COMMENTARY : You Can Count on the Bizarre

Forgive me if you’re getting tired of me saying this every four years, but boxing is my favorite Olympic venue. On any given day there will be more good stories, more loopy characters and more bizarre scenes at the boxing than anywhere else in the Games. At what other sport would the athletes deliberately miss the spit sink and hock a loogie on the ringside judges?

You want stories? Montell Griffin has a heartbreaker. Here’s a guy who got into the Olympics on sheer courage, beating Jerry Williams, the selected U.S. light heavyweight, twice in a row in the boxoffs. Griffin is 5 foot 7, all heart, a symbol of perseverance to everyone on the boxing team. And Tuesday night, by virtue of a Kafkaesque combination of events, he lost to Torsten May, the German world champion light heavyweight, and in so doing was denied a medal. Griffin gave away 10 inches in height and reach to May, and still was in position to win the fight late in the third round. May, who is as stationary as the Tower of London, fought like the printed circuits that controlled his movement had been snipped. I’ve seen more action from TV test patterns.

After a couple of rounds spent contemplating how to best attack the German Gulliver, Griffin burrowed inside and opened up a nasty cut over May’s right eye with a popping jab. As the blood spurted, referee Osvaldo Bisbal halted the fight and brought May to the ringside doctor. A cut of this type in an amateur fight almost always ends the fight. But the doctor--who, intriguingly, is from Cuba, the well-known boxing arch rival of the United States--allowed the fight to continue. “You knew the Cuban doctor was going to let it go,” U.S. boxing coach Joe Byrd said dolefully.

As the cut over May’s eye recommenced to leak profusely, the blood coating his face like a child’s fingerpainting, Griffin continued his aggressive fighting, hoping the referee would either call in the doctor again, or stop the fight himself. “Any one of you guys would have stopped the fight,” Griffin said, pointing to the press corps. Instead, the ref cautioned Griffin for the second time about ducking his head too low in an attempt to avoid May’s punches. And when referee Bisbal called the same offense for a third time, with about one minute left in the fight, he penalized Griffin by adding three points to May’s score. Griffin was flabbergasted. “This can’t be real,” he said. Bisbal been bera, bera bad to Montell. Without the bonus points, Griffin would have won, 4-3. With them, he lost, 6-4.

“My fighter’s 5 foot 7,” Byrd said, throwing up his hands. “He’s going into the ring with a low head!”

You want loopy characters? In a bout Tuesday afternoon between an Algerian and a Dominican, somebody from the Dominican Republic stood in the stands, waving a large Dominican Republic flag and urgently shouting out in Spanish, “Kill him! Kill him!”--the most benign cheer perhaps, but it’ll get your attention in the subway. The man kept this up the entire round, and was livid when the scoring showed the Dominican fighter behind, 4-0. In the next round, the man got even louder. He put on a pair of huge padded gloves and banged out a steady whomp-whomp-whomp. Again, he called for his countryman to “Kill him!” and added a Spanish phrase imploring him to do so quickly. But when the score was flashed after round two, and the Dominican was behind, 8-1, the man folded the flag, put away the gloves, and sat silently, giving up on the boxer completely, like a bad stock.

The oddest cheers I heard Tuesday came from a few British boxers who were rooting on their light heavyweight, Stephen Wilson. You have no idea how silly it sounds at a boxing match to hear grown men yell out, “Come on, Stevie boy,” “Watch the head, lad.” Regrettably, Stevie boy was bloody thrashed, 13-0, getting the big zed as it were. Quite.