The Fears of Anthony Joshua
You've heard of someone doing something for "all the marbles"? Well, this is like that. Just heavily fear fueled. And that's just about perfect.
“Do you think living life outside of the strictures of fear is a desirable outcome?”
We were standing amidst cacti in some sun-blasted California clime, two state champion wrestlers, and soon-to-be philosophy professors (and me, along for the ride). One in the philosophy of the history of science, the other Spinoza. Did I mention the copious amounts of psychedelics that had been gobbled? Good. I won’t. Because they were.
“Fear serves a more than useful function,” Spinoza said. “It keeps you alive.”
“No need to check more than once, if you’re lucky, if there’s a bear in the cave,” I said, thinking I was winning by recalling Plato’s cave. They both looked at me, and Spinoza concluded that “we’re all standing here today, products of well-placed fears.”
Some more than others. A living testament to the motivating power of fear, no other than me as author, tries to fully explain it in Fight: Or Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Ass Kicking But Were Afraid You’d Get Your Ass Kicked for Asking. But the Reader’s Digest version is that death is around every corner, friends are just enemies that haven’t yet revealed themselves and moments of inattention can lead to life times of regret.
Which is why this past week I’ve been haunted by the look on heavyweight boxer Anthony Joshua’s face moments before he faced Francis Ngannou in Riyadh this past Friday. You don’t have to be a boxing fan for this to matter and indeed, boxing is a specialized interest/pursuit, even amongst those fans of so-called “combat sports”, but the look had a universal cast to it.
“Respect the fact that the rules of boxing are protecting us because without that, you are nothing [italics mine] in front of me. I would beat you every day, twice on Sunday.” — Francis Ngannou to Tyson Fury
You see, without getting too deeply into the weeds of it, Francis Ngannou, a Cameroonian phenom who slept in dumpsters when he first illegally immigrated to France, after having worked the mines in Cameroon, is the stuff of nightmares. Having out-negotiated his former home at the Ultimate Fighting Championship where he was heavyweight mixed martial arts (MMA) champion, Ngannou did so because he wanted to test himself in the sweet science.
As a free agent he had previously faced unified heavyweight title holder Tyson Fury who, it had been assumed, would dismantle him. But that’s not what happened. He put Fury on his ass and the boxing world found itself knee deep in an existential crisis of its own making.
Either Ngannou, with a scant amount of boxing time was an exception or…maybe, just maybe, the current crop of boxers, absent the kind of moxie of old, just were not. Some sports commenters had described, in deeply earnest ways, the Ngannou-Fury fight, which Ngannou officially lost to a judges’ decision, as the boxing world’s 9/11.
Laugh if you like but there was no joy in Mudville post-fight. Not even a little.
Unless, of course, you came to combat sports via MMA. In which case you were ecstatic. And even more so when in the run-up to Ngannou v Joshua, Ngannou himself put a finer point on it.
“I would wipe the ring with your ass in the octagon,” said to a mouthy Tyson Fury at a pre-fight presser for the Joshua fight. “Your only chance is in the boxing ring with boxing rules. When you step off that ring you better stay five meters away because if I lose it, you are going to have a really bad time. Respect the fact that the rules of boxing are protecting us because without that, you are nothing [italics mine] in front of me. I would beat you every day, twice on Sunday.”
And he’s right. Tough guy poet/writer Thom Gunn once described boxing specifically, and fighting in general, to be what it is: barely controlled chaos. So, absent standing counts, ref separations, and kicking, elbows and inevitable grappling, the game is kind of a unique affectation.
An awareness that seemed to be fueling whatever was playing on Joshua’s face pre-fight. Which was, no other way to describe it, equal parts animal fear, dread and a real understanding that this was for “all the marbles.”
That is, Anthony Joshua was not just repping Anthony Joshua but boxing, a sport that had once been one of the biggest draws in America, boxers and every minute he and every athlete he knew who boxed sweating their asses off had spent getting good at something that was finally being called to account.
But there was an interesting academic study of a few years ago where, in an effort to test out Ivy League educations, researchers tested to see who, after 10 years post-expensive education, was doing the best. Was it legacy admissions? Middle class kids? Kids of professors?
In this milieu fear needed to be a friend (apologies to John Milius) or an enemy to be…well, you know, feared.
The answer was none of the above. Unless, of course, they were athletes. It had been discovered that athletes, with no regard to actual sport, 10, and even 20 years out, were doing better than their peers along a lot of significant indices. The conclusions were simply that learning/knowing how to face adversity, being familiar with failure and understanding the value of the grinds that must be embraced to succeed, were the best life preparation of all.
In this milieu fear needed to be a friend (apologies to John Milius) or an enemy to be…well, you know, feared. And most significantly, just because Joshua looked scared, and in fact, might have really been scared, this shouldn’t necessarily be viewed as an undesirable state of affairs.
All of which rolled out when in an excess of boxing’s meat and potatoes Joshua knocked out Ngannou with a basic combo. At 2:38 of the second round to be exact, he got Ngannou to extend his right arm in the face of a feint, before Joshua delivered the hammer that put the lights out.
Boxers and boxing might act like they knew it was going to go down like this but we have names for people like that and it is, excuse our French, g-ddamned liars.
Boxing avoided another 9/11 and anyone from that world that’s not kissing Joshua’s ass right now really needs to be.
Is Ngannou done as a boxer?
Not even a little. While Ngannou has time to spackle over deficiencies and a few more MMA matches to make, Tyson Fury still has to redeem himself via a rematch, and even Deontay Wilder with a limited number of places to turn might find himself turning to Ngannou, maybe even relaxed in the knowledge that there are truck-size holes in his game.
But this is a dangerous calculation. When all is said and done Ngannou, financially at least, is now officially in super yacht land and fully expected to make Forbes’ list of the wealthiest athletes in the world this year, he also could honestly make the claim that it wasn’t cash, or desire for cash, that drove him. It was a desire for a certain kind of greatness that cash won’t cure.
It’s a product of facing fear, and failure, straight on. Not to avoid it, or get beyond it but to make fear his handmaiden, bent to service a continued existence on this graying granite planet we call home. It’s a noble calling.
So no need to check twice to see if there’s a bear in the cave. No need, you see. But more…a desire. And desire is a bitch. And probably the greatest one there is.
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