The noble art’s comeback

The seminal moment came after two minutes and 55 seconds of the fourth round when ‘Enry’s Hammer landed flush on the jaw of Cassius Clay, felling him to the canvas as if he has been shot. The bell sounded moments later leading to controversy as Clay’s trainer, Angelo Dundee, (illegally) helped Clay back to his corner and reportedly revived him with smelling salts.

This fight between Henry Cooper and Cassius Clay in front of 35,000 fans at Wembley Stadium on June 18, 1963, is catalogued as a classic and catapulted Clay, who later returned to Highbury to repeat his victory as Muhammed Ali, into the public consciousness.

Clay famously later joked that Cooper’s punch had ‘hit him so hard that his ancestors in Africa felt it’.

Last Saturday’s bout between Anthony Joshua and Vladimir Klitschko is already being revered along similar lines to this earlier Wembley Classic while some have suggested that the fight should be used as the script for the next Rocky movie.

Plato wrote about boxing in The Republic and Homer in The Iliad although it was not until 12 rules were drawn up under the guidance of Scottish nobleman John Sholto Douglas, the 9th Marquess of Queensbury, that the sport also became known as a noble art. 

The philosophy behind boxing is that ‘no person is to hit his adversary when he is down’ while also forbidding ‘hugging and wrestling’ (being submissive and a restriction of freedom). Perhaps the greatest known exponent was ‘Gentleman’ Jim Corbett.

These rules of engagement, best expressed in boxing, were quickly adopted in everyday life; work, business, politics, leading to common phrases such as ‘low blows, sucker punches and cheap shots’ being used outside the ring.

There is a belief that boxing in its purest form sits at the heart of our cultural life and explains why the square ring has inspired generations of writers and artists ranging from TS Eliot to Picasso.  Even boxers have turned artistic with their descriptions of the sport with Ali himself once stating: ‘when you chase that beautiful lady you put the cologne on your face and for a little while nothing-else matters. Then it is over, one way or the other, and you wonder why you got so excited. It’s the same when two guys get into the ring; whatever else is happening in the world, you want to know the answer to just one question: who’s gonna win, who’s gonna win? Fighting will always have that because, you know, it is just so basic’.

There is a belief that these days boxing appeals to the ‘need it now’ dimension of modern day society, in that no fight can be too short – if a fighter knocks out his opponent as quickly as possible then it would be money well spent. That is not always the case as Mike Tyson found to his detriment when he defeated Lou Savarese after just 38 seconds in Scotland to create uproar in the crowd.

In recent times boxers have taken to brawling and swearing in public in order to publicise their fights. Who can forget the villainy of David Haye and Tyson Fury before their own fights with Klitschko?

It was refreshing to witness two fighters return to the origins of the sport as the recently-deposed champion took on the young pretender. That this fight sold 90,000 seats and was one of the top-three selling fights on pay-per-view demonstrated that you don’t have to be bad to promote a fight.

That both had so much in common added to the intrigue. While both held Olympic gold, only Joshua (along with Joe Frazier) achieved a world title while still retaining their Olympic crown. Physically their statistics are similar so the difference was sold as age and experience against power.

Yet Klitschko weighed-in 5lbs lighter than in his last fight while Joshua was his heaviest ever – would he still have the athletic pedigree and fast feet that enabled him to run 100m in 11.6 seconds aged just 14?

The early rounds saw the fighters circling each other, seeking an opening yet without taking too many risks.

Klitschko’s movement and experience did appear to trouble Joshua early yet without pressing home any advantage he allowed the challenger to work his way into the fight.

Two right hooks in the fourth clearly shook Joshua and seemed to snap the Londoner into fighting mode, as evidenced early in the fifth when he floored the second-longest serving heavyweight champion in history.

However, the Ukrainian fought back, showing all his experience, to hurt Joshua in a round that many rank as the best boxing seen in a toe-to-toe slugfest where any one punch could have ended it.

The bombardment continued as the former champion landed a brutal right hook that left Joshua wobbling before a left put him on the canvas for the first time in his career. That he recovered answered questions as to the ‘quality of his chin’.

After surviving the 7th, or as he said to his cornerman, Rob McCracken: “I was taking a round off”, he entered the 8th for the first time in his career, with Klitschko controlling the pace of the fight, conserving energy when hindsight suggests he should have pressed home his advantage.

With the younger of the two Klitschko brothers hiding behind his jab, Joshua perhaps suspected that he needed to continue to extend his perfect record of knockouts and so started the 11th with a flurry of punches that led to two knockdowns before the referee intervened to bring a premature end to the fight.

The final blow laid into ruins any debate that two of the judges at that point had scored in favour of Joshua with many believing that the Ukrainian was ahead. By the end, while Joshua was the defending champion, it felt as though the title of the best heavyweight in the world (the Fury fight was an aberration) had been passed from the 1996 Olympic champion to the winner of gold in London in 2012.

There are suggestions of a re-match while Joshua has challenged the troubled Tyson Fury to what would surely be another sell-out at Wembley. After this fight you would expect Joshua to have learned more in 11 rounds with one of the greatest heavyweights of all time that he would from years in the gym. 

For now though, the unpretentious Joshua was probably heading back to sleep at his mum’s house in Golders Green!

In the aftermath Klitschko spoke in defeat about how two gentlemen fought each other while both exchanged platitudes with Joshua referring to his respect for a ‘role model in and out of the ring’.

Proof, if it were needed that, behind the violence of the blows, there is a poetic beauty to the sport. 

In cricket terms, this fight was the Test match comparison to T20 in which the drawn out ebbs and flows swing in favour of each competitor in turn appealing to the purist and drawing in new fans. 

Could a rematch possibly live up to the original and cement this fights place in the history books? I doubt it.