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By Cliff Rold - 3 million pay-per-view buys.
No fight has hit the plateau yet. In 2010, a potential epic may do the trick if Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao elect to share a ring together.
Chicago’s Francisco Rodriguez probably dreamed of being in such an event one day. When he was toiling through the Golden Gloves, when he was dealing with the adversity of a pair of early defeats in his first sixteen professional bouts, it’s not hard to imagine such dreams still keeping him going.
Rodriguez suffered fatal injuries in a fight last weekend against another dreamer, Teon Kennedy.
While so much of the action in the ring has been memorable this year, boxing has suffered a heavy cost in losses. Former world champions Vernon Forrest, Arturo Gatti, and Alexis Arguello all died through violent circumstances. Jr. Bantamweight contender Z Gorres fell into a coma after his last bout but reports have him on the road to recovery.
Now the boxing world says goodbye to Rodriguez.
This scribe regrettably wasn’t very familiar with Rodriguez’s career before news of his passing. Yet as we approach the annual American tradition of Thanksgiving, it is to him we should turn first. Amid the cheers, the barber shop debates, the anticipation for the next classic battle, it is the sacrifice of Rodriguez which serves as a reminder of what it is we’re all watching.
What it is we’re asking of the men and women who enter the ring.
Boxing is a sport which has always made for excellent literature and cinema. The one on one combat, the presumed (sometimes overly presumed) seedy underbelly, the Horatio Alger spirit of it all can obscure one important element. [details]
No fight has hit the plateau yet. In 2010, a potential epic may do the trick if Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao elect to share a ring together.
Chicago’s Francisco Rodriguez probably dreamed of being in such an event one day. When he was toiling through the Golden Gloves, when he was dealing with the adversity of a pair of early defeats in his first sixteen professional bouts, it’s not hard to imagine such dreams still keeping him going.
Rodriguez suffered fatal injuries in a fight last weekend against another dreamer, Teon Kennedy.
While so much of the action in the ring has been memorable this year, boxing has suffered a heavy cost in losses. Former world champions Vernon Forrest, Arturo Gatti, and Alexis Arguello all died through violent circumstances. Jr. Bantamweight contender Z Gorres fell into a coma after his last bout but reports have him on the road to recovery.
Now the boxing world says goodbye to Rodriguez.
This scribe regrettably wasn’t very familiar with Rodriguez’s career before news of his passing. Yet as we approach the annual American tradition of Thanksgiving, it is to him we should turn first. Amid the cheers, the barber shop debates, the anticipation for the next classic battle, it is the sacrifice of Rodriguez which serves as a reminder of what it is we’re all watching.
What it is we’re asking of the men and women who enter the ring.
Boxing is a sport which has always made for excellent literature and cinema. The one on one combat, the presumed (sometimes overly presumed) seedy underbelly, the Horatio Alger spirit of it all can obscure one important element. [details]
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