The dark clouds have parted, the witching hour has passed, and suddenly it is daybreak, and for the first time in ages, light is shining through.
This moment had been delayed for nearly a year after James Toney’s positive steroid test put on the back burner any semblance of a paradigm shift or sea change. As fate would often have it, just when things were looking on the bright side, our hoping for the best ended up jinxing any possibility of such, henceforth bringing on the worst.
Since then, there had been much talk about what was needed for the heavyweights and for boxing: unification had the top priority, and on an interim basis we needed entertaining fights whose results provided some sort of direction in this labyrinth that lacked any obvious escape.
We would not settle for anything except what we wanted, much like Shylock in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, who could not be swayed from his obsession for a pound of flesh.
And while his character and motivations were influenced by prejudice and hatred, leaving him defeated and at the mercy of the court, we boxing fans were eventually able to satisfy ourselves with an ultimate goal outside the stubbornness of tunnel vision. Salvation came not from Portia, but from the portly, when Lamon Brewster and Sergei Liakhovich weighed in with their heavy pounding of flesh. [details]
This moment had been delayed for nearly a year after James Toney’s positive steroid test put on the back burner any semblance of a paradigm shift or sea change. As fate would often have it, just when things were looking on the bright side, our hoping for the best ended up jinxing any possibility of such, henceforth bringing on the worst.
Since then, there had been much talk about what was needed for the heavyweights and for boxing: unification had the top priority, and on an interim basis we needed entertaining fights whose results provided some sort of direction in this labyrinth that lacked any obvious escape.
We would not settle for anything except what we wanted, much like Shylock in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, who could not be swayed from his obsession for a pound of flesh.
And while his character and motivations were influenced by prejudice and hatred, leaving him defeated and at the mercy of the court, we boxing fans were eventually able to satisfy ourselves with an ultimate goal outside the stubbornness of tunnel vision. Salvation came not from Portia, but from the portly, when Lamon Brewster and Sergei Liakhovich weighed in with their heavy pounding of flesh. [details]
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