Boxing foibles

Professional boxing is a brutal sport, and it’s often hard to find the humor in it, what with grown men trying to beat each other into unconsciousness. But over the years, I’ve found a number of humorous situations that stand out in my memory, proof that, in every profession, you’ll find people who are definitely never going to be rocket scientists.

During one of our fight cards in Marikina, a pair of flyweights was going at it. One boxer walked right into an uppercut, knocking out one of his teeth. As he collapsed face first, his open mouth crashed into the knee of his opponent, knocking out two more, one of which landed right next to my microphone as I was covering the bout. After the match, the gallant loser, glassy-eyed and half-conscious, flashed the crowd with a big, toothless grin. Well, at least he was still in a good mood.

There once was a ring announcer who literally made my day. He’s the only coliseum announcer on record to have been ejected from a basketball game (Beat that!). Just imagine the havoc he wreaked on the squared circle.

Once, when we were taping our boxing program in a barangay gym in Makati, he ceremoniously stepped through the ropes to introduce the event. As the theme music filled the venue, he put the microphone to his lips, and in a deep baritone, proclaimed "Mabuhay, Pilipinas! Mabuhay, Barangay Olympia!" A terrific intro, no doubt. Unfortunately, we were in Barangay Palanan, and he had just insulted everyone in the gym.

On another occasion, we featured a lightweight bout involving Richard Santos, a polio victim who was trying to build a career as a boxer. Because of his shrunken leg, Santos packed most of his weight in his upper body, and therefore had quite a wallop. Midway through the first round, he caught his opponent with a flurry of punches, and promptly flattened him to enter the semifinals of our tournament.

Our skinny Mr. Ring Announcer pompously steps onto the canvas to make the announcement. With full fluorish, he declares "At one minute and twenty seconds in the first round, the winner, by knockout..." and he announces the loser’s name. Imagine the look on Santos’s face.

A few months before, we were taping another episode in another location in Makati, when he’s about to introduce another pair of lightweights. The boxer he is about to call on has his name (let’s say it’s Juan dela Cruz" emblazoned in six-inch letters on the front of his trunks. Our ring announcer goes: "In the red corner, weighing in at 125 pounds, with a record of 4 wins and 2 losses, fighting out of the so-and-so stable, Alex Escaner!"

Needless to say, there was pandemonium, as our director cut and — in front of a live audience, mind you — we had to do it over. Mr. Ring Announcer mumbles something to the effect that his cue cards were wrong, then proceeds with ""In the red corner, weighing in at 125 pounds, with a record of 4 wins and 2 losses, fighting out of the so-and-so stable, Alex Escaner!"

Oh, well. You can’t squeeze water from a rock, so they say.

In Tagaytay, we were taping three episodes, and the cool weather was a bit too relaxing. So Mr. Ring Announcer can’t be faulted for subconsciously wanting a thick overcoat in his next introduction. "In the blue corner, WEARING 120 pounds..." Funny, I didn’t notice if the boxer was sporting a suit of armor.

And there’s more. Proving there is justice in the world, we ventured to an aircraft hangar in Clark Field, Pampanga, and our suave ring announcer was busy making goo-goo eyes at the nubile young round girls at ringside. He was standing right under the red corner during a particularly nasty bout. As one boxer was leaving his corner for round number 2, he took a big swig of water, gargled, and carelessly aimed at the spittoon in his corner.

He missed, showering our main character with a foul-smelling torrent. Needless to say, no ringside romances were born that day.

There once was an over-eager bantamweight who wanted to make a statement in his very first outing. So he charged at his opponent, blindly charging him into the corner. He threw a vicious left. His opponent ducked. The punch landed into the corner pad, bounced back, and knocked the fellow silly. It goes without saying that he eventually quit boxing altogether, before he did any serious damage to himself.

Then there was that prolonged card we did at a bayside community in Parañaque. One set of boxers all came from one stable, and were conspicuously hidden in the dressing room instead of staying at ringside to shout support to their teammates. And, after each fight, it seemed to take forever for them to send out their next boxer, who would inevitably come out walking as if he had ants in his shorts. Since they were consistently holding up the taping, we sent someone over to find out what the problem was.

They had only brought one protective cup, and had to wait for each boxer to finish before passing it on to the next. Now that’s teamwork!

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I’d like to thank all of those frantic televiewers who called before the broadcast of last Saturday’s episode of The Basketball Show over IBC-13. The program immediately before us went overtime, and though there was no cause for alarm, the concern you showed was touching. Thank you once again.