(Bored by a defensive victory)
I'm with CS on the Mayweather / McGregor travesty. And yes, travesty is the right word to use. I'd rather see two trannies fight over a slice of bologna than this hideousness, but what is a boxing fan to do? One must always verify that the champ is the champ. Sure, Mayweather might not be my champ of choice, but he's still the champ.
I hear a few white guys prattling on about how Mayweather would never win in a street fight.
Sure.
None of them have quite done the math yet: street fighters don't get paid ~$100 million. If Mayweather were to ever win in a street fight then they'd just call him a thug. It's the new term that means something close to thugger, but the white guys who use it regularly are all too afraid to admit that. They know they'd get their little lily white asses kicked, possibly by a white guy, for saying such a thing. But it's what they all mean. Its usage is always contextual.
They desperately need McGregor to not get knocked out in the first three rounds. Anything beyond that will be touted as an unequivocal victory. They are all rubbing their rosaries for that McMiracle punch.
I think that's what I like most about this fight - the boxing ring is a safe space for racism. Why go marching in boring street rallies that might as well be craft fairs for whiteness when you can just sit back and talk about how a white man would simply kill a black man if there weren't all the silly rules of boxing in place to stop him. White people have been waiting for this moment since the Larry Holmes - Gerry Cooney fight in '82. They seem to need this. Just look at the big money they're putting on McGregor, counting on that one punch that would somehow re-dignify white people everywhere whether they like it or not.
If you want to know how Trump won then look no further for evidence as to exactly why that was. Don King could have told you Trump was going to win, and why, and I think he did. Trump would beat Mayweather in an open Irish election, also. Gamblers understand these things almost as well as promoters do. Voters prefer the disappointing confusion of certainties to the kind of speculation that these topsy-turvy times call for. White people are angry about any black fighter that uses defense so effectively. It goes against everything they wish to believe about how victory functions, and what should get you there. They simply hate it when I point out that Mayweather has more KOs, and in a sport that makes them more difficult to come by.
I have my own reasons for wanting to see Mayweather win, based on an entirely different form of personal bigotry. He's an old man now (40), like me, McGregor is not (29). So, I engage heavily in age discrimination when it is appropriate to do so, or when I forget not to, or after a nap. It's one of the things that people let you get away with when you're almost 50. Like farting unexpectedly at the mall food court - adults pretend not to have noticed but the kids simply love it. An old man farting at the mall, what could possibly be better than that? If he doesn't notice he did it, then yes, it's even funnier. Old people, where did they come from?
I will need to find a place to see the fight now, possibly at a casino over in Petaluma. I'll need to get there early and drink a lot. The last time I was there I referred to a fighter as "the black guy" and it caused quite a kerfuffle among the kids sitting near me. They asked me why I thought it was okay to say such a thing. I pointed out that the fighter was not American, so African-American would not have made sense and neither would African, but that didn't help anything. I was the old white guy popping off at the bar about "the negro fighting style," just because I referred to him as "the black guy" and the other guy as "the white guy." I had to resort to their short's colors to avoid further controversy.
That's not mauve, you cracker, that's purple!
None of my black friends have taken offense at the use of the black guy phrase, at least that I know of. That's because they can tell the difference between what is racial with what is racist. They have spent their lives feeling and living those differences, navigating the distinctions, suffering the attempts to blur them. But fuck... you get a bunch of white kids together and they will not hesitate to let you know that such a term deeply offends them. Suddenly they were all little versions of Eminem - experts on racism, rage, and righteousness.
In the car ride on the way home from the casino my buddy, an American of Mexican descent, said, Yeah, it's not really a phrase you hear people say any more.
So what, I'm old, I said.
I'll be wowing the kids tonight about my travels to the Orient where I met some wonderful Indians from India! I'll make sure to praise McGregor's fighting style, too.
Oh, he's very literate, so well spoken.
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