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Boxing fouls out
SPORT HAS HISTORY OF BITING FIGHTERS
Or Bob Felstein and Joe Dinardo in Toronto. And the dozens of other boxers who ever sank their teeth into an opponent.
From the hoary mists, when they called the game milling, to the present, boxing is full of guys with snappish behavior, so when Tyson snacked on Evander Holyfield's ears Saturday night, it was just another dark day in a sport crammed with them.
Never be surprised at what goes on in the ring, the oldtime fighter advised, and he was right. When Pretty Boy Felstein and mob enforcer Dinardo chomped each other's neck and shoulders during a heavyweight fight in Toronto one night 30 years ago, it was only mildly disconcerting.
Sometimes anything goes in boxing. Including, right out the door, civilized behavior.
Once, in the midst of a Canada-Italy dual tournament at Maple Leaf Gardens, amateur heavyweight Bobby Bozic kicked Domenico Scala in the groin. The most notable thing outside of male fans bent over in deep empathy with the stricken Scala was the speed with which dozens of Toronto pro and amateur fighters in the audience jumped to the ring apron to save Bozic from being massacred by 4,000 Italian-Canadian fans.
From Bozic's hoof to Andre Golota's hooks below the belt, there's been as much foul about boxing as there has been fair.
Even London's Bob Flannigan, who had a successful pro career in the 1940s and '50s, crossed the line one night in Detroit during a fight against a fellow named Jesse Ray.
"He knocked me down and when I got up he butted me hard," Flannigan recalled. "I gave him the knee and down he went. The ref told him `serves you right.' We continued and I won an eight round decision."
PRETTY DISGUSTING
What Tyson did was pretty disgusting, all right, and while some feel it is just another instance of a general lack of respect for one another in society nowadays, it was hardly original. The Marquis of Queensberry Rules are supposed to guide the game but Hudson Bay Rules - no rules at all - have often prevailed in the past.
Greb was a 5-foot-8, 158-pound world middleweight champ who preferred to fight heavyweights in the 1920s. He is described as "a kicking, goring, stomping bull of a man who thumbed, heeled, butted, bit ears and laced the injuries." His right eye was blinded when an opponent thumbed him and he fought four more years.
Zivic and (Two-Ton) Tony Galento both had a grudging respect for Greb's viciousness, each apparently envious of Greb's reputation as the dirtiest fighter who ever lived. Said one Zivic opponent, Dick Francisco: "He spun me, thumbed me, heeled me. He gouged, cuffed, kicked. He cut my eye and rubbed it with the laces. He hit me low, butted, choked, gave me the elbow."
Galento was a bartender famous for a couple of things, one of which was knocking down the famous Joe Louis. The other was his reply when asked what he thought of Shakespeare ("I'd moider da bum.") Shaped like one of the beer-barrels in his tavern, he fought by no discernible rules and after the surprise knockdown of Louis, was quickly knocked out by the champion.
Tyson joins a long list of boxers who have brought disrepute upon the sport and if there is anything surprising at all about the entire biting episode it's the view that a) pro boxing and b) Tyson are on their way out. History tells you there's not a chance of it happening.
Boxing can survive anything, including legal bans. On offshore barges, in jungles and ranches, where there's crowd potential, there'll be a match. Whoever else may abandon Tyson, there's a lineup of promoters willing to embrace him.
That's the tragedy of it. Boxing is what it is and it can no longer shock. The only surprising thing about Saturday's outrage is the number of bad puns that have emerged from it.