Thursday, April 13, 2006 | 7:15 a.m.
Sure, it's a stretch, but forget for a moment all the ancillary nonsense that surrounds big-time boxing.
What makes boxing a great sport is that it showcases controlled violence - emphasis on "controlled."
So even though the object is to hit the other guy so hard that he loses consciousness, when it takes place in a strictly managed environment under a set of rational rules and regulations, a boxing match can be a sublime spectacle.
Without those rules and regulations, though, it would deteriorate into utter chaos, even barbarism.
All of which makes me think that regarding last Saturday night's melee during the 10th round of the Floyd Mayweather-Zab Judah fight, promoter Don King has presented (don't laugh, now) a cogent, logically coherent argument. (No, seriously.)
Because he's aligned with Judah, King is obviously biased. But just for the heck of it, I'll give the Donald the benefit of the doubt and take his words at face value.
King contends that by bolting into the ring and sparking the melee, Roger Mayweather, Floyd's uncle and trainer, violated one of boxing's golden rules - the one often referred to, in shorthand, as the "third man in" rule. It prevents anyone but the two combatants from coming anywhere near the ring while the fight is in progress.
In King's estimation, Roger Mayweather was a barbarian storming through the gates that separates sport from chaos, and referee Richard Steele should have used his power to award a victory by disqualification to Judah.
The Nevada State Athletic Commission is scheduled to address the issue today, and for better or worse, I'll take an interest in its ruling.
You see, even though I don't consider myself a masochist in any traditional sense of the word, I have been an aficionado of boxing for my entire adult life.
Yet whenever I tell people I follow boxing, I feel like the character created by John Lennon in "Watching the Wheels," because they look at me kind of strange.
And unless they're already a fellow traveler in the insular orbit of boxing, their look grows even stranger when I tell them I care deeply about the sport's colorful history; that I buy tickets and pay-per-view broadcasts of matches I'm not covering as a sports writer ; that I've invested at the betting windows on fights in which I have an opinion, matching wits against oddsmakers and fellow gamblers.
Largely because of the damage it has repeatedly inflicted upon itself over the years, even among avid sports fans, boxing seems to exist in an unsavory ghetto - and Saturday night's disgraceful incident won't do anything to help the cause. It was yet another good fight marred, and overshadowed, by a hateful controversy.
Judah, well on his way to losing a unanimous decision, set the stage by winding up and delivering a vicious low blow to Mayweather, and followed by punching Mayweather in the back of his head.
After Roger Mayweather, enraged by the low blow and the rabbit punch, entered the ring, members of Judah's camp - including Yoel Judah, Zab's father and trainer - also charged through the ropes, and an all-out brawl ensued.
While Roger Mayweather was not the only villain in this Dantean diorama, I agree with King in that boxing is doomed to degenerate into pure chaos if its rules - third man in, in this case - are disregarded.
I'm not swayed by the argument that Steele had called time out after the low blow, and so Roger Mayweather was justified in storming the ring. Guess what? Time in or time out, Roger Mayweather was coming into the ring. He had "lost his mind," as Marc Ratner, executive director of the athletic commission, put it.
Nor do I give any credence to the argument that Judah should have been disqualified for the low blow-cum-rabbit punch. I do think it was intentional, born of frustration, but we'll never know. (Judah later offered an apology, and Mayweather accepted.) Even if it was deliberate, the appropriate penalty would have been to deduct a point or two from Judah's score.
Nor do I subscribe to the theory that the referee and the commission should be praised for allowing the fight to resume so as to avert a riot in the arena. To me, that comes dangerously close to endorsing mob rule, which of course runs counter to the advancement of a civilized society.
I suppose the commission will levy a fine and a suspension on Roger Mayweather, and the matter will eventually blow over. Changing the ruling to a disqualification now wouldn't have much of an impact anyway. Any call for a rematch should be roundly ignored, as Judah was completely outclassed by Mayweather.
And what will the International Boxing Federation, the sanctioning body for this title fight, do? Who cares? It's beyond irrelevant. Remember, in a nearly implausible turn of events, Judah somehow kept the IBF welterweight belt even after losing his previous welterweight fight to an upstart named Carlos Baldomir. (Don't ask. Please.)
Lennon said, "There's no problem, only solutions." It's the opposite here. There's no satisfactory resolution to this mess beyond the empty or the symbolic. A fine, a suspension, life goes on, see you at the fights.
Scan down to the bottom of a boxing betting sheet at any Las Vegas sports book and you'll see a series of arcane disclaimers covering all sorts of eventualities - disqualifications, double DQs, no-contests, you name it. One sports book manager paraphrased it for me the other day: "Bet on boxing at your own risk."
Considering this brawl, this melee, this barbarism, this latest sickening embarrassment to the sport, perhaps that warning should be reworded to read, "Care about boxing at your own risk."
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