And Just What Does This Have to Do With Tennis?
Despite the snowstorm that almost shut down New York City last night, I went to the “Broadway Boxing” fight night at the Grand Ballroom at the Manhattan Center with FPP L. Jon Wertheim last night. It was a good card, put together by Damon Dash of Roc-A-Fella records and boxing nut Lou DiBella. I hadn’t been to the fights for ages, and it proved a revelation.
What’s this got to do with tennis, you wonder? Everything and nothing, is the short answer. Everything in the sense that, like tennis, the fight game is a subculture driven by independent dreamers (and schemers) in which the striving individual (the fighter) attains nearly holy status. Nothing in the sense that a good part of boxing’s appeal is rooted in what I’d call underbelly aesthetics, while tennis really tries to play up its upscale cachet.
It’s funny, but over the years numerous writers (myself among them) have tried to force the twain to meet, waxing poetic on the sublimated violence of tennis. We’ve characterized the sport as, essentially, boxing without the mouthful of bloody Chiclets.
After all, tennis and boxing both are about one-on-one confrontations between half-clothed men or women. And the great ones in either sport (think Lleyton Hewitt) win because they have heart, not just talent. It’s mano a mano.
What a crock, I realized, as I watched some kid named Curtis “The Brownsville Gangsta” Stevens knock out “Rest in Peace” Al Gavin in the blue ring.
Boxing and tennis are incomparable despite the similarities precisely because of the “bloody chiclets” factor. It takes a sport to an entirely different level when, in front of thousands (perhaps including your mom), your face is being pounded into hamburger meat. Compare that to pounding your racquet on a court and screaming “What do you mean the ball was out?” at a terrified lady sitting in a high chair and you’ll know what I mean. As Wertheim said, “I guess you’re alone out there in either sport. But in tennis it’s more like being alone while you’re waiting for the courtesy car.”
So that’s it—I’m declaring a bounty on “tennis as civilized boxing” analogies. A free TENNIS Magazine hat (I’ll have to check if we have any, of course) to anyone who points one out from here on in.
Here’s a funny thing about the fight crowd. It’s the social equivalent of a Jackson Pollack painting, with thugs rubbing shoulders with accountants and bookies and doctors. But the vibe is rarely menacing; it’s like a truce is in effect, because it’s all about fighters and fight aficionados. Highlights of the night: another win by promising Junior Middleweight Yuri Foreman, of Haifa, Israel (via Brooklyn); the buzz created by the posse of the Brownsville Gangsta, Stevens; and then there was this rapper, Cam’ron. He kept jumping into the ring. He was wearing jeweled-frame shades and a fake-fur jacket in a particular shade described by Wert as “Elmo” red.
Parents out there will know exactly what I mean.