasi-gladiatorial nature of the enterprise appealing enough to the average male viewer without throwing in titillating female (un)dress too? I thought the promoters could do a fair bit towards making it seem a sport more connected to modern mores if they avoided adding superfluous heterosexual messaging into the mix.
c. One thing I don't get about boxing at this level is how those who want to be close to the action will get all dressed up for it, as if it's as sophisticated as going to a ritzy European opera house. (Bear in mind, I have never been to an opera - I'm just trying to think of a form of entertainment most associated with dressing up for a night out.) Sure, it may well just be a factor of the wealth required to get an expensive seat, but if you're going to a show that appeals at a visceral level, why sit at it in a suit and look on impassively, as most seem to do. I have always wondered about this, as it strikes me as very incongruous - I have this feeling that, by rights, it should be more like how viewing Shakespeare in his day at the Globe was depicted in Shakespeare in Love - pretty rough and ready regardless of how much money you have.
8 comments:
Getting dressed up to go to the opera is probably a recent tradition too. It only really acquired its high culture gravitas post Wagner.
They didn't dress up to the opera in Sydanee when I used to go. boxing ugh. Should be banned
understandable you think it should be banned Homer, your IQ is already so precarious that a slight jolt to the head could bring you down to imbecile-dom. but don't presume to extrapolate to others
Soony you should go back to Catallaxy. you sound just like them. Where did that intellect go. Was it ever there?
And you support the greatest imbecile of all. how ironic
Now, now. Play nicely.
I had forgotten that in 2015 I had proposed not banning boxing, but this:
"OK, here's a compromise: professional boxing allowed, but it's mandated by law that it has to end with a bonobo style, bonding-despite-the-fight-we-just-had, same-sex love in between the competitors before they leave the ring."
I think this remains one of more creative suggestions on this blog.
Steve talk to a doctor about what happens to the brain when a punch hits the jaw.
Steve talk to a doctor about what happens to the brain when a punch hits the jaw.
They all end up like you Paxton, you idiot.
See no differences between Catallaxy and Soony. Both fact free as well.
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