Thanks Bernard, now look after yourself
Am I alone in finding the experience of watching Dunne’s demise on Saturday a little too close to the pornography of violence? asks TOM HUMPHRIES
MANY YEARS ago the late Budd Schulberg and the New York Times locked horns on the issue of boxing. The newspaper walked somewhat haplessly into the propellers of Schulberg’s indignation when it breathlessly covered everything that moved before, during and after an instalment of the epic Ali v Frazier series, then had an instant change of heart and editorialised to the effect that the fight was a “performance that degrades and dehumanises the state and society that encourage it”.
Schulberg duly shredded the New York Times , pointing to everything from the most adjacent ghetto to the war in Indo-China as things which genuinely degrade and dehumanise society. I don’t know if the Times replied to the effect that it covered poverty and wars in just as much detail and felt a right to editorialise against those things too if it so wanted. It should have.
I had to go looking for the Schulberg essay yesterday as I was still spooked by the distressing sight of Bernard Dunne wobbling, bloody and bruised, around the ring on Saturday night as his opponent did what he had come to do. To batter Bernard.
Whatever Bernard needed when he woke yesterday, I knew I needed a little pick-me-up. I scoured Schulberg’s words hoping he would make me feel better about boxing.
Like most people I really like and respect Bernard Dunne. I don’t know him. I have met him twice for interviews and bumped into him once at the airport. But there is a lot about the fella that gets you over the unsettling first impression he gives with his deep-set, serial-killer eyes and makes you want to root for him.
I like the fella and the life he has lived. Heading off to the States as a young fella and making his way in the fight game in LA was an act of living which just tells you before you even see him fight that Dunne would be among the bravest to step into a ring. He started his pro career in a joint called Feather Falls Casino in a place called Oroville in California. I don’t know the place, but I imagine that if you start out in Oroville you don’t expect much more than a career filling out the lower end of bills by fighting tomato cans and stiffs. Or by being that tomato can.
He walked on though. Learning and grafting, coming back to Ireland and launching a career and having – both figuratively and literally – to pick himself up off the canvas and start again after Kiko Martinez stretched him in the first round two years ago.
Like most people, I thought at the time that the Martinez defeat was such a stunning humiliation at home that the figurative part of getting back on his feet would be much harder than the literal business.
Charlie Haughey, while in exile in the years after the Arms Trial, toured Ireland on what was in the pre-Tiger days known as the chicken dinner circuit. Bernard Dunne did the same before coming back to defeat Ricardo Cordoba six months ago.
I’m sure back in Panama there were those who found the sight of Cordoba being forced to take a lie down in the 11th round a little uncomfortable, and perhaps that is the nature of boxing, but am I alone in finding the experience of watching Dunne’s demise on Saturday a little too close to the pornography of violence?
Poonsawat had been flagged as a heavy puncher, a designation which made one fearful for Dunne. Those around him and the fighter himself have often pointed to the 21 KO victories which have punctuated his career and claimed his punch is more than adequate.
Bernard will know that the punch packed by the Dublin footballers in the Leinster Championship in recent years has been more than adequate for the Leinster Championship, but in the world beyond that level the Dubs don’t scare anybody much. You look at the shocking violence unleashed by a simple jab from Poonsawat on Saturday night and you think that Bernard was bringing a Swiss army knife to a fencing contest.
I love boxing. And boxers. You seldom meet a boxer whose character disappoints, and a sport which has given the world Muhammad Ali deserves its shot at redemption. I fear boxing is dead though, torn apart by spivs and crims and the lack of a convincing administration to protect the sport from its own worst problems.
It’s hard to watch professional boxing anymore without feeling as if you might catch a criminal record from it. That was an odd part of being in Beijing last year. Darren Sutherland was so effervescent a character, so up front and honest and infectiously happy at that time in his life that it was impossible to muster any enthusiasm for the thought that he was the only one of the lads who would be turning pro after the Games.
I thought back then that perhaps by turning pro Darren would become the next big draw in the Hunky Dory fight nights down at the O2 arena. As it was, Darren went to England and Bernard reasserted himself as the nation’s best-known and best-loved pro.
I hope he ends it now. There is no easy road back for a man crowding 30 and the memories he has left the Irish sporting public should be complicated by no more bad nights. Bernard wants to be a firefighter when the gloves are put away and we would worry about him less were he running into burning buildings for a living rather than running into the likes of Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym.
On Saturday, Bernard’s distress brought a terrible but respectful hush to the crowd. People seemed to genuinely share his troubles. It was hard to watch, but it was hard to imagine that if it had been Poonsawat who was suffering that battering the whole place would have been on its feet cheering every blow. The O2 arena would have crossed that line when cheering turns to baying.
You can subtract all the spivs, all the Don Kings from boxing. You can give it a decent promoter and put it in the O2 with one of the most decent men on the planet in the ring and that’s still the dilemma you are left with when you watch boxing.
Don’t make us watch any more, Bernard.
And thanks for the memories.
:guns: