The Time Tunnel: Knowing When to Hang Up the Gloves

by B. R. Bearden

30.10 - The adage "can't see the forest for the trees" means to overlook the obvious because of fixation on the immediate. In boxing, the most short-sighted man is the great fighter who can't see he's over-the-hill. While feasting on easy to fell trees, the champion will often fail to see the erosion of his skills, still believing he can level the forest one oak at a time. But the years pass, the axe grows heavy, and there are always more trees.

Usually the fans and trainers see it long before the fighter, who will ignore the signs, attributing a lack-luster performance to an "off night" or an "awkward style" or some other excuse. The indications all is not well are there, others can see them, but the one closest to the center is virtually blind to his own mortality. Caught up in his own persona, he reflects the song lyrics that went ".the hesitant prize-fighter, still trapped within his youth.sometimes when we touch, the honesty's too much, and I have to close my eyes and hide."

How many of us have been saying for several years now that Evander Holyfield should hang up the gloves? Who but the most die-hard fanatic doesn 't realize Tyson is gone? We see it clearly, they clearly ignore it. It's a denial as old as the sport and it's passed on from one generation of fighters to the next like a defective gene.

Those young fans who saw their idol Mike Tyson get suddenly very old should now sympathize with their fathers who watched a bloated Ali or a slow Frazier climb into the ring for one more beating. Their grandfathers may have witnessed the same thing with Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson, their great grandfathers Jim Jeffries and Jack Dempsey. And on and on, all the way back to John L. Sullivan who learned finally at the hands of younger Jim Corbett what anyone with clear vision already knew; the great John L was gone forever. But he set a precedent other champions have followed for over a century.

Athletes in other sports usually have the decision made for them. When a football or baseball player is no longer able to perform at the level of the other competitors, his team will inform him with a retirement party. He might be allowed to hang around for a couple extra years because of his name and fame, but he'll spend that time on the bench more often than not. Once in a while he'll be dusted off and shoved onto the field to give the fans something to cheer about, but never again will he be expected to go the distance and or doomed to fail play after play against younger, faster men.

But boxing isn't a team sport. No short stop makes the play to save the perfect game, no linebacker protects the quarterback till he can make the perfect throw. When the bell rings the boxer is always alone, his only support his skills and his heart and when the former fades, all he has left is the latter.

He may rely on his corner men; they will try to stop the blood flow and always have water for his parched throat and words of encouragement for his flagging confidence, but there are also those who feed off the fighter, his talent and his years, like vampires tapping at the bedroom window. There are plenty of promoters who will send a man into the ring knowing he should be watching fights from the comfort of a recliner rather than from inside those four posts. The money drives the unscrupulous who manipulate the fighters, but something stronger drives the fighter himself. Call it pride, desire, denial; the end result is humiliating loses at the hands of men who would have failed as sparring partners just a few years earlier.

Jim Jeffries retired undefeated and was content to tend his alfalfa farm for the rest of his days, but the insistent urging of those looking for a "great white hope" to dethrone the much despised Jack Johnson shouted down the inner voice of his common sense. After six years of inactivity, at the age of 35, he shed 60 pounds of excess fat to step in the ring with an awesome fighter in the prime of his career. It was a terrible mismatch and added nothing to the legacy of either man. After it was over, Jeffries said, "I hope they will leave me alone now."

Sam Langford fought till he was legally blind. It was all he knew but it was perhaps all he wanted. The sound of the bell, the cries of the crowd, the contest between two warriors. It is hard to stop when you still need the money and there are men you can beat, even when the light is fading from your eyes.

Jack Dempsey signed to fight Gene Tunney believing he was still the fighter of old. He was confident and the odds makers agreed, making him the favorite, despite several years of virtual inactivity. Tunney meanwhile had been fighting and training constantly and was at the peak of his powers. Dempsey brought in light heavyweight Tommy Loughran to emulate Tunney's style during training, and possibly convince himself he still had it.

Loughran said, "The first day we boxed, I could see Jack's reflexes were gone, his judgement of distance shot. As a matter of fact, as soon as the bookies got word of the workout they knocked the odds down on Dempsey from 3 ½ -1 to 2-1. If they'd asked me, I would have told them to make Tunney the favorite."

He suggested they cancel all public workouts so he could train Dempsey in private and try to restore at least a semblance of his former timing, but promoter Tex Rickard wouldn't allow it. "The public would think there's something wrong with Dempsey. It would kill the ticket sale."

He was right on both counts. It probably would have hurt ticket sales and there was something wrong with Dempsey; his prime had slipped away while he was attending to the pleasures of life.

Dempsey must have known it, too, for he insisted on a ten round fight. He might catch Tunney in ten rounds, but he wouldn't have anything left beyond that. The fight went ahead and Tunney easily took the title. In the rematch, Long Count not withstanding, Tunney was easily his better again. So while Dempsey could see the forest for the trees, he still was lured twice beneath those unforgiving boughs.

To his credit, the second fight with Tunney convinced Dempsey his career was over. Other champions weren't so rational and went on to defeat at the hands of much lesser fighters.

Mickey Walker, once welterweight and middleweight champion, lost to a German fighter named Eric Seelig in 1935. The great Walker stayed around too long, believing he still had something left and finding out at the hands of a very average fighter that he didn't. Don't bother looking for Seelig in the Hall of Fame; it wasn't that he was that good, it was that Walker had become that bad.

Benny Leonard, possibly the greatest lightweight of all time, retired as champion in 1924. He was one of the most skilled boxers ever, a master at the art who said it distilled down to, "Hit and not be hit." In 1931 he decided he still possessed the skills which had made him legend and came back to win a string of victories against lesser fighters. Then he stepped in with Jimmy McLarnin, another future Hall of Famer, and was given a frightful beating, proving just how little he had left.

When discussing fighters who should have quit, one can't leave out Joe Louis. In my opinion the best of the heavyweight champions, The Brown Bomber successfully defended his title a record 25 times. But the IRS, and his own pride, forced him back into the ring after what should have been a final
retirement. He did well against lesser opposition and the Louis fans, wearing the rose colored glasses they would bequeath to future Tyson fans, packed the arenas to see their hero climb back to the top. Instead, his career ended with Joe sprawled on the ring apron, having been knocked through the ropes by up-and-coming Rocky Marciano. It was a sad finish for such a marvelous fighter.

Even the Pound-for-Pound best fighter of all (when that phrase had meaning), Sugar Ray Robinson, wasn't immune to the effects of age. He knew his skills were going but he felt he had more than enough to handle the opponents of the time. When he KO'd Randy Turpin to recapture the middleweight belt, the fans might have thought it was still the Sugar Ray of old, but Robinson himself knew better. During training for the fight he'd repeatedly asked sparring partners, "How do I look?" The prime Robinson wouldn't have had to ask.

Ali's case is almost too recent and too sad to discuss. When should he have quit? After the Foreman fight would have been nice, before he took more damage. But there was money to be made off the name "Ali", and there were those around him who intended to rake it in with both greedy hands, whatever the cost in future health (as long as it was Ali picking up the tab).

Frazier followed the same route, taking a pasting from Foreman and exchanging vicious beatings with Ali. In the end most real fans were glad Joe hung 'em up.

The great ones all too often follow a pattern of self-destruction. In the beginning they expend their skill and youth for the roar of the fans and the gratification of their own egos. In the end, they expend their health and dignity for the chance to be young again, "just one more time". But there are rules to the game and the last one reads, "If you stay too long, you always lose."

To every rule there are exceptions and not all of the champions failed to heed the signs. Gene Tunney fought only once more after his second defeat of Dempsey, beating Tom Heeney, and retired at the relatively young age of 30. Rocky Marciano did the same after knocking out the ageless Archie Moore. At his press conference to announce retirement Marciano said, "I like to profit from other's mistakes, and if Joe Louis could not make a successful comeback, I will not try it."

Yet rather than receiving praise for their wisdom, those rare ones who make the smart decision are often criticized. The fans who want to see Tyson fight till he's brain dead will point to Marciano and declare, "Why did he quit? If he'd stayed around till Liston came out he wouldn't have been undefeated." Of course, they fail to acknowledge that Marciano would have been about 37 by the time Liston was a top contender. And perhaps Liston would have beaten him once his prime was over, just as Marciano did Louis, Tunney did Dempsey, Spinks did Ali. Wisdom is meager fare for fans who would rather use their heroes up.

When should they quit? At the very least, as soon as those around them who make money off their career suggest it. They should listen to family, to their true fans. When they have to make qualifying statements such as, "I can still beat so-and-so" they should listen to themselves.

They should listen, but too many times the best of the sport have marched to the beat of the drum of denial, straight into the forest, eyes firmly fixed on the individual trees.

And if they listen closely they can hear the fall of other axes, deep within those woods. It's the ghosts of Sullivan and Langford, Jeffries and Louis, Robinson and Leonard, persistent woodsmen who also saw the forest but one tree at a time.