By Jason Hirthler: There’s a fascinating phrase in boxing that you’ll sometimes hear a livid cornerman growl into the punched-up mug of his fighter: “Let your hands go!” What it means, best as I can surmise, is to get out of your head, quit being so cautious, and throw your fists spontaneously and freely. It’s a phrase that applies to many disciplines, not just the pugilistic profession. The Zen-influenced sport of Japanese sword fighting, or bushido, was said to frequently express the superiority of spiritual mastery over technical mastery when unlettered monks defeated trained masters of the sport. The monks, masters of meditation, were able set their thoughts aside and just do it. Author Eugen Heregal, in his study of Japanese archery, wrote that the achievement of mastery only came when the archer no longer felt nervous, and was able to unselfconsciously raise the bow, release the string, and shoot the arrow. Chuang Tzu, the great Taoist sage, explained it thus:
“When the archer shoots for nothing, he has all his skill. When he shoots for a brass buckle, he is already nervous. When he shoots for a prize of gold, he goes blind, sees two targets. His skill has not changed, but the prize divides him. He thinks more of winning than shooting, and the need to win drains him of power.”
In a western sense, this is very likely what trainers mean when they tell their fighters, “Let your hands go.” Fight fearlessly, artlessly, unselfconsciously, and freely. Without question this is the challenge faced by Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin when they meet again on September 15th for the Middleweight World Championship. After having fought well but cautiously last September, they were rewarded with a . Nobody, not least the fighters, want to see another.
The Fight That Was
It was to be the fight of the year, that rare collision of great boxers, both high on the pound-for-pound list of the sport’s greatest fighters. It was no doubt an exciting fight to watch. And yet, as good as it was, were Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin both a little gun shy? Each facing perhaps the best opponent of their lives, did they take too much care in unfurling the full arsenal of their talents? Did they fear a bit too much a career-defining loss? Many observers noted that the bout seemed to contain more scenes of Canelo slipping punches and sliding across the ropes away from them than it did of Canelo throwing his trademark counters and whistling crosses. The same went for Golovkin, once the most feared man in the sport, a devastatingly efficient force of nature who had recently recorded 23 straight KOs, at one point having cold-clocked 34 of his 36 opponents. Yet against Canelo, despite his persistent forward motion, Golovkin seemed to spend more time searching and stalking than throwing. Waiting for the perfect moment to unleash the perfect punch. The two boxers can hardly be blamed for not throwing caution to the wind. There was a great deal at stake. And, like Chuang Tzu described, the more that’s on the line, the more nervous the athlete becomes.
The result, to the frustration of millions, let alone the two participants, was a split-decision draw. Judge Adelaide Byrd turned in the most egregious scorecard, 118-110, in favor of Alvarez. Dave Moretti scored it 115-113 for Golovkin and Don Trella had it 114-114. Only Byrd’s ruling defied credulity. Nearly no one thought Alvarez had been that dominant. Golovkin had thrown nearly twice as many jabs, some of them powerful shots. On the other hand, both fighters were fairly even in so-called power punches. When queried about the bizarre scorecard, Nevada State Athletic Commission officials merely shrugged and limply replied that Byrd had “had a bad night.”
The Ties That Bind
A draw may be the one outcome in sports about which one cannot say, “Well, there are worse fates.” Clearly nothing is worse in boxing. In soccer draws are granted a point. In boxing draws simply mar one’s resume. That irritating extension of one’s record to three columns, where the sole aberration lives in a kind of infamy, a forever unresolved question at the heart of one’s history. Even a loss is better than a draw. For the loser, there is at least confirmation that he or she has been bested by a better boxer. At first a fighter may protest, but with the passage of time he or she will often come to accept the majority’s judgement. One’s loss will grow ever more sure-footed in the pages of history, imbued by that indelible sense of authority that the recorded past always seems to gather to itself. Life moves on, and if a fighter doesn’t, he will be at risk of losing his best years to bitter distraction, to a foolish unwillingness, perhaps, to let his past go. If just for this reason alone, most fighters will swallow the bitter pill of defeat and get on with it. Not so with a draw.
And that is the point of it: with a draw, nothing is resolved, and there is no judgment to accept, good or bad. It is as if a higher power pressed pause on one’s destiny. A draw is a lack of consensus, or a consensus that nothing is agreed upon. One may swear that you saw fighter A win while your best friend or your father may insist that fighter B won, and may add that you are certifiable for not recognizing something so obvious. Of course, watching the fight again will only further destabilize you. It will be a different fight on film. Aside from knockouts, they always are. The great boxing writer for The New Yorker, A.J. Liebling, once wrote that, “What you eventually think you remember about the fight will be an amalgam of what you thought you saw there, what you read in the papers you saw, and what you saw in the films.”
If it’s any consolation, there have been many miscarriages of sporting justice in our pugilistic past. Boxing decision-making, from a referee’s quick stoppage or fast count to a panel of judges that saw a completely different fight than the millions watching, is forever suspect. You may recall some of those great historic injustices:
. Vito Antuofermo vs. Marvin Hagler, 1979 at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada:
Antuofermo was the reigning middleweight champion, and the young Hagler simply dismantled him, using his head like a speed bag, beloved Vito’s sour mug swinging like a saloon door the entire night. As soon as the bell rang ending the 15th round, Hagler raised his arms in triumph, while Antuofermo shambled unsteadily back to his corner, sourly prepared to accept the loss of his belts. One judge, Dalby Shirley, inexplicably awarded the win to Antuofermo, while Hal Miller scored the fight a draw, almost as baffling as Shirley’s abject judgment. Only Duane Ford observed the Hagler win. Perhaps it was this split decision draw which carved a permanent scowl into Hagler’s soon-to-be-famous face. When they fought again some months later, Hagler had no intention of waiting for a decision, despite the bout taking place in his Boston backyard. The Marvelous one battered Antuofermo so thoroughly that the rough-and-tumble Italian stallion didn’t bother to come out for the fifth round, a tribute to the fierce hurricane of Hagler’s talent.
. Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Thomas Hearns, 1989 at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada: Nearly nine years after their epic bout in 1981, these two icons of the 1980s met again. Both fighters were universally agreed to be past their primes, but styles make fights, and Leonard and Hearns were a perfect match. Having lost their first fight by a 14th round TKO, Hearns was a man on a mission. And it showed. Twice he decked Leonard in the early and middle rounds. In the 12th and final round he nearly knocked Sugar Ray out again. Although Leonard rallied in that final round to stagger and nearly drop the “Hitman,” the fight ended with both men standing. It was a miracle Hearns was not floored by the announcement of the split decision draw. What was to be his crowning achievement in the ring, the final redemption of a remarkable career, wound up as another scorecard farce that dimmed the wattage of Hearns’ glory, but also that of boxing. Judge Dalby Shirley (remember him?) scored the fight 112-112, including a bizarre 10-8 round for Leonard in the 12th, though Hearns had not been knocked down. Apprised of the judgement, the crowd at Caesar’s angrily booed another ringside robbery.
. Pernell Whitaker vs. Julio Cesar Chavez, 1993 at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas: I paid to watch this bout in the back room of a bar on two giant screens nailed to the wall. Before the projections stood a couple hundred mostly male viewers, happily charging through uncounted kegs of swill, lustily cheering the action as Whitaker, a preternatural defensive genius in the middle of his meteoric rise, dominated a Mexican brawler who hadn’t lost once in 87 fights. That’s right, Chavez was 87 and oh. But Whitaker, to put it plainly, did a number on Chavez, relentlessly stinging the Mexican great with hard left hands and proving himself an exceptionally elusive target to hit. Yet the judges scored it a majority draw, leaving a capacity crowd astonished, and leaving Whitaker grimacing with disbelief. It seemed the entire boxing public was outraged. The ringside announcers and five major media outlets all scored the fight for Whitaker, and Sports Illustrated, the country’s top sports magazine, released its next issue with a cover photo of Whitaker snapping Chavez’s head back with an invisibly fast right hand. The headline read, “ROBBED!”
In retrospect, the possible causes for the loss were somewhat clear. The fight was staged at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, a major home-field advantage for Chavez. The judges were a mercurial lot that some say had been selected under pressure from Chavez’s notorious promoter Don King. As the fight began, fans wasted no time waving the red, white, and green of the Mexican flag around the arena and chanting their hero’s name. The table was thus set for Chavez to win a title in his fourth different division, a rarity in the sport. All of this may have been a psychological blow to lesser men, and the tricolor must have caught the corner of “Sweet Pea’s” eye as he was stalked by El León de Culiacán (“The Lion of Culiacan). But the chorus of Chavez backers could do nothing to derail Whitaker’s mounting mastery as the fight wore on—only the crown was not delivered when Whitaker dethroned their king.
Once More With Feeling
The great tragedy of that Whitaker versus Chavez bout was that those two polestars of the sport, then ranked one and two in the pound-for-pound list of boxing’s best, would never fight each other again. After all, the only remedy for a draw is to do it all over again. Stalemates, like ceasefires, must eventually be ended, either by peace or more war. In boxing, the resumption of hostilities between Sweet Pea and the “Caesar of Boxing” never happened, and it was everybody’s loss.
We, however, have been spared that fate. Come Mexican Independence Day, there are millions of boxing aficionados that will happily settle for a decision of any kind: unanimous, majority, split, technical, or just a plain old KO. Anything but a draw. It’s finally time for Canelo and Golovkin to meet again, to touch gloves, and to finally let their hands go. Neither will tempt the hand of fate a second time. Both seem more than up for the challenge. The intervening months between bouts has been marred by a drug suspension, a bitter renegotiation, and a fusillade of verbal salvos between the two camps. Alvarez told the assembled media, “I want this fight to end by knockout, and for them to raise my hand after that knockout victory.” For fight fans, the raised fist of either fighter will be an unqualified triumph. On that we can all agree.
Jason Hirthler is a writer and veteran of sports marketing. In recent years, he has led digital promotions of numerous boxing and mixed martial arts fights, including the landmark crossover bout between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor. He lives and works in New York City.