Boxing's bloody image

Arizona Summer Wildcat

Or maybe it's because I watched a man struggle to stay conscious as he fell into the ring's ropes, fearing the next vicious punch.

Perhaps it's because I witnessed as thousands of people downed cup after cup of Bud Light (the evening's draft beer selection), spilling it on one another and allowing a stream to escape from their mouths as they ogled the bikini-clad ring girls.

Whatever the reason, I refuse to ever attend another live boxing match.

Sitting two rows back from the ring at the Tucson Convention Center Friday night, I saw it all. I touched the cheap white mat that covered the ring's surface. I admired the title belt that looked like it was removed two hours before from a downtown trash can.

The ring announcer was also an enigma. At one point, I found myself praying that he wouldn't try to improvise any more of his lines or attempt to be funny. When he couldn't pronounce 'Nogales,' it was the last straw.

I watched as so-called boxing officials walked around in their cheap brown suits like chickens without heads, trying to determine why the matches started a half-hour late.

Driving the final nail in the coffin, I saw Ruben Castillo, a man who I watched analyze boxing on cable television from the Forum in Los Angeles, lowering himself to organizing fights at the TCC.

He ran around schmoozing like a public relations executive, shaking hands with the elderly and kissing babies, all the while donning a cheap tuxedo that made it hard to recognize the face I knew so well as a child.

It was all so damned cheap.

Then I looked around at my peers in the audience, wondering which of them would be arrested for fighting or kicked out for vomiting on the person next to them.

Granted, it's a boxing match. I didn't expect men in suits and women in evening gowns.

I guess I just can't accept the disease that plagues boxing today, and the WWF-style antics that have monopolized the sport and spread to its followers.

Boxing, as a sport, has undergone some significant and detrimental changes since I was little. Since my father is a boxing aficionado, I got the chance to see Mike Tyson's pre-cannibalistic matches and interviews with Muhammad Ali before his brain was completely scrambled.

But my dad and I never went to a live fight. The closest we came was a big-screen TV for the Tyson-Holyfield insanity, so I figured I might as well check out the offerings at the TCC.

Big mistake.

I was expecting the old days of boxing -‡the era before fighters would slap each other during press conferences as a show for the public.

There was a time before Pay-Per-View, when people didn't have to pay $59.95 for three hours of boxing.

And there was even a time before Don King, when fighters knew their paycheck bought clothes for their children and put food on the table.

Now, the paychecks buy an eight-ball of cocaine and a second Ferrari.

I used to defend boxing. While I knew the sport itself was barbaric, I never understood the intricate details.

Maybe I'm wiser now. Perhaps more bitter.

In reality, I think I'm just tired of watching society decline to the point that it craves bloodshed.

Most likely, I just miss sitting on my couch at home, listening to my dad analyze boxing and my mom predict the next winner.

Back then, I didn't know anything about boxing's inner-workings.

Ignorance truly is bliss.