Hardball
IN Vegas USA, champion American Deontay Wilder, emerged like some combined Egungun and Gelede masquerade — a scary costume to be sure, oozing with ominous black and grey, and a hideous mask to match! To put the fear of God in challenger and self-named Gipsy King, British Tyson Fury?
Maybe. But the challenger seemed to have come armed with “mariwo”, the palm fronds and ultimate whip, in Yoruba tradition cosmos, to tan such guttural irritants!
Alas, after the battle was lost and won, and the World Boxing Council (WBC) belt had been won and lost, the dethroned champ claimed he was weighed down by the sheer heft of his freely chosen costume! Sweet story for the marines?
On February 22, at Vegas therefore, it was quite a sight, as Hurricane Fury blew away the Bronze Bomber! It was Boxing’s equivalent of Operation Shock and Awe!
Want to feel, in graphic and full Technicolor, the furious boxing of the ear? Just check out poor, bleeding Wilder! Fury simply blasted away his ear drum!
Besides, it was the Boxing replica of the biblical kingdom suffering violence! You don’t suppress a strong man, and take away what is his, until you had given him a comprehensive thrashing, do you?
That was poor Wilder’s fate at the hands of furious Fury! Things completely fell apart. The American, with the famous right hand bomb, went crashing out to his first-ever defeat — and surrendering his WBC Heavyweight belt, in a 7th round TKO. It was a total rout — the stuff epic falls are made of!
By the Fury defeat, Wilder’s game strategy of facing virtual sissies, and posting zero defeat in 42 fights, ended a sad cropper. Dead as dodo too, was his famed right hand. In the course of persistent and comprehensive beating, his lone arsenal and right-hand bomb simply refused to detonate!
Again at Vegas, the puncher staked his belt against the boxer, and kissed his title bye-bye! It was the ultimate gamble!
What happens next? Would Banger Wilder risk going after Conqueror Fury again, thus re-igniting the magic of the more illustrious Sugar Ray Leonard, the near-ultimate boxing artist that on 20 June 1980 lost his WBC Welterweight title against Roberto Duran. But in a re-match on 25 November 1980, he would drub Duran, with the Panamanian uttering “no mas, no mas” (no more! no more!), in abject surrender!
That appears tempting, except that, aside from his big right hand, Wilder is no boxer, not to talk of a boxer-artist and crafty fighter, that Sugar Ray was.
It would appear more similar to the George Foreman-Joe Frazier rematch, which ended even in a more comprehensive beating for the Smokin’ Joe, by the murderously punching Foreman. But then, you never know!
Meanwhile, everything in the heavyweight division points to a Tyson Fury-Anthony Joshua unification bout. Someone whispered the Saudi government was already offering a mouth-watering budget for that mouth-watering clash!
It would be quite a sight, as two Brits clash under the Saudi dunes, to decide the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, the very first after the retirement of the Brit Lennox Lewis, the last undisputed world heavyweight champion.
But did Hardball say two Brits? Not exactly! AJ is only British by veneer! He is essentially Nigerian — a self-proclaimed “Sagamite”, after his Sagamu, Ogun State, roots.
If the fight ever happens, Nigeria would be out there rooting for him!
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