Barry Graham: Illusory Flowers in an Empty Sky

Mallory Rogers - Boxer and Beauty Queen

The other day, a friend told me about Mallory Rogers - a boxer and beauty pageant winner who teaches yoga to recovering drug addicts.

I just watched her first fight. She’s a good pressure-fighter, and, unlike most novices (and quite a few veteran fighters), she understands the importance of body-punching, and she knows how to do it.

Prediction for Pacquiao-Bradley Tonight

EDITED TO ADD: Pacman lost by split decision, in one of the worst robberies I’ve ever seen. Bradley might as well not have shown up for the fight. I tweeted as I watched.

Manny Pacquiao has shown poor form recently. I think he was lucky to get the decision over Juan Manuel Marquez in his most recent fight. For tonight’s fight with Tim Bradley, he’s the heaviest he’s ever been, and looks soft, while Bradley looks like he’s in great shape. Bradley is young and fast, and I think it’s possible that he’ll beat Pacquiao on points.

Prediction for Tonight’s Mayweather-Cotto Fight: a One-Sided Mismatch

Miguel Cotto doesn’t have a chance of beating Floyd Mayweather. Whatever happens, this fight will be one-sided. Depending on how much ability to absorb punishment Cotto has left, he may take a sustained beating, as he did against Pacquiao. That fight ought to have been stopped five rounds earlier than it was, and Cotto was so battered I thought his career was over.

He seems to have recovered somewhat, but tonight’s fight looks like a bad mismatch. I think the best he can hope for is to be outboxed by Mayweather, but it’s also possible that Mayweather will knock him out or force the referee to stop it early on.

I would like to be wrong about this, but I’m not.

Charlie Stella Reviews The Champion’s New Clothes

Charlie Stella, author of Johhny Porno, one of my favorite novels, just posted a review of The Champion’s New Clothes, my second novel, which was published back in 1991 (I wrote it in 1989), and is once again available.

He writes:

Barry Graham’s The Champion’s New Clothes is a wonderful novel set around the dark, dangerous and always intriguing world of professional boxing (the Scottish version)… a modern day verismo opera; relationships requiring the kinds of sacrifice it takes to be a champion without knowing what the belt might bring. A surprising, unsettling open ending that offers no fairytale of a future.

Click here to read the rest.

Pacquiao Coasts, Still Beats Mosley

My prediction about Pacquiao giving Mosley his first knockout defeat was wrong. Mosley took a nasty beating, but he was on his feet at the end of it.

Everything else I predicted turned out right - Mosley was helpless against Pacquiao. He tried, but he just doesn’t have anything left.

It was a dull fight, with Pacquiao content to outscore Mosley. There was a lot of gentlemanly tapping of gloves throughout, and a lot of booing from the spectators.

Prediction: Pacquiao Will Give Mosley His First Loss by Knockout

I’ve been asked whether I think Shane Mosley has any chance of beating Manny Pacquiao tomorrow. I think the best Mosley can hope for is to not get badly hurt.

At 33, Pacquiao is not young for a fighter. But Mosley is 39.

Mosley is bigger than Pacquiao, but so is Miguel Cotto, and that didn’t stop Pacquiao from giving him a beating that was painful to watch.

Pacquiao has a lot of distractions in his life, including his political career in the Philippines, but, in his most recent fight, that didn’t stop him from stepping up to light-middleweight and beating the bigger and heavier Antonio Margarito so badly that he needed surgery on an eye socket. That fight should not have been allowed to go the distance, and in the late rounds Pacquiao was so concerned about Margarito that he kept asking the referee to stop it.

Last year, Mosley fought Floyd Mayweather, who has spent the last two years making excuses for not fighting Pacquiao. Some people, myself included, thought he might beat Mayweather, but Mayweather gave him a boxing lesson.

In 2007, Mosley lost on points to Miguel Cotto. When Cotto fought Pacquaio two years later, he was so helpless that the fight ought to have been stopped by round six.

I can’t imagine what Mosley hopes to do against Pacquiao. If I were in his corner, I wouldn’t know what to tell him. There’s no doubt that he’s a very good fighter, and he’s to be commended for being willing to get in the ring with Pacquiao, but he’s well past his prime, and, even at his peak, was never a match for Pacquiao.

It’s never safe to say that a boxer doesn’t have a chance - when the bell rings and the punches are thrown, anything can happen - but Mosley has as little chance as it’s possible for a boxer to have. His six losses have been on points, but I don’t think that will be the case this time. I predict that Pacquiao will put him away mid-fight.

Film Review: The Fighter

On Wednesday, I accompanied M.V. Moorhead to a screening of The Fighter. It’s superb, and, of all the movies I’ve seen with a boxing background, it’s easily the most knowledgeable about the actualities of boxing. It only makes one error: during the training scenes, Mark Wahlberg’s mouth is usually hanging open, something that would never be seen in a boxing gym, let alone being done by a world-class professional fighter.

Its authenticity is particularly impressive considering that it’s not really about boxing, but about family, friendship and community. The acting is so flawless that it sometimes feels more like cinema verite. Its depiction of the lives of desperate people reminded me painfully of my own experiences growing up in Glasgow, Scotland (this movie is set in Lowell, Massachusetts), but it presents its characters without judgment and with such humor and warmth that it’s a joy to watch even at its harshest moments.

Here’s what Moorhead wrote about it (his entire article, which also has reviews of The King’s Speech and Tron: Legacy, is here):

The true story of Micky Ward & his older half-brother Dicky Eklund forms the basis for The Fighter, an engrossing boxing melodrama. Dicky (Christian Bale), once the pride of Lowell, Massachusetts for going the distance in 1978 with Sugar Ray Leonard in one of the very few fights in which Leonard even briefly hit the floor, is now a pathetic crackhead.

Quiet, sweet-natured Micky (Mark Wahlberg) nonetheless keeps Dicky as his trainer, & their dominating mother Alice (Melissa Leo), who favors Dicky, as his manager, even though it means screwy, uneven match-ups in which Micky must allow himself to be pummeled so that his family can get a payday. The parallel storylines detail Dicky’s struggles with drugs & Micky’s struggle to break away from his family’s crazy influence & start a stable life with his tough-but-loving new girlfriend (Amy Adams).

Without any obvious use old-movie tropes, The Fighter, however true, has an old-Hollywood feel, in a good way. The director, David O. Russell (of Three Kings) works with a loose, effortless style—his footwork is fast & fancy but not flashy. I loved, for instance, how the subtitle announcing a bout appeared on screen a second or so before he cut to the fight—just a detail, but it’s one of several strategies Russell uses to give the movie a splendid forward momentum. At least some effort is made to present the boxing with technical authenticity, & Russell has a fine touch with the actors, too, letting us enjoy the company of these people even when they’re behaving despicably.

Bale & Leo—& maybe Amy Adams, who seems delighted at the chance to swear & brawl—are all highly entertaining, & their flamboyance may overshadow Mark Wahlberg’s quiet excellence. His Micky ironically belies the movie’s title—he may be a boxer, but he’s a lover, not a fighter. He just wants the people he loves to get along. When Micky at last begins to assert himself, both in at out of the ring, it’s immensely satisfying.

One other note [minor “spoiler alert” here]: At the beginning of The Fighter, we see a TV documentary crew following Dicky around. We’re led to believe that the film they’re making is about his dreams of a comeback, but eventually we learn it’s about his crack addiction. When it airs, Dicky & his family are suddenly confronted with the squalor & wretchedness of his life, & the contempt in which their neighbors hold him, & they’re horrified & humiliated.

This is the mid-‘90s, & it occurred to me that these scenes show the difference that nearly two decades of “Reality TV” as a dominant form of American entertainment has made—nowadays, I’m not sure that this film would embarrass its subjects. They’d just be glad it got them on TV.

Fighting, Writing and Peace

Twenty-seven years ago, on a winter night, I found something that I have never lost, something that has given me everything. I found a place within myself where it was possible for peace to exist.

I was seventeen years old, and, in a smoky little club in Glasgow, Scotland, I was about to climb into a boxing ring, to fight in public for the first time. I was doing so because I could think of nothing else to do.

I was 5’11, and weighed 118 pounds, a pale stick made of muscle and bone. My opponent was several inches shorter, much wider, and this was not his first fight. As I climbed into the ring and my manager removed my robe, I said a nervous prayer that neither I nor my opponent would be seriously injured. As I looked at the spectators, I was aware of two things:

Most of those watching expected my opponent to beat me easily and quickly.

And I did not care what any of them thought.

My opponent glowered at me as we touched gloves. I felt nothing towards him, no hostility, no antagonism. I went back to my corner. My manager put in my mouthpiece, and the bell rang.

The guy was stronger than me, much stronger. After two minutes, when the first round ended, I had a welt under my left eye. As I sat on the stool, my manager told me that I had lost the round. I knew, and I did not care.

As the second round began, some of the spectators were yelling for my opponent to finish it, walk through me, knock me out. A few others were yelling encouragement to me.

I did not care what any of them thought.

My opponent became angry when I smiled at him as we circled each other. I did not care how he felt. I slipped his jab and countered with one of my own, then did it again, and then again. As he tried to force me to back up, I hooked off the jab, hard, and he walked into it. I saw the shock on his face as he tried to keep his legs under him.

I had never felt so peaceful.

Afterward, my manager told me how happy he was for me. I ate a chicken leg and drank a can of soda, and my manager gave me a ride home. A few blocks from where I lived, I asked him to let me out because I wanted to walk the rest of the way. We shook hands, and I got out of his car, and he saluted as he drove away.

It was cold, and I saw nobody else on the street except a cop. I felt a happiness, without passion, that I had never known before. I did not expect to be able to fall asleep easily, but I was wrong. I slept well, and woke early.

A few years later, I climbed shakily out of a boxing ring after losing a fight I was expected to win. I had knocked my opponent down in the first round, and staggered him badly in the second, but he had dug in and pulled it together and beaten me. Everyone was shocked, and some people were angry that I had lost.

I did not care what any of them thought.

I went to a friend’s house and drank beer with him until very late. The next day, I decided that I would not box again. I was happy, and felt the same peace I had felt after winning my first fight.

A few years later, on a summer night, I sat at a desk and began to write a novel. I was doing so because I could think of nothing else to do.

As I sat there and typed, I knew that some people would read the book, and some would love it and some would hate it and most would not care one way or the other. And I did not care what any of them thought.

In one sitting, I wrote the first chapter, and then I went to bed and slept well. I finished the book within two months, and it was published the following year. In the boxing ring when I was 17, I had found something that I brought to the typewriter when I was 22, a oneness with what I was doing that brought a lasting peace.

I will do what I love.

And some people will like what I do, and some will not, and most will ignore it.

And some people will love me.

And some will hate me.

And most will ignore me.

And I accept them all with gratitude.

And I do not care what any of them think.

Roundup

It’s a warm, clear afternoon, but a violent wind is blowing. It’s so severe, Dashin had to move some seedlings indoors. I have a backache, so am lying in bed, drinking cup after cup of tea, and listening to the wind toss things around outside.

It’s been a good weekend. Last night, a friend and I went to a bar that was showing the Mayweather/Mosley fight. I had picked Mosley to win, but, after the first two rounds, he barely showed up. Mayweather was impressive, though he’s seriously lacking in punching power. Now that he’s beaten Mosley, he’s going to have to get even more creative than before with his excuses for not fighting Pacquiao.

There were good fights on the undercard too, and the bar was packed with people. Boxing seems to be regaining some of the popularity it lost over the last decade or so.

This morning’s service at the Zen Center had a good, diverse crowd. People are excited about what’s going on here, and more people are becoming members. I saw everyone for dokusan, and, despite tiredness and back pain, managed to give something resembling a coherent Dharma talk.

Thinking about limping out of bed soon to watch Inglourious Basterds or Julie and Julia, both of which arrived from Netflix…

You can run but you can’t hide

Yesterday was a long day of writing, with a break for a quick lunch with Muttering Madzub. In the evening, I met up with Shogen at the house of a friend of his where people had gathered to watch the Pacqiao-Cotto fight.

I’d predicted a late TKO win for Pacquiao, but I ought to have been wrong. Cotto took such a beating, the fight should have been stopped in the middle rounds. He’s a good fighter, but he didn’t belong in the same ring as Pacquiao (I’m not sure anyone does at this point). He showed tremendous heart, but what good did it do him to take a one-sided beating? He said he intends to keep on fighting, and I wonder if he realizes that every punch he took last night is a punch he won’t be able to take in the future.

I don’t think Mayweather has more than a small chance against Pacquiao. He’s much bigger, but so is Cotto, who couldn’t hurt Pacquiao at all. Mayweather is such a light puncher, he couldn’t put Marquez (his most recent opponent) away, even though he could hit him at will, so he doesn’t have enough power to keep Pacquiao off. Much is made of Mayweather’s speed, but Pacquiao is at least as fast, and I wonder how much speed Mayweather will be capable of once he’s taken a couple of Pacquiao’s punches…

Okay, time to get ready for the sangha meeting at Modified. There will be dokusan and Dharma talk from me. Bring your own cushion, and be sitting on it by 10:20.