FUNDAMENTALS By Adam Abramowitz
Movie: Diggstown (1992)
Book: In This Corner by Peter Heller (1973) In This Corner is a series of testimonials from champions from as far back as the 1910s up to the early ’70s. The beauty of the book is that it’s mostly told in the fighters’ own words. Heller may tee up an introduction, but then he lets the champions, 42 of them, tell their own stories the way they want them to be told. One of the magnificent aspects of the book is that it includes some of the biggest fighters in the history of the sport, such as Jack Dempsey, Mickey Walker, Henry Armstrong, Willie Pep, Sugar Ray Robinson and Roberto Duran, but it also affords time and space for many forgotten ones, such as Lou Ambers, Lew Jenkins, Paul Pender and many more. The forgotten ones are granted the same amount of dignity as the sport’s titans. There are gems throughout the book, such as the trials and tribulations of Armstrong getting to the elite level. Would it surprise you to learn that he had over 10 losses before he ever won a world title? A reminder of how different boxing once was. One chapter that stuck with me was Pender’s. Pender is now a forgotten middleweight champ from the early ’60s. Even though he had a short reign, he had a victory over Carmen Basilio and two split decision wins over
I profess that I’m not a huge fan of most boxing movies. First of all, almost every boxing movie gets the ring action wrong: It’s unbelievable, in a bad way. Movie boxing offers little verisimilitude to the fights I watch week in and week out. There are too many punches thrown in boxing cinema. The fighters’ technique often looks terrible. Even capturing the action itself has proven to be very difficult for filmmakers. Furthermore, I can’t stand the pathos or the attempts at myth creation. Movie boxing is far too operatic. There are too many
grand statements attempted, with film directors using boxing as a metaphor for their theories on topics such as wounded masculinity and the socioeconomic divide. Diggstown (known as Midnight Sting in the U.K.) is much different. It doesn’t try to do too much. The stakes are much lower. An ex-con (James Woods) wades into a small town that loves its boxing. He makes a bet with the de facto ruler of the town (Bruce Dern) that his shopworn, retired fighter (Louis Gossett Jr.) can knock out intellectually straining or metaphoric, just enjoyable entertainment. We watch good actors chew scenery. We see an old movie director, Michael Ritchie, a big name in the ’70s and ’80s with films such as The Candidate , hit all the marks while resisting artier aspirations. And finally, there’s an enjoyable plot twist at the end. 10 local guys in a 24-hour period. What follows isn’t anything too
a faded Sugar Ray Robinson, who was nearing 40 years old with 150 fights to his name at the time. Pender actually retired as a champ, and he walked away from his two victories over Robinson unimpressed with the fighter who many consider to be the best who has ever laced them up. Pender believed that the older great still packed a big punch, but he didn’t think much of him as a boxer. Heller’s ability to track down greats from yesteryear results in a bounty for boxing fans. The chapter on Ike Williams is a rough read, where, despite Williams’ triumphs, the corruption that plagued boxing and the brutal racial realities of the times are never far away. Another pleasure of In This
Forgotten Fight: John Molina Jr. TKO 10 Mickey Bey (2013) T he beauty of boxing is that a fighter can lose every round but can still win. All it takes is one punch, a moment, a quick sequence. Knockouts can erase all that came before. This was such a fight. Bey entered the contest at 18- 0-1 and was a heavily hyped fighter affiliated with Mayweather Promotions. Molina was a limited slugger who had lost his previous fight and featured a record of 25-3.
The bout was part of the ShoBox: The Next Generation series. The fight was essentially one-way traffic through the first nine rounds, with Bey dominating through hand speed, accuracy and movement. Molina’s lack of speed and fluidity manifested round after round. After nine rounds, the official scores were 90-81, 89-82 and 88-83, all for Bey. The 10th round should have just been academic for Bey to get the win. But in the corner prior to the final round, Bey’s trainer, Floyd Mayweather Sr., implored Bey to knock Molina out, to put an exclamation mark on the performance. What followed was folklore. Beaten to the punch throughout the whole fight, Molina connected
with a left hook with 1:20 left in the round, and everything changed. Bey was badly hurt. Molina seized the moment and attacked Bey with a series of power punches. Bey, on wobbly legs, tried in vain to regain his bearings. Molina then landed another crushing left hook with just over one minute left in the round. At that moment, referee Vic Drakulich jumped in to stop the fight. Perhaps the stoppage was a bit early in that Bey had yet to hit the canvas and had been clearly winning the fight, but there was no doubt that Molina had turned the tide. Molina-Bey is a reminder of boxing’s singular pleasures. Until the final bell rings, there’s always a chance.
Diggstown succeeds because it’s not shooting for an Academy Award. There are no pronouncements about the nature of man or the evils of society. It’s just entertainment. And it’s a lot of fun to watch good pros do fine work.
Corner is that you can pick any era to explore. You’ll find fighters you know about and discover new ones. Instantly you will be transported to another time in the sport, where often the only thing that remains the same is the squared circle.
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