Boxing is a sport of the unthinkable. Fighters put themselves in harm’sway. Occasionally the terror the layman would feel in the face of the forthcoming brutality is writ large on their face. Friday night, Jake Paul’s bravado will surely evaporate & the terror will visit. As it did Bruno and Golota.
With the weigh in complete, tickets sold and sceptics largely silenced, Jake Paul now stands on the cliff edge of the night before the fight.
As he began to beat his chest and spoke loudly and incoherently of the “first ring bell” at today’s weigh in, the gravity of sporting convention Paul has ignored in a six year ‘career’ as a fighter, became more conspicuous. It waits below as the one-time Disney actor inches towards the abyss.
In a sport of courageous men and women, it is rare to see the dawning of reality writ large on a fighter’s face. That moment, when the enormity of the task at hand is processed, and reality overwhelms the stiff upper lip, is a rare and interesting human study too. All boxers try to maintain an emotional equilibrium pre-fight. This despite the jeopardy the sport imposes on all who dip between her ropes. Occasionally, their expressionless, stoney face becomes distorted by the type of terror that we as layman would experience faced with similar circumstances. It doesn’t happen often, but there are examples of this reality biting hard before a punch has even been thrown.
Frank Bruno had performed admirably in defeat to a rampant Mike Tyson in 1989, stiffening the legs of the impervious young champion in the opening round with a left hook, right hand. On the British broadcast, commentator Harry Carpenter momentarily forgot his obligation to impartiality by encouraging his friend to “get in there Frank!” as the flash of opportunity came and went. In the rematch seven years later, haunted by the experience of what happened in the handful of minutes after he’d landed that shot - Bruno was duly stopped in the 5th, defenceless on the ropes - Big Frank’s face spoke of a thousand emotions, confidence absent among them. The origin of all those competing feelings was traceable to the 15 minutes he spent with Tyson back in 1989. The wail of reality ringing in Bruno’s ears as he emerged into the arena. Tyson, as the challenger, was already in the ring, prowling from side to side.
Bruno was a lifelong fighter too, not a YouTuber. He was also a much better technician than often credited to be because of his Achilles heel of becoming inert and vulnerable once hit. To paraphrase the likeable puncher with the thunderous laugh; “you don’t get world titles in sweetshops”. The terror still stuck him.
In the summer of the same year the heavyweight division, and the American public at large, were introduced to a big, aggressive Pole by the name of Andrew Golota. 6 feet 4 and 240 plus pounds, Golota usually wore a steady, slightly detached look in his eyes and sported a buzz cut hair that leaned on the Ivan Drago silhouette of the Rocky IV film released a decade earlier.
In two crazy fights with Riddick Bowe in 96, the giant Pole was twice disqualified for punching Big Daddy so squarely in the balls the former champion could’ve hit the high notes usually the preserve of singers like Frank Valli and Little Anthony. Golota threw away both fights, losing by disqualification when ahead on all cards as a result. The first fight ended in a mass brawl in the ring between the entourage of the two men too. Golota cut on his head by a cumbersome early cell phone whacked against his crown. Mayhem.
Golota’s reputation as a dangerous man willing to take a brawl beyond the rules was nevertheless set. He was then installed as the WBC’s number 1 contender.
In 1997 Golota was matched to fight Lennox Lewis, the Englishman and WBC Champion. A match up of equals. Lewis hit Golota hard and fast from the opening bell. The giant Pole had little opportunity to set himself and was unceremoniously dumped on the canvas in the opening round. He sat, his face angled toward the floor, eyes wide as though considering a nightmare he’d been woken from. The expression was unforgettable. Startled. Shocked. The division’s ‘boogeyman’ had been vanquished as a result and in the moment, he sucked hard for air through his gum shield. It was an unforgettable sight.
Golota would never again reach the heights of those two Bowe performances. What role the lidocaine injected into him before the fight, to manage the pain in his knee, played in the expression he wore is unconfirmed. I prefer to believe the power of the punches Lewis landed bewildered him.
It is exactly the type of power Jake Paul will experience on Friday night. His expression when he feels it could well remind older hands of Bruno’s terror and the horror written large across Golota’s pale, square face. Paul is not qualified for the test. Few men are. The epiphany he must face could materialise as he sits in his dressing room, and if he doesn’t realise the foolishness of his quest Joshua will deliver the heartbreaking ‘news’ with his fists and without sentiment shorty after the first bell rings.
Just as Tyson and Lewis did thirty years ago.