02.05.04 – By Matthew Hurley: With James Toney’s defeat of John Ruiz for the WBA heavyweight title belt I was left with two conflicting emotions. The first was how disappointing it was that a heavyweight championship fight passed so far under the radar that only hardened boxing fans even bothered to notice.. Even those fans were so hoping that a former middleweight would beat the heavyweight that should said former middleweight lose the next defense of the WBA belt would probably take place in a junior high school gymnasium. The second thought I had as I watched this bout, alone in my apartment, was of my father and how, despite the lackluster surroundings of the event, he would have appreciated the old school technical boxing skills of James Toney.
My dad, a fight fan, but one like many who picks and chooses what fights to watch was asleep when the opening bell rang. My dad grew up in an era when boxing was big and fighters fought for pennies and they fought hard and often because those pennies paid the rent. My dad is an old school guy and he has instilled in me the virtues of appreciating hard work, respect for authority but also a blue collar anger that can swell in the face of that very authority.
No one f*cks around with my father and that’s why I believe he would really appreciate James Toney. But he was asleep. Such is boxing today.
I paid a visit to my father on Sunday, the day after the fight, and instead of first mentioning the bout he asked me if I had watched “Ring Of Fire,” the documentary on Emile Griffith. Of course I had. In fact, I’d left him a message as to when it was on. But our lines always seem to get crossed. My father and I had met Griffith at the boxing hall of fame a little over two years ago and it was a thrill for both of us. To me, it was pressing flesh with an old master. For my father it was seeing a legend he grew up with. My dad, perhaps a bit wistful for those days when great fighters fought every other week said, “He was so great. One of the greatest of all times and now he has nothing.” I mentioned, rather quietly, how affected I was when the final scene of the film rolled and Griffith came face to face with the son of Benny “Kid” Paret, the man he had killed in the ring and my father nodded. He nodded in a quiet respect for a man, a blue collar man, who had given so much and ended up with so little in the end.
Emile Griffith deserves so much more than he now has. But he is a man of gentle, quiet dignity and though that is certainly not enough in my father’s estimation it seems to be enough for the fighter. My dad, his back hurting, leaned forward and said, “Say what you will about these fighters like Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard, but they got out and they kept their money. Good for them.” In no way was he disparaging Marvin Hagler or Ray Leonard. He was simply shaking his fist at the fates that befell the great fighters who came before them, like Griffith, who live in two room apartments, or died broke and alone. James Toney aspires to the aesthetic of Emile Griffith and he’s making good money, and for that my father would have enjoyed Saturday’s bout.
John Ruiz has nothing to be ashamed of. Put quite frankly, he’s hated by the majority of the boxing public. But he got in the ring against tough competition and did the best he could with the skills he was blessed with. He wasn’t pretty, he wasn’t pleasing, he wasn’t even amusing but he tried his damnedest and for that he deserves respect – whether you want to give it to him or not. He was blue collar. Hell, he was bright blue collar he was so bad, but he gave it everything he had and made quite a bit of money in spite of all the boos. Perhaps it’s ironic that in the one fight where he tried to please his critics by fighting more conventional in order to please the crowd, he lost. My father would have appreciated that. I certainly did.
“Most of the tickets were given away, huh?” my father asked about the fight.
“Yeah,” I replied, “but that’s Ruiz. Nobody was going to pay for that.”
My father shook his head. “Back in the day any fight at Madison Square Garden, you wouldn’t have even been able to get within a block of the place.”
Although I knew he would shrug when I mentioned it I brought up Felix Trinidad. “Dad, when Tito steps in the ring next month the MGM Grand will be on fire. If he was fighting at the Garden like his last fight, New York would shut down. That’s how big he is.”
I’m not sure if my dad even knows who Felix Trinidad is, such is boxing these days, but I’m going to make him watch that fight with me. We’ll sit together, drink some of his homemade beer and he’ll see that boxing isn’t dead when Vegas explodes as “Tito” makes his ring entrance. And it will put the fire back in the belly of an old school guy.