A Personal Anecdote: Going to the fights, as bad as it gets.
Milander Auditorium,
Hialeah, Florida circa 1987-1992
They used to stage small
fight cards at The Milander Auditorium, in beautiful Hialeah, Florida (read
sarcastically), some were, a great night of fights, and other nights were not, others were dogs.
My fight buddy Ruth and I were
regulars at the venue, always buying the $50 ringside seats. (We couldn't
afford to go ringside for the big fights, so we consoled ourselves by always sitting
ringside at the small cards.)
On one these nights, a kid climbs into the ring wearing gym shorts and
street sneakers. (I was at the time a local high school teacher and recognized
that the kid was wearing gym shorts from the local high school down the block, Carol
City High School.) From the waist up the kid looked pretty good, looked strong,
he certainly was some sort of an athlete, but those shorts and sneakers had the
crowd murmuring.
(I smiled to myself and
thought maybe the police will break in and start arresting people for staging
an illegal prize fight, but then I remembered I was in Hialeah, the police were
probably busy betting on the local cock fights; I am only half joking.)
When the bell rang to start
the fight, the other kid, (a real boxer, dressed like a real boxer) crossed the
ring ready to go, but the kid in the gym shorts immediately flung himself, face
first, on to the canvas. He threw himself down so hard that I twitched in my
seat, fearing the kid might have broken his forearms. Then the kid just laid
there and would not move; the other kid (the boxer) literally never threw a punch.
The referee came over and looked
down at the kid and said nothing, and then literally did nothing. The time-keeper,
the guy at ringside with the rubber mallet, he had started pounding the apron
for the count, but when the the referee waved him off he stopped pounding. The referee
did not pick up the count, nor start a new count, nor did he wave off the fight,
he just stood there looking down at the kid.
Everything and everybody just
froze. The kid’s corner (who, I was convinced, had no real relationship with
the kid) just sat there staring through the ropes, the kid, who was holding
himself up on his forearms, had a terrified look on his face, and was making it
clear that he was not getting up. The referee just continued to stare down at the kid refusing to take any kind of action.
This frozen scene went on
for some time. In a sport where a ten count can seem like a lifetime, watching
this scene, frozen in time, was so disconcerting that the crowd forgot to boo. We
all just sat there staring back at the ring; it was as if no one knew what to
do, the kid’s corner wasn't moving, the referee wasn't
moving, and the kid certainly wasn't moving. (We would find out later that the referee knew exactly what he was
doing.)
Finally after some ridiculous
amount of time the kid's corner finally entered the ring and pulled the kid
back to his feet, almost against his will. The referee walked away and started
talking to the commissioners and eventually the ring was cleared.
Before the next fight the
announcer offered the following explanation, (not for the kid, that needed no
explanation, but for the referee’s actions), the referee purposely did not count,
did not wave off the fight, nor disqualify the kid, because that would have
meant there would have had been a fight. The referee, by refusing to take any action at all, was
making sure, and the commissioners agreed, that as far as they were concerned there
never was a fight. Nobody won, nobody lost, there wouldn't even be a 'no decision' to enter into the record books, (for that would
have technically constituted a fight.) They wanted it to be as if it never happened.
But of course it did happen, right there in front of me it happened, and I had paid fifty bucks so I could see it (not) happen.
Then the announcer added that
the kid wouldn't get paid. That brought a splattering of applause from the
audience, I'm not really sure why; all I was thinking was, who cares if you pay
the kid or not, I don't hear anyone offering to give me back a piece of my fifty bucks.
