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The fight between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul in November will not be the last carnival fight in an endless season of boxing events.
Somewhere else in the boxing universe, Floyd Mayweather is polishing his tools for another lucrative skirmish that means absolutely nothing.
There is no immediate end to the freak fights and shows and the desire for just about anything under the very loose but lucrative umbrella of “fighting”; there are so many spin-offs of boxing and mixed martial arts that it is incredibly hard to keep up.
It should all come with a warning that health and safety and sanity are all at risk in these mad fights. Many years ago, Lucia Rijker, who was then the best female boxer in the world, had a kickboxing fight against a man from New Zealand called Somchai Jaidee and she got spectacularly knocked out. It was savage and shut down any talk of freak fights for a long, long time. There was no fun or thrills in that awful fight, and Rijker was simply and easily beaten by Jaidee, a decent but not spectacular Muay Thai fighter. It was a brave and bold move by Rijker – the final knockout was from a punch and not a kick.
The Rijker crossover fight should have sent a permanent and damning message but still, there are talks and stupid claims by boxers and promoters. Claressa Shields talked recently about boxing a man called Keith Thurman and insisted she would win with her greater skills. The pure stupidity went on for far too long; Thurman has lost just once in 32 fights as a professional and that was a tight decision to Manny Pacquiao five years ago; Thurman would have made the win by the Thai kickboxer over Rijker look restrained. Thankfully, the noise went away, as Thurman remained dignified under the insults thrown his way. The absurdity was that the story was not dismissed in an instant; Shields has stopped or knocked out just three of the 15 women she has beaten.
Rijker was different in so many ways and the female boxing business in the Nineties had far fewer opportunities; if Rijker was boxing now, she would be making a million dollars in every fight. Remember, Rijker was unbeaten in 17 fights, had knocked out 14 of her opponents as a boxer, and had never lost as a kickboxer before the lethal fight and sickening ending. Let Rijker’s unconscious body, cradled with care and clear distress in the arms of her coach at the end, be a stark warning of just how badly the freak fights can go wrong.
Tyson and Mayweather are now fixtures on the circuit and are not going away. Paul is the master of the circuit, a loser to Tommy Fury last year in Saudi Arabia, but a man with a lot of vision. Mayweather is just popping up whenever a fight looks both easy and financially sound. As I said, nobody in the freak-fight business is in a hurry to retire.
There is no danger of Tyson, Paul or Mayweather ever being in the type of fight that finished Rijker’s career; the Dutch woman took a real risk, the male boxers are just making money.
Tyson against Paul is in Texas in November, and Mayweather returns against an old rival, John Gotti III, in Mexico City on Saturday. Meanwhile, Rijker is still in a blissful retirement exile, content with knowing just how good she was.
