By Norm Frauenheim-
Boxing enters the year’s fourth quarter looking to make the kind of defining comeback that happens when it is at its dramatic best.
Just when the sport is down and written off in obits that have been written before, it gets up and recovers just in time for another Rocky sequel.
I’m not sure that another resurrection will be so easy or predictable this time around. But it’s always a mistake to underestimate the battered game’s resilience. It’s been inexhaustible. Other than broken jaws and slurred words, it also has been the only reliable commodity in a feast-and-famine cycle.
The famine is here, marked by a barren October full of only cancellations, including Tyson Fury’s sudden withdrawal from an Oct. 29 rematch with Wladimir Klitschko, reportedly for mental-health reasons. Fury’s rise to the top of the heavyweight heap was marked by erratic behavior.
It was also behavior often encouraged by media and fans. We were entertained. If stories about Fury’s mental health are accurate, we also might have been complicit.
We might have pushed him there, looking for a few more laughs. That’s a different story, perhaps.
But it’s also part of the context that has always drawn fighters and fans to a precipice as crazy as it is dangerous.
Fury is named Tyson because his father admired Mike Tyson. Fury shares a name and perhaps a fate with a heavyweight, who in 1998 had to undergo a mental evaluation before he could get a license from the Nevada State Athletic Commission.
Every painful detail about that evaluation made it into the media. We knew when he was on Zoloft. We knew when he was on lithium.
It was unseemly. Yet, it was irresistible, mostly because editors demanded the dirty details that readers and fans wanted. Somehow, Mike survived, much to the media’s surprise and even his own. He’s a happy, doting dad today. I also suspect he recognizes where Fury is right now.
Fury’s uncle and trainer, Peter, told UK media that he would be back, sometime next year.
But Mike Tyson’s example is powerful enough to say he should just walk away. Walk, Tyson Fury, walk away for everybody’s sake, mostly your own. With today’s social media, he’ll be under intense scrutiny no matter what he does. A return to the ring would only further inflame the Twitter universe.
Imagine if Twitter had been around during Mike Tyson’s career. Multiply crazy by 140 and more, a lot more.
The business is already preparing to move on, no matter what happens to Fury. There’s already talk about the UK’s young sensation, Anthony Joshua, against Klitschko, who has been training and doesn’t want to let all of his work go to waste.
The guess is that Joshua-Klitschko would happen sometime later this year, which – with apologies to Tyson – will end in a fury.
After an empty October, November is loaded, first on Nov. 5 with Manny Pacquiao featured against Jessie Vargas in a Top Rank pay-per-view production in Las Vegas that is mostly interesting for the undercard. Oscar Valdez Jr.’s coming-out party continues against Hiroshige Osawa in his first title defense in a bout that should propel the emerging featherweight into a main-event attraction in 2017.
Then, there’s the biggie, Sergey Kovalev-Andre Ward in a light-heavyweight showdown on Nov. 19 in a PPV bout, also in Las Vegas. Main Events, Kovalev’s promoter, has tempered PPV expectations. In a declining market, 300,000 would be a success. However, a great, competitive fight could set up a money-making rivalry and a PPV blockbuster in a rematch.
Then on Nov. 26, Vasyl Lomachenko faces Nicholas Walters for a 130-pound title. On paper, it looks like a great fight. The guess here, however, is that Lomachenko’s clever execution of his versatile skillset will be too much for Walters. It’ll be anoter reason to think that Lomachenko will be boxing’s next great, multi-weight champ with eventual titles at 135, 140 and 147.
Then, there’s December. There’s talk of Gennady Golovkin in a middleweight bout against likable Danny Jacobs, who has whipped cancer and everybody else since a loss in 2010. It’s not GGG-Canelo Alvarez. But it’s a projected fight with elements that might help a frustrated fan base forget about those futile GGG-Canelo discussions.
It’s a busy, intriguing run of fights, each with enough potential to restore a declining game in 2017. But will they? Will 2016’s fourth quarter plant the seeds for another comeback? Who knows? But I’m here, back at the precipice anyway, wondering whether those stories about Tyson Fury’s condition are accurate and wondering why I’m here all over again.
