Joyce Carol Oates, The Cruelest Sport, February 13, 1992

[APerno]

An interesting read . . .some interesting insights about the nature of the game and how it changes

Excerpt: Joyce Carol Oaks, The Cruelest Sport, February 13, 1992

. . . Boxing today is very different from the boxing of the past, which allowed a man to be struck repeatedly while trying to get to his feet (Dempsey-Willard, 1919), or to be knocked down seven times in three wholly one-sided rounds (Patterson-Johansson, 1959), or so savagely and senselessly struck in the head with countless unanswered blows that he died in a coma ten days later (Griffth-Paret, 1962); the more immediate danger, for any boxer fighting a Don King opponent, is that the fight will be stopped prematurely, by a zealous referee protective of King’s investment. . . .

Full Essay: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1992/02 ... est-sport/ [Worth the read.]

[Noxy]

I find Oates hard to get into, she's not your typical boxing scribe

[BoxBuzz]

I could not abide the spelling....so I corrected it ....please forgive.


JCO is worth a read, but it's not very definitive in my opinion......she seems to like to overthink it. On occasion a cigar is just a cigar.

[APerno]

I could not abide the spelling....so I corrected it ....please forgive.


JCO is worth a read, but it's not very definitive in my opinion......she seems to like to overthink it. On occasion a cigar is just a cigar.

Oh! Thank you . . . sort of thing spell check doesn't help with . . . yea she is esoteric, but there is so little written on the game in that nature . . . Mailer's "The Death of Benny Paret" was in the same genre . . . it is short, you likely know it already, if not, see what you think; it is of the Griffith-Paret fatal fight. - I have had, in the past, fight-fan friends who found the essay distasteful.

(This is excerpted from a English Language AP exam from the 1980s, the kids had to write about the language not the content.

The Death of Benny Paret —Norman Mailer

Paret was a Cuban, a proud club fighter who had become welterweight champion because of his unusual ability to take a punch. His style of fighting was to take three punches to the head in order to give back two. At the end of ten rounds, he would still be bouncing, his opponent would have a headache. But in the last two years, over the fifteen-round fights, he had started to take some bad maulings.

This fight had its turns. Griffith won most of the early rounds, but Paret knocked Griffith down in the sixth. Griffith had trouble getting up, but made it, came alive and was dominating Paret again before the round was over. Then Paret began to wilt. In the middle of the eighth round, after a clubbing punch had turned his back to Griffith, Paret walked three disgusted steps away, showing his hindquarters. For a champion, he took much too long to turn back around. It was the first hint of weakness Paret had ever shown, and it must have inspired a particular shame, because he fought the rest of the fight as if he were seeking to demonstrate that he could take more punishment than any man alive. In the twelfth, Griffith caught him. Paret got trapped in a corner. Trying to duck away, his left arm and his head became tangled on the wrong side of the top rope. Griffith was in like a cat ready to rip the life out of a huge boxed rat. He hit him eighteen right hands in a row, an act which took perhaps three or four seconds, Griffith making a pent-up whimpering sound all the while he attacked, the right hand whipping like a piston rod which has broken through the crankcase, or like a baseball bat demolishing a pumpkin. I was sitting in the second row of that corner—they were not ten feet away from me, and like everybody else, I was hypnotized. I had never seen one man hit another so hard and so many times. Over the referee’s face came a look of woe as if some spasm had passed its way through him, and then he leaped on Griffith to pull him away. It was the act of a brave man. Griffith was uncontrollable. His trainer leaped into the ring, his manager, his cut man, there were four people holding Griffith, but he was off on an orgy, he had left the Garden, he was back on a hoodlum’s street. If he had been able to break loose from his handlers and the referee, he would have jumped Paret to the floor and whaled on him there.

And Paret? Paret died on his feet. As he took those eighteen punches something happened to everyone who was in psychic range of the event. Some part of his death reached out to us. One felt it hover in the air. He was still standing in the ropes, trapped as he had been before, he gave some little half-smile of regret, as if he were saying, “I didn’t know I was going to die just yet,” and then, his head leaning back but still erect, his death came to breathe about him. He began to pass away. As he passed, so his limbs descended beneath him, and he sank slowly to the floor. He went down more slowly than any fighter had ever gone down, he went down like a large ship which turns on end and slides second by second into its grave. As he went down, the sound of Griffith’s punches echoed in the mind like a heavy ax in the distance chopping into a wet log.

[APerno]

I could not abide the spelling....so I corrected it ....please forgive.


JCO is worth a read, but it's not very definitive in my opinion......she seems to like to overthink it. On occasion a cigar is just a cigar.

Wait - I am confused on the spelling - the name is Joyce Carol Oates - correct?

[BoxBuzz]

I could not abide the spelling....so I corrected it ....please forgive.


JCO is worth a read, but it's not very definitive in my opinion......she seems to like to overthink it. On occasion a cigar is just a cigar.

Wait - I am confused on the spelling - the name is Joyce Carol Oates - correct?

yep I corrected the title

[Kalan]

The essay is complete BS and overdone drama... Griffith was doing his job... The referee wasn't doing his job and certainly wasn't brave.

Paret was obviously out on his feet, a situation that is extremely dangerous.. The death is available on youtube for all to see.. Before Paret even fell into the corner the fight should have been stopped.. Paret was an unconscious open target who couldn't possibly be missed.. Griffith hit Paret and kept hitting him until the referee belatedly moved in -- which is what a boxer who wants to win badly often does. His job isn't keeping his opponent safe.

As soon as the referee moved in Griffith stopped punching immediately -- which is what you're supposed to do.. But the referee was just standing there ... and watching Griffith hit an obviously unconscious and helpless human being over and over again is a sickening experience..

The punches were not particularly fast or sledge hammer like.. Griffith hit Paret almost casually... Even though your well developed instinct as a boxer is to savagely take your opponent out in brutal fashion, and viciously beat him right into the canvas...your humanity often takes over... Many times I've seen boxers look at the referee -- as if saying, "Hey sport -- are you paying attention here?"

[Sidney Carton]

LOL.

Joyce Carol Oaks doesn't have a clue when it comes to boxing.

[Sidney Carton]

Norman Mailer was a retard when to came to boxing.

The raw crap that these half wits who attach themselves to boxing spew out is revolting.

[Sidney Carton]

What is cruel is seeing phonies like Joyce Carol Oaks get away with posing as if they know anything about boxing.

[BoxBuzz]

What is cruel is seeing phonies like Joyce Carol Oaks get away with posing as if they know anything about boxing.

Agreed.....or maybe more important....posing as if she knows anything about boxers..... or what makes a person choose, enjoy and engage in the sport.


Her area of expertise is actually more aligned with the folks who wish to control others. By perhaps prohibiting them from pursuing there own dreams when it conflicts with what they (as a writer, or someone in a relationship with a boxer) thinks "is best" for the person they are objectifying. Same would hold true for someone who decides to join the military, or become an astronaut. If the risk is bigger than the person who wants control is willing to "feel is appropriate" then they would rather impose their will vs just allowing someone to "explore the mighty jungle".


Can I get an "amen"?

Cuz if you read this and disagree, I really would love to get the feedback. The whole knock on boxing is generated by the same snowflakes that think they know best how YOU should live your life.

[APerno]

What is cruel is seeing phonies like Joyce Carol Oaks get away with posing as if they know anything about boxing.

Agreed.....or maybe more important....posing as if she knows anything about boxers..... or what makes a person choose, enjoy and engage in the sport.


Her area of expertise is actually more aligned with the folks who wish to control others. By perhaps prohibiting them from pursuing there own dreams when it conflicts with what they (as a writer, or someone in a relationship with a boxer) thinks "is best" for the person they are objectifying. Same would hold true for someone who decides to join the military, or become an astronaut. If the risk is bigger than the person who wants control is willing to "feel is appropriate" then they would rather impose their will vs just allowing someone to "explore the mighty jungle".


Can I get an "amen"?

Cuz if you read this and disagree, I really would love to get the feedback. The whole knock on boxing is generated by the same snowflakes that think they know best how YOU should live your life.

First I would like to point out, I stated (disclaimed) earlier that many a fight fan have found them both (Oates/Mailer) distasteful.

I would argue that Oates is condemning an enabling society not the fighters themselves, e.g. her observations on how the brutality of the game has diminished over time is a cultural critique, (of hypocrisy and denial), not an attack on the fighters.

I am going to go as far as to suggest that she holds an admiration for fighters; she was raised on her father’s knee watching the Wednesday Night Fights (CBS) and the Friday Night Fights (NBC) – I would argue she has as much right to insight as we do. (Maybe that’s not such as good point to make.)

But about your point directly, unless I miss read you, are you suggesting that only the participants themselves, of a particular institution, may critique that institution, otherwise they are trying to hold someone back? Would that not assure we would never see the ‘forest’? Are all critics guilty of being wannabees?

[BoxBuzz]

Not exactly , but I appreciate what your saying.

I'm a big big fan of personal freedom, and leery of those who love to wield the gavel of judgment upon others, from too much of a distance.