If we trace the Jarrell Miller redemption arc, we can say with a degree of confidence that things picked up for “Big Baby” once his hair fell off in January.
Funny, wasn’t it, when his hair fell off. Right there, in the middle of a fight, it fell off his head and suddenly Miller was bald, exposed, an illusion laid bare. Few of us even knew he wore a toupée until we saw it detached during a fight. Perhaps, on reflection, that’s what made it so amusing: the surprise element. It came as a shock to him and an even greater shock to us. “Seen many things in this crazy sport,” we either said or we wrote, “but never that.” We made jokes about it. We made news of it. Shamelessly so.
Soon, with his head again covered, Miller was telling the world what it was like to have his hair fall off in the middle of a fight. He was doing interviews, plenty of them, and receiving opportunities he would never have received had his hair not fallen off in the middle of a fight. Certainly, nobody was in a rush to talk to Miller about the fight itself: a split decision win against Kingsley Ibeh. That wasn’t interesting, that wasn’t unique. They didn’t even want to talk to him about his other fights, past or future, or the fact that in 2019 he tested positive for the performance-enhancing drugs GW501516, EPO and HGH and was, for a short time, a very short time, an outcast, a dirty word, the poster boy for PEDs. No, that stuff was irrelevant now, boring. How could anything compare to or be funnier than the sight of a heavyweight boxer losing his hair in the middle of a fight? Clip it up, make it a story – better yet, a meme – and spread it around. Let everybody know that Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller is The Heavyweight Whose Hair Once Fell Off in the Middle of a Fight.
What a stroke of luck to be redefined in that way – by one’s hair. This is particularly true of Miller, for it wasn’t that long ago that he was known as The Heavyweight Who Cheated His Way Out of a Lucrative Payday with Anthony Joshua. Some, back then, felt that would be the end of him. They said we had seen the back of him. They vowed to never work with him again and to never forget.
Yet now, thanks to his hair, the name Jarrell Miller is destined to trigger an altogether different memory. Now, rather than potions or needles, we see an empty space where his hair should have been. Now we associate Jarrell Miller with amusement and with comedy and with the light side of a dark sport.
In fact, in the aftermath of that January fight, he became a bit of a fan favourite, Miller. People had, it seemed, liked the way he had dealt with the incident and poked fun at himself. They warmed to his exuberance and his personality. They wanted to see more of him.
His next fight, an April 25 bout with the unbeaten Lenier Pero, was a headline event in Las Vegas. It was also a fight Miller won by decision, thus redoubling the view that the American has turned things around and is now, right or wrong, on the up and up.
Much like the time he lost his wig, that win over Pero came as a bit of a shock, but few begrudged Miller getting it. After all, everybody loves an underdog story, and the only thing better than an underdog story is a redemption story. In beating Pero on Saturday, Miller gave us both. What a guy.
For being so generous, some are now inclined to glorify and forgive him. Already there is talk of Miller appearing on those “Comeback of the Year” lists in December and already he has been absolved to such an extent that he is hailed as an example to follow for any heavyweight who has hit a rough patch and doubts their ability to get back on track. “Look at ‘Big Baby’ Miller,” they now say. “He got stopped by Daniel Dubois and drew with Andy Ruiz, but then his hair fell off and everything changed.”
They are right, too. Everything did change for Miller once his hair fell off and there is hope in that, I suppose. Even if the hair element is unique to Miller, the greater point is that all it takes to find forgiveness is for enough time to pass or for a narrative surrounding a fighter to change. This can be done in any number of ways and does not require a fighter having to lose their hair in the middle of a fight to achieve it. Sometimes, as seen with Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Tyson Fury, all a fighter with a checkered drug history must do is be good at their job and consistently win fights. Do that for long enough and everybody soon gets over it – the bad stuff – and you discover that the desire to see a fighter involved in compelling fights trumps the desire to take them to task or have them reminded of their past transgressions.
The same goes for fighters beneath that level, those whose fights are considerably less compelling than those of, say, Alvarez and Fury, but whose “brand” remains valuable. Think in that respect of Alycia Baumgardner, the WBA, IBF and WBO women’s super-featherweight champion, and Conor Benn, son of Nigel and a relatively big name in the UK.
Both Baumgardner and Benn have fallen foul of the drug testers in the past and have, at various points, been reminded of this by opponents, either current or future ones. But still, these reminders, justified as they are, have done little to stunt their progress, be it competitively or financially. At worst, it only irritates, to be reminded. It hurts the ego a touch and jabs at whatever pride they have left. Beyond that, though, it is quite easy for fighters who have failed drug tests to forget because those who should have held them to account – us, the testers, the sanctioning bodies – are just as keen to forget and move on.
For the most part anyway.
“I personally think he’s [Conor Benn] sort of a cheating, somewhat mediocre [fighter],” said former boxing promoter Lou DiBella on Tuesday’s edition of The Ariel Helwani Show. “I do think he’s a fraud. I think he’s a pedestrian prizefighter with a famous lineage – and a cheater. Frankly, he got bigger by cheating. I don’t really like that very much. The same thing happened with Baumgardner. I’m not a big fan of that. You cheat and you get bigger. That doesn’t appeal to me.”
Yeah, but remember the egg thing, Lou? That was funny, wasn’t it? There were all those puns and all those memes and by the end of it we were having so much fun generating clicks and views that nobody even knew what drug Conor Benn supposedly had in his system when he failed those two tests in 2022. All they knew was that it had something to do with eggs, loads of them. He even had one cracked against his cheek by Chris Eubank Jnr during a pre-fight head-to-head. That was hilarious; almost as funny as Jarrell Miller’s hair falling off in the middle of a fight. The next time they were together, security actually walked Eubank Jnr through an “Egg Detector” and everybody was standing around giggling about it. Remember? It was nice to be able to make light of it like that. You know, see the funny side. The funny side up. Sometimes you can get too bogged down in taking this drug stuff seriously. Sometimes you just need to let bygones be bygones and think about how best to rehabilitate and revamp those boxers whose reputations have been soured. People like DiBella, people who have principles and speak sense, help nobody by constantly raking up the past and seeing only the negatives. “Move on!” they are often told. Either that or: “Keep your hair on!”
Believe me, we’re trying. The boxers, especially, are doing all they can to move on, with Benn, Baumgardner and Miller each enjoying a fruitful April. In the last three weeks Benn beat Regis Prograis in a fight worth a reported $15 million, Baumgardner successfully defended her world titles against Bo Mi Re Shin, and Miller, as we have established, won a WBA heavyweight title eliminator against Lenier Pero.
More than just winning, they have all been earning, they have been building, and yes, they have been moving on. Now, with their careers flying, opportunities are abundant. In the case of Benn, there is talk of a WBC welterweight title shot against Ryan Garcia, while Baumgardner hopes to be named as Katie Taylor’s opponent for her big retirement fight at Croke Park later this year. As for Miller, he could be set to fight Deontay Wilder, another US heavyweight on the mend, before fighting for the WBA heavyweight title.
Look at them go. See how they run. See how they prosper.
