On Fucking Guys in the Ass
Am I the only one offended by the more or less constant promise/threat/offer by fighters during the build-up to fights to fuck their opponent in the ass?
I have no objection to a consenting adult of either gender fucking another consenting adult of either gender in the ass, so that’s not my quibble.
But that’s not exactly what this pre-fight posturing is about. It’s about rape and anti-gay sentiment. Nobody seems to bother pointing out to the fighter issuing the promise/threat/offer that in order for a guy to fuck someone at all (regardless of which orifice you choose) he's got to be aroused to do it.
Recently we’ve heard a lot of this kind of posturing from Bernard Hopkins, a multi-millionaire in his mid-forties, who should know better.
I’m not sure why, after passing much of his early adulthood at Graterford Prison, Bernard’s idea of how best to handle Joe Calzaghe was to whisk him away to the privacy of D Block in order to show him what takes place there.
And I’m not sure why, when Calzaghe dropped Hopkins with a marginally low blow in the tenth round, he pantomimed fucking Bernard in the ass.
I can’t imagine Ray Robinson, Joe Louis, or Rocky Marciano behaving this way.
And lest you think I’m hamstrung by nostalgia, I can’t imagine the Marquez brothers or Israel Vazquez or Glen Johnson behaving this way either.
posted by Charles Farrell @ 7:15 PM
12 comments
12 Comments:
Charles, I pay no attention to it being said by fighters the likes of Bernard Hopkins and Mike Tyson. Both of them spent time at the Cross-Bar Hotel. Tyson said it to a white writer most recently, and Hopkins said it to his White opponent. I think it's just another way for guys like them to demean who ever is the target who they deem not respecting them at the moment.
I don't think any fighters are fazed by it, and know exactly why it's being said. I liked Ali's way of talking shit much more so than Toney, Hopkins or Tyson.
I also think the girations Calzaghe did towards Hopkins after the non-low blow, was his way of giving it back to him. I thought it was great and had to piss Hopkins off when he saw it when he watched the tape of the fight. It was nice to see the tables turned on Bernard.
In any other sport (again save mma), such antics would lead to censure, a suspension, a fine, and a mandatory apology. Boxing’s ultra-laissez faire structure actually encourages such lack of decency and tolerance. This kind of thing degrades the sport and all involved in it, and hastens its decline. And I, too, do not care whom consenting adults fuck, or how.
I certainly don't advocate censuring or fining the fighters. They're free to say whatever foolish things they want.
I’m just trying to understand why the guy making the threats doesn’t understand that they redound negatively on him, while not intimidating his opponent one iota. It’s never occurred to Bernard Hopkins that the sight of a forty-three year old millionaire in a hooded sweatshirt running his finger across his throat while threatening to take his opponent “behind D Block” is a demeaning, undignified, and totally ineffective thing to do?
Charles, I completely agree with you about this fucking juvenile and low class behavior.
It seems to me that some of these men have been so conditoned by (and encouraged to re-enact)the accepted script in boxing these days that it comes as second nature to them to act appallingly.
My question is, how did it come to this in boxing?
How did it get to the point where it is acceptable to threaten to rape somebody at a press conference? I am guessing that the various people in attendance at these things, and the boxing press in general don't even give a second thought anymore when someone like Hopkins behaves like this. That is equally appalling.
This boys will be boys thing is dragging the sport down to the level of MMA. (Sorry Eddie).
Bravo Bernard. What a role model. Maybe you can go hang around with Floyd Mayweather and throw money at poor people together as an encore.
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I want to be careful as to how I put this. I’m not suggesting that boxers be role models or that they in any way shouldn’t be free to say anything they want, anytime they want. But, at the very least, they should be called on whatever it is they say.
And a past-forty multi-millionaire dressing up like a teenage gangsta, making tough-guy faces, giving the old thumb across the throat (Butch, from the Little Rascals, used to used that one too), and using the exact same language that is used every day in boxing gyms all around the world (which, needless to say, robs it of its impact) doesn’t intimate his opponents, he doesn’t make himself a more marketable, interesting public figure, and he doesn’t sell one fucking extra ticket. He only makes himself look very silly.
Gillian, I don't disagree with your characterization of this nonsense "dragging the sport down to the level of MMA." My critique of the current owners of the UFC is based in part on their promotion of anti-social values.
Most UFC aficionados either fail to see that, don't care, or keep their mouths shut so they can ride the gravy train, as short a ride as that may be. Most people outside UFC see that its sleaziness is as obvious as that Don King combs his hair up.
But most people in boxing also remain mum, again because they either fail to see that, don't care, or keep their mouths shut so they can ride the gravy train, as short a ride as that may be.
Ah yes---and another sport's inherent dignity bites the dust with the trash talk becoming more than the physical aspect of the actual conflict. When we were kids, how many times were we admonished to ignore the words but not the actions? That talk was cheap? That actions spoke louder?
Any network that panders to this sort of pre-fight antic is automatically guilty of cheapening the sport. And commentators who fawn over the winners without wishing to take a more critical look at all aspects of the bout should be removed as having dishonored their profession. The quality of judges needs to meet a higher standard. And viewers/fans need to take a more proactive approach towards effecting these improvements, before boxing becomes the same tired, sick joke that other sports have become.
I sincerely hope that boxing can be saved from this growing infamy soon. Fans deserve better.
I guess I differentiate between creative bad-mouthing and dumb bad-mouthing. To me, there seems a vast difference between Ricardo Mayorga, who I find incredibly smart and funny, and Floyd Mayweather, who's unimaginative and vulgar. I'm not so inherently offended by any viewpoint that I can't be entertained by its imaginative expression. And I really don't need fighters to espouse social values. I just don't want them to be simultaneously boorish and boring.
Charles, if boxers can't be trusted to meet a certain standard for pre-fight expression, then I'm afraid the baby may have to be thrown out with the bathwater---or we can at least hope for more discriminating networks to seek out the notably erudite practitioners for pre-fight interviews. If such a litmus test is needed to weed out the vulgar and the crude, then so be it.
I maintain that the fans deserve this, and they have every right to demand it. I'd like to think better items are to be consumed during the course of a bout than Pepto-Bismol.
I’d say it’s fair to suggest that the general discourse in our culture has slid down hill in the last generation or so. Boxing seems to exist in a bubble right now, and as Eddie suggested, the fraternity of promoters and managers appear happy to keep the sport marginalized as long as there’s enough money for them. Not only does Hopkins and contemporaries “outrageous” behavior no longer intimidate opponents or add to the bottom line, the sporting public and the press want none of it as well.
This discussion reminds me of an article I read some years ago - THE EMASCULATION OF SPORTS By ROBERT LIPSYTE. I don’t agree with everything in the piece, but I share Lipsyte’s frustration regarding the general fall from grace that we see in sports and in boxing. The article came out in 1995, but I think it goes to what we’re talking about here.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE1DE163DF931A35757C0A963958260&scp=5&sq=WHY+SPORTS+DON%27T+MATTER+ANYMORE&st=nyt
I'm willing to entertain any cultural transition--up, down, or lateral--so long as it's attached to some level of quality and a degree of creative energy. Tyson's threat to "eat your children" doesn't offend me in its wrongheadedness, but in its ineffectiveness, coupled with Tyson's total inability to give the threat teeth once in the ring. After sending Ray Lampkin to the hospital, Roberto Duran opined that, had he been in shape, Lampkin "would have wound up in the morgue." That statement bothers me not at all. It's a harsh, but probably nearly accurate, assessment of both Duran's capability and his intent.
I'm not sold on the notion of boxing being an exemplar of either masculinity or something as reductive as "sportsmanship." I don't think the former is germane to the issue or that the latter is any of my business.
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