There’re No Surprises in Boxing

My, my, my, there’s a flap in boxing.

Oliver McCall fell into a crying jag and refused to fight in his “heavyweight title bout” with Lennox Lewis on Friday.

That ought to keep the talk and call-in shows going all week.

Oh, gee! Oh, gosh! Whatever will we do now? Will boxing ever be the same?

Yes, of course, boxing will be the same. Boxing is always the same.

Remember Roberto Duran? He did the same thing McCall did, only in Spanish, nearly 20 years ago.

If only boxing would change. But then, it wouldn’t be boxing.

The funny thing about something like Friday’s incident is that so many people always seem surprised. My barber, as staunch a boxing fan as you’ll find anywhere, just couldn’t get over it Saturday morning. That was the entire haircut’s topic of conversation.

Now, I like and respect my barber. But why would he have been so surprised? He’s been following boxing forever. Why would anybody be surprised at anything that happens in boxing? There is always something happening, and usually it’s something as weird as a three-legged zebra that wears a fedora and winks.

Stop and think for a minute--hey, take half an hour. What recent fight of any significance hasn’t been attended by some sideshow that made the fight seem like an afterthought?

Gabriel Ruelas sees a ghost in the ring. Julio Cesar Chavez gets his block knocked off by Oscar De La Hoya, then says he lost only because of a previously undisclosed injury that was aggravated when he was head-butted by his 3-year-old son. Mike Tyson talks tough, then makes Evander Holyfield look like Muhammad Ali in his prime. Lewis’ trainer announces that his fighter is much heavier now because, at 31, he is having a growth spurt.

Come on, folks, get a clue. Boxing’s believability is the three Z’s, zero, zip, zilch.

“He’s Given the Sport One More Black Eye,” read the headline on colleague Mike Downey’s column regarding McCall’s weirdness in Monday morning’s Times. With all due respect to the headline writer, I must take issue with that. There is no way boxing can get a black eye. Boxing is a black eye. It makes pro wrestling look purer than the driven Ivory Snow.

And why would anybody expect anything different? After all, this is the sport that starts with the premise that the way to win is to injure the other guy--the best way is to beat him senseless--and goes on from there.

I can understand the lure of the fight game--there definitely is something about two magnificent physical specimens duking it out that is unmatched in other sports--but I’ll never understand why people expect it to conform to the norms of society. How could it? It is primordial, a throwback to man’s days in the caves.

And how, too, could anyone expect a sport in which Don King plays a leading part to be anywhere near normal? We all snicker at King’s bombastic proclamations and his electrified hairdo, but this is a guy who served time for killing somebody. He is, at this moment, awaiting retrial on insurance fraud charges. He has spent more time in courtrooms than some entire firms of defense lawyers.

Yes, yes, I know. Boxing has traditionally been a lifeline, a way out of poverty and hopelessness for the young men society likes to otherwise reject, or ignore. Where would Joe Louis have been without boxing? Rocky Marciano? Golden Boy De La Hoya? Where would Muhammad Ali have been?

Ah, there’s an interesting question. Where would Ali have been? Wherever it is, he probably would have had considerably better control of his faculties. Isn’t it strange that one of the most revered former athletes in this country--indeed, in the world--is one of boxing’s waste products?

Sure, boxing gives a hand up to promising young hopefuls, tough kids who will take three blows to land one. Or fancy ones who can land one and dance away.

But young fighters are advised not to make a mistake. Don’t lose too many fights--too many being a negotiable number. Don’t stay a round too long. Don’t take a hit too many. If you make any money, hang onto it. You’ll need it. And don’t get old. When that happens, boxing excuses those former tough young hopefuls to their former lives, if indeed they still have lives, and turns to the new tough young hopefuls.

Tough business? You bet. So much like real life in some ways, so terribly different in so many other.

One thing it is not, though, is normal. Never was, never will be. People really ought to quit being surprised by that.

* TOUGH CALL: Psychiatrists strongly disagree on what happened to Oliver McCall. C7