Behind all the political hype the clash of the United States and Cuban
heavyweights showed the best of a maligned but still amateur sport
Richard Williams.
Guardian Unlimited, UK.
Wednesday September 27, 2000
Barely tolerated in the outside world, boxing is on extended probation as an
Olympic sport. Made vulnerable by a history of scandal and corruption to the
ambitions of those who would like to jettison it in order to clear a space for
the successors to beach volleyball and triathlon, its survival is probably
dependent on its ability to continue producing figures like Felix Savon.
Yesterday, in the Sydney ring, the great Cuban heavyweight made further
progress towards his third consecutive gold medal by defeating Michael Bennett
of the United States, the world amateur champion.
Curiously, given the unremitting venality of its professional arm, boxing is
the last Olympic sport to retain the amateur qualification for contestants. Not
the least advantage of this anomaly is that it gives Cuba, historically a
fertile breeding ground for boxers, the chance to parade men like Savon, the
heavyweight champion in Barcelona and Atlanta, and his predecessor, Teofilo
Stevenson, the heavyweight champion of 1972, 1976 and 1980.
In Stevenson's time it was not unusual to find boxing fans arguing about
what would happen if he ever met Muhammad Ali in the ring. Earlier in Savon's
career the parallel hypothesis pitted him against Mike Tyson, although since
Atlanta the emphasis has shifted to the outcome of a notional contest with
Lennox Lewis.
Notwithstanding the best efforts of Don King, there was never a chance of
either Stevenson or Savon exposing himself to such a challenge. The very good
reason is that professional and amateur boxing are about as similar as a
symphony and a string quartet. The musicians look the same, and they play
similar instruments, but everything else is very different.
As a result there has always been a special frisson evoked by meetings
between the Cuban giants and the amateur champions of the US, a sensation that
is less a product of political differences than of the feeling that this is the
closest we will ever get to answering those "what if?" questions.
Savon's reputation is sometimes enough to have his opponents beaten before
they enter the ring. In the Atlanta final four years ago David Defiagbon, a
Nigerian-born Canadian, made self-preservation his priority in a contest which
served as an unsightly demonstration of something close to cowardice. The
judges' assessment that Defiagbon had actually landed two blows during the
course of three two-minute rounds, to Savon's 20, seemed unduly generous.
Unlike Defiagbon, Bennett did not manage to see out the full span of
yesterday's quarter-final but he did at least leave the ring with his
self-respect intact.
The Chicagoan is an impressive man who seems to have entirely rehabilitated
himself since emerging from prison two years ago, having served seven years of
what had originally been a 26-year jail sentence after being found guilty of
holding up a branch of Toys 'R' Us with a friend and a shotgun. At the time of
the offence he was 19 years old and studying criminal justice at college.
Bennett learnt to box in prison, tutored by a trio of lifers. Remarkably,
within a year of his release he had won the world title. Savon, a six-time
champion, had been his scheduled opponent in that final but the Cuban withdrew
from the tournament along with the rest of his team in protest against what they
saw as biased judging, giving the American a walkover. So yesterday's
rendezvous, into which Bennett came as captain of the US team, was about more
than just one Olympic gold medal.
On paper this fight should have been the final but Olympic boxing
tournaments are drawn blind and pot luck is the result. As things turned out, it
was probably for the best since Bennett, a southpaw, could find no answer at all
to the much taller Savon's trademark scoring punch, a long right hand which
comes in over the opponent's guard with the lethal laziness and unstoppability
of a torpedo. Almost all of the 23 blows credited by the judges to the 6ft 6in
Cuban came from that source, with only eight punches registered to Bennett's
credit in reply - albeit including one right cross which staggered Savon late in
the third.
But it was soon after that small success, with only a few seconds left in
the third of the scheduled four two-minute rounds, that Savon landed the right
which made the score 23-8 and thus, with the margin at 15 points, obliged the
referee to halt the contest and declare the Cuban the winner.
Some veteran boxing critics reacted to the application of the 15-point rule
with scorn, feeling that the fighters should be allowed to proceed to a more
clear-cut conclusion - in other words, that they should be allowed to inflict
more damage on each other. But this is amateur boxing and that is the rule. No
doubt some oarsmen, too, wished that the Olympic course had been 3,000 metres
long last weekend, rather than 2,000.
"I have no quarrel with the rules," Bennett said afterwards. "That's
the way it had to be done. Maybe they can look at it again some time in the
future."
His assessment of his own display sounded realistic and his tribute to Savon
was unfeigned in its generosity. "I'm not ashamed of my performance,"
he said. "I did my best. I just gave him too many straight shots. He's a
one-punch guy but I stood there and was a target for him. I felt I hurt him once
but he took it and came back like the warrior he is. His reach played a small
part and I was a step too slow to take his advantage away. I wasn't in awe of
him but he's done a lot of things for amateur boxing, he's a great guy and he
lived up to it all."
And did it amaze him that a man of such ability would choose to remain in
Cuba and deny himself the chance to earn millions in the professional ring?
"It don't amaze me because it's about patriotism to his country,"
Bennett replied. "He's going to be a warrior for Cuba and that's that. Some
people do take it upon themselves to defect but he's stood fast and stayed true
to his country. That's OK."
Not too long ago the expression of such a view would have been enough to end
his career - which he may soon terminate himself, in any case, to pursue a
desire to become a mentor to troubled children. These Olympics have been full of
pleasant surprises.
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