By Bart Barry-
Thursday afternoon Andre Ward announced the conclusion of his excellent career. The retirement feels legitimate because Ward feels legitimate, ungiven to publicity stunts or publicity in general, and the reason he cited – an unwillingness to keep suffering – is a hard one to walk back later: “With my body now two years older, my desire to fight has returned in 2019.”
Ward joins Floyd Mayweather, whose third retirement, one hopes, is his final retirement, Juan Manuel Marquez, Wladimir Klitschko and Timothy Bradley, on a worldclass list of five prizefighters who retired this year.
What follows is a meandering, unstructured series of thoughts and runon sentences about the careers of these men as seen by one aficionado deeply interested in our beloved sport during their best years. This is no final word; even if such a thing existed this wouldn’t be a finalword piece because its author hasn’t the shoulders or stomach to bear the burden of a final assessment to the end of days.
First a clarifying hypothetical question (that I doubt I’ll answer myself as, the more I’ve considered it, the less certain I am, after beginning uncertainly): Pretending all five men didn’t just retire this year but also made their career’s final matches in 2017, only three would be eligible for Hall of Fame induction in 2022 – and so, which two shouldn’t get in? This question is wigglier than it looks. As a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America, which I am (just checked; I honestly didn’t remember if I’d remembered to pay this year’s dues), I am allowed to vote for all five guys – which precludes a hypothetical crisis of conscience. Too, Marquez announced his retirement this year but stopped fighting three years ago and will be on the ballot in 2019, and Bradley will be on the ballot, or should be, in 2021. The question, then, seeks a statistical prediction more than an aesthetic judgement: Not “who would you leave off your list?” so much as “who would mathematics exclude?”
Probably Ward and Bradley. Mayweather was one of the world’s two best fighters for most of an era. Klitschko was the heavyweight champion of the world for a goodish while. And Marquez has nearly as many career prizefights as Ward and Bradley combined. There’s an argument to be made Bradley doesn’t belong in this particular conversation, and fairplay to that, but as this is my meandering, unstructured series of thoughts, and as I have a general weakness for volume punchers and a specific weakness for a prizefighter honest and decent as Bradley, he’s in.
Fine, but after what Ward just did in his rematch with Kovalev, how dare you, sir?
Hold on there. It’s not me – I’d love to leave Klitschko off the list, truly I would – but you can’t fight as many times for a world heavyweight championship as Klitschko did and expect a majority of voters to overlook that because, and this is especially important when we judge recent made-by-television careers in lower weightclasses, the heavyweight champion is the one person in our sport who cannot scale weightclasses in search of better opposition. You can’t hold the heavyweight champion’s era against him if he fought all comers, and for the most part Klitschko did.
That’s not fair? No kidding. Neither is Klitschko’s being 11 inches and 100 pounds bigger than Marquez (before Juan Manuel dedicated himself to the sort of fitness regimen Wlad and brother Vitali followed since the amateurs).
This may be the only time pound-for-pound musings can be amusing: What sort of horror movie would a prime Marquez make with a 130-pound Klitschko?
Good one. Let’s play a touch more. Mayweather did not fight Marquez on terms even resembling even eight years ago but showed enough in their 36 minutes together to imagine 130-pound Mayweather beats the Marquez who snuffs shrunken Klitschko, at least seven times of 10. Prime Bradley sneaked past 40-year-old Marquez in 2013, but 130-pound Bradley probably wouldn’t win two rounds against 30-year-old Marquez. That leaves 130-pound Ward against 130-pound Marquez, and frankly, what a lovely fight!
I’ve chosen Marquez as the axle round which our circle twirls because Marquez is my favorite fighter who retired in 2017. He is also the man I’d least like to encounter in a dark alley. Again, while plenty of fighters I’ve interviewed have expressed a willingness to die in combat Marquez is the only one who’s given me a sense he’s willing to kill in the ring – and that’s neither hyperbole nor metaphor.
Back into the dark alley a bit. Second on that list would be Ward; I saw him sitting in an Oakland hotel lobby the night before he cuberooted Chad Dawson (Ward’s defining fight, along with his manhandling of Mikkel Kessler, till the Kovalev rematch), and dude’s eyes were dead as a mako shark’s. Mayweather’s third on the darkalley test because he’s a bully at heart, and things’d get intentional and sadistic right quick with a man whose temperament and skills could leave a disgusting mess. One doesn’t get the sense either Klitschko or Bradley has been in a dark alley or’d have much interest in fighting there; Bradley’d hit you a couple times then tell you to chill out, and Klitschko’d keep jabbing and bounding backwards till he ran out of alley or the cops showed up.
What Hall of Fame induction actually means to boxers is anyone’s guess; I’ve heard lots of young gymrats want to be champions but never heard one want to be a Hall of Famer – halls of fame have a definite meaning in teamsports they lack in sports like boxing or swimming or golf, whose hallowed edifices serve more as museums.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry
