And the smart New York crowd registered its displeasure with jeers of execration when the decision was declared. In fact, the Sydney shut-out demonstrates exactly the opposite point. Americans do not finally care about a boxer s Olympic credentials. They care about champions and the electric frisson of heroic spectacle. This explains why Americans are mad for Great Britain s Lennox Lewis, but can scarcely remember their own Oscar De La Hoya.
Times are good.
Amateur boxers are these days more preoccupied with making fabulous millions and less concerned with receiving a letter of imperious condescension from the President. Personally, I would like to see the return of NCAA boxing, but not under the aegis of the feminist critique or pansy regulations. Withal, boxing is better off struggling against its own interior dynamism and paradoxes than against a statist egalitarian apparatus. As for Super Bore XXXV, until Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis goes 12 rounds against the Baltimorian Heavyweight, Hasim Rahman, the only football worth watching is played in colleges and backyards.