The problem with the 2021 film Coda was not that it was pandering, and predictable, and generic, and cloying, and starved of any sort of artistic merit. The problem was that it won the Oscar for Best Picture and therefore had to be judged accordingly. It could not, having won the Oscar, now be judged purely in the realm in which it should have been judged: as a glorified Lifetime movie, or something you would have once found on the Disney Channel. Instead, because it had beaten the likes of The Power of the Dog and Drive My Car (perhaps the best film of the last decade), it found itself as much burdened as boosted by the accolade. Now all its holes were ripped open and made bigger. Now every aspect of it was analysed with a harshness a film so light and fluffy neither deserved nor could handle.
In boxing, a similar thing is happening with the heavyweight fight between Joseph Parker and Fabio Wardley, set for October 25. A week ago, Parker vs. Wardley was a fight greatly anticipated and both men were receiving praise from fans of the sport. However, this initial wave of enthusiasm started to sadly fade this week when it was announced that Parker vs. Wardley would be a pay-per-view offering. Twenty-five pounds, in fact, will be the price you must pay to DAZN, a subscription app, if you wish to watch these two heavyweights exchange punches on October 25. Twenty-five English pounds ($34).
That, for some, is too expensive a price for what is essentially a battle of contenders. It places the fight, unfairly and undeservedly, in the world of unification/super fights between big names and highlights how what constitutes a pay-per-view fight has changed so dramatically in the last 20 years. Whereas once only the best of the best ended up on pay-per-view, now it seems as though any fight remotely captivating between two remotely familiar fighters ends up a fight for which we must pay a little extra.
Of course, just as Coda was hurt by its elevation to a shelf on which it didn’t belong, the same is true of Parker vs. Wardley. If, rather than glorified, it had simply been left alone, and treated the way it needs to be treated, a fight like Parker vs. Wardley would have been of great interest to a great number of people. Yet now, because it has been stymied by PPV, one wonders how many people outside the boxing bubble will even be aware that Parker and Wardley are fighting on October 25. Already niche as it is, does a fight like Parker vs. Wardley now become almost invisible on account of greed? Will anyone now give it the attention it deserves?
Because the fight itself is not only a good one, but it involves two good men. Both Parker and Wardley speak well and are well-mannered and both, so far, have shown nothing but respect to one another and the sport ahead of their fight.
“I think the perfect thing about this fight is that it doesn’t need all the selling and prancing around and tables flipping and the kicking off at press conferences,” said Wardley on talkSPORT last week. “That’s not my thing and I’m pretty sure it’s not Joe’s thing either.
“This fight sells itself. You look at our styles, you look at how we approach fights, and you just know that when we get in the ring together neither of us will be too keen on taking a back step. It’s going to be fireworks.”
For many of us, Wardley speaks our language, and in a fair and equal world both he and Parker would get everything they deserve on October 25. Only boxing is never that simple. Nor is it ever that fair.
Chances are this fight between Wardley and Parker will receive just a fraction of the interest a fight like Chris Eubank Jnr vs. Conor Benn II will receive three weeks after it. That too is a pay-per-view event, of course, and yet the difference between the two fights could not be any clearer.
On Wednesday we saw evidence of how the two fights differed when Eubank Jnr and Benn resumed promotional duties at a press conference, where the same script was followed, albeit with some key amendments and updates. This time Eubank Jnr added Robert Smith, the General Secretary of the British Boxing Board of Control, to his shit-list when putting the world to rights in an effort to go viral. This time the death of Ricky Hatton was both mourned and weaponized in the very same breath. This time we understood once and for all the depths to which certain people in boxing will go to sell both themselves and a fight.
In contrast to that mess, Parker and Wardley seem almost too good and too nice for the grim world of professional boxing. One only hopes that the disease of pro boxing for the last couple of decades – namely, pay-per-view – doesn’t now infect them and turn them into monsters ahead of October 25.
Coda
While sometimes it is said that a boxer is “too nice for boxing”, it is not just boxers of whom this is said. There are others whose presence seems like a blessing the sport, at times, does not deserve and whose good nature can restore your faith in the sport whenever it starts to wane.
One of those people was Thomas Gerbasi, a renowned and popular combat sports journalist who tragically passed away on Tuesday at the age of 57. He was also a husband, and a father, and a grandfather, all of which were roles Tom loved as much as his work and reminded him never to take his work too seriously. He was always professional, of course, and scarily productive, but the warmth Tom exuded, even after decades in the sport, could surely only be attributed to knowing what really mattered in life.
Of all the things I took from him during our time together at UFC.com between 2008 and 2012, maybe that was the most valuable. He never preached it. He was just proof of it. He had a smile for all seasons and a precious humility. It was no mystery, to me, why every fighter seemed to love him and why everybody with whom he crossed paths told similar stories about him on Wednesday when news of his passing broke. How kind he was. How helpful he was. How hopeful he was.
If there was any mystery regarding Tom Gerbasi it had to do with how he could spend so much time in the fight world and yet remain so upbeat and full of joy. Rather than dissuade new writers, or steer them towards healthier pursuits, his instinct was to welcome them, encourage them and nurture them. He frequented a world of sharks and scumbags but somehow retained a purity and youthful enthusiasm I both admired and to an extent envied – never more so than of late. Even his writing felt like a hug. It was genial, heartfelt, tight. Tom, for example, would have never thought to use an uplifting film about the deaf community as an analogy in a column about a heavyweight boxing match on pay-per-view. He would have instead just shrugged his shoulders, then laughed at the ridiculousness of whatever it was I was fretting about. He would have said, “Just do the work. Don’t take things so seriously.” His reference would have been a different film: Chinatown, perhaps. “Forget it, Elliot, it’s boxing,” he might have said.
He would be right, too. Tom Gerbasi passed away this week and today nothing really matters.
