Boxing

To be completely honest with you, I don’t like boxing.

 

I make this bald admission, this bare-faced statement, this oh-so-direct declaration in the knowledge that it may bring my stereotypical masculinity under scrutiny.  I make this assertion knowing full well that the macho men in the street could now come up to me and say “Oh, ah, look at him, it’s the queasy little man-baby that doesn’t like the boxing.  What’s wong wittle bwaby, dwoes duh two mwen bweating on eawch owver mwake ywou wupset?”.

 

And after I had finally managed to decipher the macho men’s final message I would have to retort: “No, it is not the brutality of the “sport” which fuels my dislike for it, although this is a large factor, there are more prominent elements that I take issue with.”

 

I imagine at this point that intelligent conversation would not continue, but for the sake of this narrative, I will now tediously explain the other significant points that I dislike about boxing.

 

Number 1: Stupid Shorts, Laser Shows and Entrance Music

 

Three-in-one, not bad.  Boxing tries it’s very best to disassociate itself from it’s less real yet more entertaining cousin, pro-wrestling.  It’s easy to see why they would do this, in essence wrestling is choreographed fighting, like something that would come out of a Year 9 Drama lesson, were a group of boys foolishly allowed to workshop their own sketch.  In contrast to this, boxing is like something that would come out of a Year 9 PE lesson, were a group of boys foolishly allowed to choose their own activity.

It seems stupid then that whilst striving to distance itself from wrestling, boxing imitates it in almost every way.  Bells, rings, ridiculous overblown entrance music, ridiculous overblown shorts, ridiculous overblown posses and ridiculous overblown laser shows with which to ensure that no epileptic person will ever enjoy a boxing match in person.

 

Number 2: Gloves

 

They are really dopey looking.  They look like the sort of gloves a dangerous clown might wear.

I wouldn’t say that to a boxers face though.  That would be inappropriate, I would have no interest in committing such a faux pas.

 

Number 3: Belts

 

It seems to me that the main aim of boxing is to steal other people’s belts.  Now, overlooking the inherent homo-eroticism that is to be found in a situation where two men willingly strip down to their boxer shorts, literally, get in a ring, in front of hundreds of slavering, blood-thirsty perverts and then rub up against each other until they are all sweaty and breathing heavily, the idea that the highest goal of this is to defeat the other person and claim his belt is slightly homosexual.  Or maybe I have misunderstood boxing’s macho image, maybe it is meant as a form of softcore gay pornography, where in the final scene the losing boxer’s belt is removed, and his shorts shimmer to the floor, flowing during the tolling of the bell, like the finest gossamer silk, revealing at the last the fallen participants turgid enflamed passion, to the general onanism of the crowd.

 

Though my boxing-as-gay-porn insight seems to be apt, I will still err on the side of caution, for though I have no qualms with homosexuality, I am sure the boxing-viewing-public at large would not appreciate the aspersions I have cast upon the “sport”.

 

Or maybe I am subscribing to the very stereotypes I am aiming to satirise.

 

Ironically hoist by my own stereotypical petard.

 

Not in a gay way.