By Bart Barry-
Saturday on DAZN in a rematch of a wonderful June title fight, Anthony “AJ” Joshua decisioned lopsidedly Andy “Destroyer” Ruiz by scores nobody should care about. Whenever more than 500 pounds of flesh engages in gloved combat and no one gets felled, the decision is an irrelevance because something much less than combat has happened.
It was fat guy versus nervous one, Saturday, and it failed all expectations. Every last one. That includes Joshua’s and even his handlers’. As AJ worked the kettlebells and scaffolding in camp, setting new personal bests on his wearables, everyone must’ve assumed that at some point either he would tire from his running or his opponent would, and AJ would return to proper prizefighting form and conclude things violently enough for all his predecessor crossfitting to be recalled like so much strategy. The dope-a-rope, as it were.
No one, save perhaps Amir Khan, imagined a heavyweight of such pedigree as Joshua behaving so pathetically for 36 minutes. Certainly Ruiz did not. Had he an inkling it was a roadrace he’d signed for on the dunes he’d’ve taken his obesity elsewhere for a year or two, making paychecks as the king in exile rather than playing a jiggly game of whatever it was he and Joshua did.
Not until the match’s final 10 seconds did Ruiz give expression to every spectator’s every sentiment, when he dropped his gloves and pleaded Joshua fight at center ring as a giant of a man should do. Too late. Joshua’s conversion from boxing’s next great champion to Wlad Klitschko’s soulmate was complete.
AJ: Hello.
WK: Hello, Joshua, it’s me, Wlad.
AJ: I am torn, buddy, do I fight Andy like you fought Sam Peter the first time, or like you fought Tyson Fury?
WK: I have better template for you, Joshua.
AJ: Do tell.
WK: Sultan Ibragimov. Some change are needed. But that is template.
AJ: Aye, mate. Thank you.
In 2005 Samuel Peter was a better puncher than Ruiz is and Wlad had fewer athletic tools at his disposal than AJ, but otherwise the similarities hold – whatever advice Wlad gave AJ. Anytime Peter got close enough to Klitschko to make contact he scared the wits out of Dr. Steelhammer. Wlad’s chest would heave and his eyes would bug and he would move like a threelegged gazelle fleeing a lion. Peter hadn’t conditioning enough to throw the final punch to rid us of Klitschko once and for all, and 12 years later folks talked of Wlad like the Babe Ruth of boxing.
Y’all can follow that template with AJ till the cows come home, but count me the hell out. I won’t do it again. I won’t go through another decade of what contortions and squinting must be done to see a musclebound man of 6-foot-6 and 240 pounds fleeing another man as anything but weakness. Save the talk of strategy; jab-cross-hook is the only strategy any man, woman or child should expect from a person Joshua’s size in a fight. Foot feints? sideways movement? impressing judges? Jesus God make it stop!
Trust yourself, dear aficionado, trust your gut on this one. Don’t let the highbrow set pettifog you, expressing their sympathy for your ignorance, as they will: “If you can’t see the craft and discipline it takes for a man like Joshua to run away from men half-a-foot smaller, I feel sorry for you.”
They’re being paid to say it, every damn one of them. The older generation, the opinion statesmen, they say and write these things because they believe in the prizefighting ecosystem, were raised on a philosophy of the heavyweight division as industry leader, and want boxing to stay popular enough to get them paid. The younger generation, the media upstarts, simply don’t know any better; coming of age as young pundits their mentors had auctioned themselves to the highest bidder – promoter, publicist, broadcaster – and so the youngsters don’t know enough to feel bashful about their affiliations anymore; it’s all in the game to them.
But hold no resentments. A pundit writing or saying Saturday’s fight was anything better than woeful does so with the same integrity as a waiter embellishing the daily specials or a flight attendant thanking you for loyalty to her airline. The words are sincere insomuch as their speakers and writers sincerely wish to make a living.
Saturday was just awful. Take a deep breath and say it with me: Saturday was just awful. See that? You didn’t hurt anyone. No alarms went off. Capitalism itself did not implode. All you did was give a one-star Yelp review to a substandard product. The owner won’t like it, he’ll post a comment under yours explaining your ignorance to you and inviting you back for a free order of nachos next time, but you’ll feel a little less dopey the rest of the week for being honest: I was excited about Saturday’s fight – looked forward to it for about six months – and it was just awful, and I feel dumb right now, and it’s boxing’s fault.
For if we don’t allow such moments of honesty, if we shout them down in what faux intellectualism uses phrases like “sweet science” or “hit and don’t get hit”, we alienate what few serious fans we have left. Boxing will not die in a blaze of outrage about a hometown decision but in a collective shrug about a nervous giant running away from a fat one.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry
