It pays to keep it short and simple these days. In fact, it’s for the best. Go long and you run the risk of boring them. Losing them. The audience, I mean. Get too crazy or convoluted and you just confuse. So, try to keep it short. That’s the way to go. It is precious, time. People hate wasting it. They hate you wasting it. They also struggle to focus, concentrate. Subtlety hurts, it seems. Better to hit them hard and fast instead. Give it to them straight, like Grok. That’s why so many love AI, apparently. It does what’s needed and nothing more. It strips away the nuance. The insight. The thought process. The point. It keeps things snappy, in and out. They get what they want from it, then move on. There are other tabs, after all. Other videos. Stuff to click. You get their attention for only so long. If you lose it, they will let you know. It is your fault, not theirs.
Variety. It used to be the spice of life. You could enjoy both – the long and the short. In cinema, for every Gone With the Wind and Lawrence of Arabia, there was a Paths of Glory or Rashomon. In literature, for every Infinite Jest and Gravity’s Rainbow, there was an Animal Farm or The Stranger. But will such variety even be a thing in the future? Will we even be able to comprehend something of length? Will a video clip or synopsis suffice?
In boxing, the preference is now clear. We don’t want “Tom & Jerry fights” and we don’t want long and boring ones, either. They can be long, that’s fine, but only if they are good. We can tolerate brain-damage long. What we can’t tolerate is arthouse long. We can’t have something that asks us to concentrate. Or think.
Indeed, brevity opens doors. It opens doors for pretenders who want to box. It gives them a way in and a chance to sample the sport without dedicating themselves to it. It’s why you see so many exhibitions. It’s why something like Misfits exists. Supply and demand, that’s all. They saw an opening and took it. They noticed 12-rounders were too much for today’s 12-year-olds, so indulged them rather than taught them. They TikTokified the sport.
That’s their prerogative. Their business. Just know that a three-round pillow fight is not the same as Hagler-Hearns. Also, if ever you want a quick fix, remember to look back in time. There are countless short fights to scratch that itch. Proper fights as well. Fights between actual boxers. Fights nobody expected to end early.
One of the most fun one-rounders to watch is the second meeting between Gerald McClellan and Julian Jackson from 1994. That night, with the WBC middleweight title at stake, McClellan finished Jackson in the opening round, but it could have been either of them on the receiving end. Both hit so hard the fight was destined to be quick. McClellan just got there first. He was that bit quicker, you see.
Some boxers are lucky enough to win their first world title in the first round. Michael Bentt, for example, won his WBO heavyweight title in the first three minutes against Tommy Morrison in 1993. In fact, that first-round win against Morrison arrived four-and-a-half years after Bentt had lost his first pro fight in round one, making it rather poetic.
“I’d won 10 in a row since losing my pro debut, but I was viewed as a tune-up opponent for Morrison, who was supposed to be fighting Lennox Lewis later in the year,” Bentt recalled. “I got a strong sense that I was an afterthought, but I was zoned in for the fight, physically and mentally, and it showed on the night. The referee could’ve stopped it after I knocked him down the first time. When he got up, his eyes were totally glazed over. Two more knockdowns later, it was all over in the first round.”
Someone else who won their first world title inside the first round was Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini. He landed the WBA lightweight title against Arturo Frias in 1982, a year after falling short against Alexis Argüello. In ’81, Mancini had been dragged into round 14 by Argüello before his dream was crushed. Yet Frias, by checking out early, helped Mancini to reignite that dream in under three minutes.
“It’s got to be up there [as a favourite moment],” said Ray. “Not only was it a one-round fight, it was a title fight, and not too many world titles are won in the first round. I’m flattered when people say it was the best one-round fight in history. I’m just so honoured by that.”
After that, everything happened at a pace for Mancini. He was world champion at 21 and married by 23. It was now all about speed; getting things done. He retired for the first time at 24. He was then properly finished at 31.
“When winning the title, you have to change, you have to grow, you have to expand your horizons,” he said. “Emotionally, spiritually and mentally, I changed a lot. There’s so much more you have to handle; so much more on your plate. I like to think I did a good job. I tell people, ‘I’m sure I acted like a jerkoff many times, but I hope I wasn’t too embarrassing’. I don’t think I ever did anything to embarrass my family or my friends. I’m sure I embarrassed myself on many occasions, but that’s okay.”
There are plenty of other examples of fighters who burned out quickly. There are just as many examples of shocking first-round knockouts and short fights which left us all wanting more. But as this column now rapidly approaches one thousand words, it is perhaps wise to exit and leave the reader wanting more. One would hate to either bore or belabour a point.