Memories of knockouts

For the last two weeks, we’ve featured two of three well-written books on professional boxing. These books were part of the six that had come from the States after several weeks’ wait. These two were “The Fight” by Norman Mailer and “Reading the Fights: The Best Writing About the Most Controversial Sport” which featured the work of Mailer and author Gay Talese.

Mailer described the knockout by contender Muhammad Ali of world heavyweight champion George Foreman in 1975 in Kinshasa, Zaire in a fight that was hyped as the “Rumble in the Jungle”. Talese, for his part, narrates his interview with Floyd Patterson who lost by first round knockout to challenger Sonny Liston in 2:06 of the first round on Sept. 25, 1962 in Comiskey Park in Chicago (which earned Patterson the dubious distinction of the first heavyweight champion to lose by first round knockout in a title defense) and again by stoppage in 2:10 of the first round on July 22, 1963 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, after being decked three times.

All throughout the time we were behind the computer putting these columns, we could not help but recall the second knockout suffered by our own Gabriel “Flash” Elorde at the hands of defending champion Carlos Ortiz of Puerto Rico  at 2:01 of the 14th round in Madison Square Garden in New York for the latter’s World Boxing Association lightweight title. Elorde had been trailing Ortiz and the knockout saw Elorde flat on his back with his feet dangerously twitching, sending cold shivers down the spine of the thousands in attendance.

We could not also help but recall the sixth round knockout suffered by Manny Pacquiao with a second to go at the hands of Juan Manuel Marquez at the MGM Grand in Dec. 2012. We were doing the commentary some 20 feet across the opposite side of the ring when we saw Pacquiao lunge forward to meet a right hand from Marquez that came all the way from the Mexican’s shoulder. And to our shock and fear, Pacquiao fell face forward and remained unconscious for several moments. Upon gaining consciousness, he was reported to have asked,  ”Is the fight finished?” and one of his corner men, Buboy Fernandez, who was the first to lend succor, reportedly just uttered, “Yes, it’s finished. The guy sneaked in a punch.”

Going back to Patterson, the former heavyweight champ tells Talese, “You have no idea how it is in the first round. You’re out there with all those people around you, and those cameras and the whole world looking in, and all that movement, that excitement, and ‘The Star Spangled Banner,’ and the whole nation hoping you’ll win, including the President (John F. Kennedy, who was reportedly rooting for Patterson)…Then you can’t remember much of the rest, because you don’t want to…All you recall is, all of a sudden you’re getting up, and the referee is saying, ‘You all right?’ and you say, ‘Of course I’m all right,’ and he says, ‘What’s your name?’ and you say, ‘Patterson.’

“And then, suddenly, with all this screaming around you, you’re down again, and you know you have to get up, but you’re extremely groggy, and the referee is pushing you back, and your trainer is in there with a towel, and people are all standing up, and your eyes focus directly at no one person – you’re sort of floating..

“It is not a bad feeling when you’re knocked out,” he said. “It’s a good feeling actually. It’s not painful, just a sharp grogginess. You don’t see angels or stars; you’re on a pleasant cloud. After Liston hit me in Nevada, I felt, for about four or five seconds, that everybody in the arena was actually in the ring with me, circled around me like a family; and you feel warmth toward all the people in the arena after you’re knocked out. You feel lovable to all the people. And you want to reach out and kiss everybody – men and women – and after the Liston fight somebody told me I actually blew a kiss to the crowd from the ring. I don’t remember that. But I guess it’s true because that’s the way you feel during the four five seconds after a knockout…

“But then,” Patterson went on, “this good feeling leaves you. You realize where you are, and what you’re doing there, and what just happened to you. And what follows is a hurt, a confused hurt – not a physical hurt – it’s a hurt combined with anger; it’s a what-will-people-think hurt; it’s an ashamed-of-my own ability hurt…and all you want then is a hatch door in the middle of the ring – a hatch door that will open and let you fall through and land in your dressing room instead of having to get out of the ring and face those people. The worst thing about losing is having to walk out of the ring and face those people…”

Next week, Bob Mee’s “Ali and Liston” and Angelo Dundee’s “My View From the Corner.”