By Ja Lang G. Greene

Boxing is cruel. The sport shows no mercy towards the fighters, fans, and promoters that populate the sport. The sport is the only one of its kind where you can go from champion to chump in one night. There is no 18, 82, or 162 game season to pad the stats. Twelve rounds. One fight.

The sport operates in cycles. No matter who talk with, young or old, everyone has their own story of a boxing icon they admired who was mistreated by the sport. Speaking with the elder fans from yesteryear, including my pops, the image of an old Joe Louis being pummeled by Rocky Marciano in 1951 still remains a bitter pill to swallow. The way in which Archie Moore had to wait until near his forties to get a title shot is unforgivable, or the sight of Sugar Ray Robinson taking exhibition fights just to pay off the IRS.

Then there is the next generation who rattle off stories of what might have been with Carlos Monzon ruling the middleweight division. The same generation which saw Muhammad Ali reinvigorate the sport and then be reduced to a punching bag against Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick. I repeat Trevor Berbick!  Nothing against Holmes or Berbick but to see Ali battered against the ropes makes me turn the channel every time I see the fight on ESPN classic. No worries, because karma rules supreme in boxing. An out of his prime Larry Holmes was destroyed by the up and coming Mike Tyson several years later.

The following generation is where I am personally included. We witnessed the start of Iron Mike Tyson. The terror, destruction, carnage, and fear he caused. The Boxing God’s wouldn’t be kind to him either. KO losses to Lennox Lewis (brutal) and Danny Williams are now clearly legible on his record. We also watched the magic of Sugar Ray Leonard. The heart and courage that defined him in epic battles against Duran, Hagler, and Hearns were erased when he was KO’d by the “hardest” puncher in boxing history, Hector “Macho” Camacho Sr. (sick). Let’s not even get into the Meldrick Taylor saga. That darn Richard Steele.

And finally while talking to the younger fans of the sport, they have also have started to witness their own bit of the sweet sciences’ cruelty. Witnessing the great Roy Jones Jr. pummeled in two consecutive knockout losses.

Maybe it’s the sadistic side in all of us that makes us love the sport. Who would’ve thought that Ivan Robinson, the winner of two wars against Arturo Gatti would be faded and washed up before Gatti? The drama and intensity will boost the sport to a national level one day. Maybe the rest of the public will finally see what us true fans know.