Leavander Johnson was the IBF lightweight champion on Saturday. Today he is dead. Boxing killed him. He lost a championship bout with Jesus Chavez, protesting the 11th-round stoppage by referee Tony Weeks. Johnson soon collapsed in his dressing room and underwent brain surgery. He never regained consciousness, but fought through his malady until his organs began shutting down on Thursday afternoon. He was 35, and the father of four children.

Johnson is the biggest name to die in the ring in my lifetime as a boxing fan. In addition to being a champion, Johnson sported a 34-5-2 record. Included in those 34 wins is a knockout of Sharmba Mitchell, a world-class fighter. Twenty-three years ago, Duk Koo Kim died after suffering a 14th-round knockout at the hands of Ray Mancini. Like the Johnson-Chavez fight, the Kim-Mancini contest was for the lightweight championship. Although other big-name fighters have killed other boxers--fellow Boxing Hall-of-Famer Barry McGuigan killed an opponent earlier in 1982--Mancini is generally the fighter that casual fans associate with ring deaths. The fallout from Duk Koo Kim's death was enormous. Technical Knockouts (TKOs) come quicker, fight doctors are more apt to stop fights, pre- and post-fight medical evaluations are now quite rigorous, and, most importantly, Kim's death led directly to the abolition of the 15-round fight. What came as a blessing for fighters came as a curse for fight fans.

There are no pinch hitters, timeouts, or substitutions in boxing. There is no halftime. In the last decade, more than 75 boxers have died as a result of injuries suffered in the ring. Most of the fallen come from the lighter weight classes, where the action is non-stop.

It's called the fight game, but boxing is no game. When we think heroism in sport, we think of Willis Reed limping onto the court from Madison Square Garden's tunnel, Curt Schilling's bloody-sock win over the Yankees, or Jack Youngblood playing in the Super Bowl with a broken leg. These performances qualify as heroic, but do they belong in the same sentence as Muhammed Ali ready to answer the bell for the 14th round in Manilla, Diego Corrales's twice-up-from-the-canvas TKO of Luis Castillo, or the Mickey Ward-Arturo Gatti trilogy? The question answers itself, but in case it doesn't for you: they don't. Unfortunately, what makes boxing barbaric also makes it the greatest of all sports. At its height, boxing is better than the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby, and the World Series rolled into one. At its depths, and Leavander Johnson's death qualifies, boxing is more horrendous than all other sports combined.

Duk Koo Kim wrote "kill or be killed" on his hotel-room mirror prior to his fatal bout with Ray Mancini. The day before Johnson lost his title to Chavez, he told a reporter: "they would have to kill me before I lost it." Athletes often speak in such terms. When boxers do, they tell the truth.

nice passage daniel! never knew kim had that written on his hotel room mirror? I was reading about the Johnson fight just last night. The worse of it all is the guy walked on his own power(most of the way) to the dressing room.

It's funny because most of the time I agree with Mr. Flynn. The reason it's funny is because the times I post are the few times that I don't agree.

What is there to disagree with in Mr. Flynn's post on boxing? There are no heros in sports.

Sports, regardless of the grueling nature of said sports, are, by definition, games. In a historical context, sporting events were devised to train prospective warriors to be warriors. So, in one sense you could say that some of the more base sporting events evoke the warrior spirit.

But "heros" in sports don't perform for any higher calling than their own gratification, aggrandizement and material gain. They fight for fame, they fight for profit and they fite for ego. They don't fight for the betterment of mankind or for the greater good or for a cause greater than themselves for which they are willing to risk their lives.

The very nature of the fact that the rare deaths as a result of sporting enterprises are so lamented and well documented belies the status of sports as a heroic endeavor.

How many Police Officers have died in the past 20 years in the pursuit of protecting their fellow citizens from criminals? How many military members have died in the past 20 years in the endeavor (right, or wrong) of ensuring the national security of their country? How many Nurses and Doctors have risked contracting deadly diseases in the treatment of patients? How many Firemen have died rescuing people from fires that they themselves may have caused? I could go on and on.

Sure, they are abstractly referred to as heros. But how many of their names do you know? How many of them has Mr. Flynn written specific columns about?

Don't tell me about "heros" who help no one but themselves. Don't get me wrong...I'm not saying that atheletes don't deserve what they are paid. In a free market, people are paid what the market can support and I will never argue that professional atheletes are the best at what they do. But don't sully the memory of the true heros that have risked and/or suffered great losses up to and including death in the pursuit of goals that they deemed to be more important than their own lives. Don't confuse people who are tough, strong and determined for thier own personal gain with people who exhibit those same charactaristics for the gain of others or for society as a whole.

Hero is a pretty strong term. Let's reserve it for those that deserve it.

Sorry about the typographical and grammatical errors. It's Friday night and I've had a couple too many. I hope my point was clear even if my command of the language was somewhat lacking.

Curtis

Curtis, prior to the release of my books, I wrote a fortysomething-page booklet called "Cop Killer: How Mumia Abu-Jamal Conned Millions INto Believing He Was Framed." Central to this booklet, and the dozens of lectures I made on the subject, was the defense of the fallen officer, Danniel Faulkner, from the smears of Mumia Abu Jamal's followers. In the process of doing this, I was physically attacked, threatened, shouted down, had my booklets burned, had water dumped on me, among other indignities.

Your rhetorical question, "How many of them [policemen, firemen, members of the armed forces] has Mr. Flynn written specific columns about?," reflects your own ignorance of my history. Not only were many of the readers of this site introduced to me through my work on the Faulkner case, but I served in the Marine Reserves for eight years so I find your suggestion that I somehow don't honor military men and women quite comical.

I was also pretty careful to use the phrase "heroism in sport," which I think you'd agree is a bit different from outright saying: Jack Youngblood or Muhammed Ali is a "hero," something that I do nowhere in the post, but you imagine me doing throughout.

You are correct in your assumption that I am not fully aware of your history.

I laud your service, I did 21 years myself. And your point is? Does your service exempt you from criticism?

You can find it as comical as you like. The fact that you would characterize ANY act in a sporting event as "heroic" when professional sports, by nature, are nothing more than entertainment and the participants are doing nothing more than seeking to further their own fame and fortune is decidedly NOT comical. It is insulting to those true heros who sacrifice not for their own profit, but for their fellow man.

You mention the 75 boxers who have died in the ring in the last decade in search of fame and fortune. You even link to a site that lists them by name. Almost 400 Police Officers and Firemen died on 9/11/01 alone. Not to mention the thousands of others who have died in the last decade. How many of them did so in search of fame and fortune?

I really have no problem with your posting and typically would have paid little attention to it considering that I am not a boxing fan. If it weren't for those two fateful statements...one of which you mentioned in your reply...I would never have even considered commenting. You mention several outstanding performances by sports figures and then opine: "These performances qualify as heroic". No. This performance qualifies as heroic.

Curtis, you don't laud my service. You suggest in your post that I somehow "sully the memory of the true heros"--some of these true heroes I served with. Their level of heroism is on another, higher plane, but there is nothing wrong with speaking of "heroism in sport"--and modifying as such, i.e., "in sport"--particularly when some of the people I'm discussing died in pursuit of their profession. Note again that I didn't call anyone a hero--as you inaccurately suggested in your original comment, and upon which your whole faulty argument rests--but spoke of "heroism in sport."

I think you miss the point of sports if you think it's all about "personal gain." Sorry that you got picked last in gym class.

Granted, you didn't specifically call anyone a hero. You just mentioned their acts and described them as heroic.

"When we think heroism in sport, we think of Willis Reed limping onto the court from Madison Square Garden's tunnel, Curt Schilling's bloody-sock win over the Yankees, or Jack Youngblood playing in the Super Bowl with a broken leg. These performances qualify as heroic,"

But, you insist that you DIDN'T intend to portray those atheletes as heros and I'll accept that. Perhaps I just misunderstood your point.

Again, does having served in the military exempt you from criticism? No. Contrary to your contention, I CAN admire and respect your sacrifice and service to our country...especially since I know exactly what that sacrifice entails...while still being critical of your comments.

I demonstrate my respect for you, even though I adamantly disagree with you (or, more accurately, I adamantly disagree with what I THOUGHT you were trying to say), by keeping my posts
professional and refusing to degenerate into personal insults or sarcasm. This is a trait which, sadly, you fail to demonstrate.

In my opinion, it is very possible to disagree with someone adamantly and still respect them and be respectful of them. It seems that we differ on that issue as well. You seem to feel that my disagreement with your comments constitute a personal attack and warrant childish and sarcastic insults in response.

"To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves."
-- Will Durant

I don't miss the point in sports. Sports are very important in the development of children (which is why I coached little league baseball and softball for over ten years) but most children eventually grow up and move on to other endeavors in life.

Professional sporting events are nothing more than entertainment. You may argue that entertainment provides a valuable service to society, but I would argue that we place way too much emphasis in our society on being entertained rather than actually participating in it. I enjoy sports...I am an avid NFL fan...but I believe it is healthy to keep it in perspective. I do not idolize sports figures. I respect them because they are VERY good at what they do...but so am I. Heck, so are you. I may not be able to throw a 75 yard touchdown pass, but I doubt that many NFL stars could do my job as well as I do either.

And my point isn't that they make too much money. People are paid what the market will support, that's how the free market works.

My point is that they are not heros for sacrificing and "toughing it out" in search of some meaningless trophy or championship ring or belt or any of the other trappings of success in sport. They are doing it for themselves. Whether it's for the money, for the fame, or just for the ego-boost of being able to say "I'm the greatest" they are doing what they do for themselves. That is NOT heroic.

That's my point. Since you adamantly insist that you did NOT call any sports figures heros, I will assume that you agree.

From reading the above exchange I would say that Curtis's point includes an unspoken, to this point, assertion that Dan's "heroism in sport" formulation is fallacious because it implies that there is heroism in sports. He argues there is no heroism in sports, and his points are valid. You can argue the semantics of popular usage, but his point that popular usage is inappropriate is persuasive.