CARVILL’S NOTES: Trash Talk, a Circus Tent, and a Another Golden Generation?

As another boxing event degrades into a bitter slanging match, why don’t we all try and be nice to one another?

Richardson Hitchins (L) and George Kambosos Jr (R) exchange words atop the Empire State Building (Geoffrey Knott/Matchroom Boxing)

A word of warning: I tend to use stars (*) to replace profanity when I write. Some paragraphs of this particular column will, as a result, resemble the pages of an astronomy textbook.

Of all the gruesome, unnecessary things that happen when you spend your life writing and covering boxing – the late nights, bad arena food, the blood-infused sweat or spittle drop that occasionally flies out of the ring to land on your notes – perhaps the most-tiresome aspect of it all is the name-calling and trash-talking that seemingly precedes every major contest.

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Trash talking has been part of boxing for decades and when it is not exasperating, it can be genuinely hurtful. By 1975, four years into their rivalry, Muhammad Ali had broken the soul of Joe Frazier apart by calling him a ‘gorilla’ and an ‘Uncle Tom’. Frazier, for his part, never got past it.

It is apparently not enough that two men will fight; they should also, for the purposes of putting bums on seats or drawing eyeballs to a screen, hate each other.

I was reminded of that last week when reading about the pre-fight press conference (along with a pre-fight fight) between Richardson Hitchins and George Kambosos Jr.

The pair had been sparring verbally for some days. On top of the Empire State Building during a face off and a photo opportunity, Kambosos pointed at Hitchins and said, “Your breath stinks, bro. Your breath stinks. Your breath stinks.”

“I can’t talk with this guy. This guy’s breath stinks,” Kambosos said a few moments later. A few seconds after that, Kambosos pointed to his crotch and, referring to a proposed $50,000 bet, said, “You can shake on that, too.”

Hitchins was not one to be outdone. After stating that he had never been down in boxing, he said, “You ****ing pussy. You ****ing *****. I’m going to show that. I’m going to show you, *****.”

It was much the same last month when Darren Till called out Carl Froch following the former’s win over Darren Stewart.

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Responding to repeated barbs, Froch said of Till’s knockout by Masvidal: “He’s been absolutely ****ing ironed out by Jorge Masvidal with half a punch that’s clipped him on the chin.”

Froch went on, fantasising what would happen if the pair were to meet.

“It would be an absolute ****ing wipeout, game over,” he said. “The problem is for Darren Till is that I’ve been retired for eleven years. I’m not interested. I don’t want to fight any more. Don’t call my name out to give yourself credence. Listen, if the money was there and it was big enough, I’d certainly take a look at it. But for now, Darren, one—you’d get ****ing demolished, and two—there’s no real bunce in it. Just pipe down about the Cobra’s name.”

Till went on to offer his reply, also through Twitter.

He wrote, “Can’t wait to snap that fat big ****ing disgusting nose soon.”

It is now understood that fight terms for Froch-Till will soon be finalised, although they stipulate that any bout will take place behind the bins, but not the one by where the teachers’ room is. There will also be a rematch clause, but one that states that the loser gets to have his dad beat up the other one’s dad.

Fighters engage in trash talk because it is not rocket science that animosity sells fights. But it is also lazy to throw cheap venom at your opponent. Ultimately, it cheapens everybody.

But does it not get tiresome after a while? How much can the public be expected to believe that so many people hate each other so much?

That is the other thing that such talk is: cheap and unbelievable. Because what will happen is that the fighters will trash talk, the fight will take place, and afterwards they will stand next to each other, admit that each always admired the other, and that the bad blood was merely there to hype a fight. It will all be as tiresome and predictable as a Marvel movie.

So here is an idea – the next time a fight looms into action, the pleasantries should not be saved for after, but for before. The fighters should be nice to each other before the bell rings, talking about how much they respect the other’s skills and their will to win.

Then they should fight. And, only after that, should they then move to hate each other.

If it only does one thing, it will set up the rematch quite nicely.

And on that note:

• A few weekends ago, I was in Hamburg to commentate the European heavyweight championship between Labinot Xhoxhaj and Mourad Aliev. My commentary gigs are fun and I do it for my love of the sport, saying, “Hey, I’m just glad to be part of the circus.” Except that the match, which was shown on DAZN, was literally held within a circus tent. Next time, I’m going to wish I was part of a party on a beach somewhere, sipping a non-alcoholic cocktail.
• The UK boxer James Cook died recently, aged 66. By all accounts, he was not just a good fighter, but also the most decent of men. Cook, 25-10 (14), held the British and European super-middleweight titles in a career that went from 1982 to 1994. He defeated along the way the likes of Michael Watson, Errol Christie, and Mark Kaylor. He also took on Herol Graham and Graciano Rocchigiani. After his retirement from the ring, Cook turned his ship towards working with his local community in Hackney, London, and was eventually awarded an MBE in 2007 for these services. His memory, certainly, will be a blessing to all who knew him.
• As the current generation of heavyweight champions and contenders – Usyk, Fury, Dubois, Wilder, Whyte – gets older, the next few years will see more and more of them retire, with another generation – Dubois, Wardley, Itauma, Torres, Hrgovic, Kabayel – beginning to come through. Does this mean that we could end up with not one golden generation of heavyweights, but two successive ones? Interesting.

Senior writer/editor Pete Carvill is the author of Death of a Boxer (a Daily Mail and Irish Times ‘Sports Book of the Year’) and A Duel of Bulls: Hemingway and Welles in Love and War. He is also a frequent blow-by-blow commentator on DAZN for boxing from Germany.

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