Politics is taking a lot of our attention away from some of the quite entertaining aspects of our lives. Maybe football aficionados were glued to their television sets to see if the Super Falcons, Nigeria’s women football team, would rise to the occasion and nick the continental crown for the 9th time. They overcame the scare in the opening match in which the South African girls, Banyana Banyana, outplayed them and won by a slim margin of one goal. And then came the hard fighting and tough tackling Cameroonian girls who many feared might outmuscle the Nigerian girls because of their size.
But the Nigerian girls, tough as nails, managed to beat the Cameroonians after 120 minutes of pulsating soccer display. When it was time to take on the South Africans in the final I knew revenge was on the minds of the Nigerian avenging party. The Nigerian girls were cagey and so were the South Africans but at the end of the day Nigeria went back home with the trophy, confirming their outstanding position in African soccer. Winning so often in Africa could be boring for the girls. I suggest they relieve themselves and us of boredom by winning next year’s women’s world cup in France.
As a boxing enthusiast, I did not take my eyes off the roped square as two excellent heavyweights traded punches in Los Angeles on December 1. Deontay Leshun Wilder who won a bronze medal at the 2008 Olympics decided to nickname himself The Bronze Bomber as an honour to his hero, Joe Louis, whose nickname was The Brown Bomber. The WBC heavyweight title holder, Wilder, who remains undefeated in 41 fights put his title on the line against the British boxer, Tyson Luke Fury, who is better known as either Gypsy King, The Furious One or 2 Fast Fury. Both boxers have remained undefeated. Fury has had 28 fights, won 27 of them and only recorded a draw in the fight with Wilder.
The fight between two big men, both of them undefeated was likely to produce electric sparks within the boxing world. And it did. It wasn’t the trash talking and the promise to deliver ultimate entertainment by brutalising their opponents that was the issue. The two men needed each other for continued relevance and recognition in the sport. Tyson Fury had defeated Wladimir Klitschko in 2015 and collected all his belts: WBA, IBF, WBO and IBO. He was stripped of the IBF title later in 2015 for failing to grant a fight against their mandatory challenger, Vvacheslav Glazkov, because he had agreed to grant Klitschkov a rematch. In 2015, Fury vacated the WBA, WBO and IBO titles following a medical investigation and some personal issues. His boxing licence was withdrawn by the boxing authorities. After two years of low activity, he staked his claim to the WBC title by taking on Wilder.
Wilder had been hoping he could make an attempt to unify all the titles in the division but the holder of the remaining titles, Anthony Joshua, has kept him waiting and guessing. To make himself even more qualified for a unification bout with Joshua, Wilder thought a match-up with another undefeated champion was a more viable route.
That fight, Wilder/Fury, was a combustible entertainment package full of wild swings, furious moments, showboating, bombing episodes, canvas kissing and cut eyes. Every equipment in the boxing armoury was in use: right and left hooks, jabs and jabs and jabs, upper cuts, body blows, round houses, taunts and feints, the whole works. It was the most entertaining spectacle I have seen in recent times. Many people not interested in boxing often wonder why hurting, wounding, pummeling someone can be considered entertaining but boxing is an exceptional sport where the head and the heart work together in unison, like gin and tonic for the triumph of the human spirit. It is a sport that compels you to triumph over your temporary adversity in the ring, and to see adversity as an experiential inevitability, a hurdle that must be crossed with the gift of hard work, tactics, strategy, the heart of the lion, the cunning of the fox and the resilience of chewing gum. Both men put everything on display. Fury, a confident man, was ready to fight not in Britain but in Los Angeles, USA, in the backyard of Wilder, in front of thousands of Wilder’s fans and supporters. He knew he would be fighting not just Wilder but also the crowd. They would not get into the ring but they were there not far from the ring in their numbers applauding their man when he planted the bombs on the body or face of his – and their – opponent. A home crowd is always an advantage in every sport but it is never the deciding factor. That explains why Russia did not win the 2018 world cup that it hosted with admirable aplomb or Ghana the African women’s football competition it hosted a while ago.
Fury deserves a thumb up for daring to face a man who has been in active service dangling his devastating right hand at anyone who crosses his path. Wilder probably has the biggest bomb in the business and he showed it when he dropped Fury twice. Fury weighed three stones heavier than Wilder and it is a mystery that he could bring down that elephant with one or two straight punches. But Fury provided entertainment as well. He was bouncing around the ring like a gymnast, a rare feat for a heavyweight, making it difficult for Wilder to pin him down.
At times Fury would put his hands behind his back and thrust his face forward asking Wilder to hit him if he could, a show of rare confidence even in the midst of adversity. It was a strategy that Sugar Ray Leonard often used in his fights and in his epic encounter with Marvellous Marvin Hagler he did that quite often. It is entertainment for the crowd but it is meant largely for the benefit of the judges. The judges are wooed and are asked to see the showboater as the superior foe in their number crunching. That Wilder/Fury fight was and will remain an impressionable piece of boxing, even entertainment, history.
That fight was declared a draw, and no one knows whether or not the two combatants will have a rematch. But whatever happens there is a third man in the heavyweight picture: Anthony Oluwafemi Olaseni Joshua, the Nigerian British heavyweight boxing champion who has all the other belts around his waist. Joshua, called simply AJ, has had 22 fights, has won all, and 21 of them by knock-out. You can call him a knock-out artist because he, too, has an exceptional punching power. This was on display when he faced the big Ukranian, Wladimir Klitschko, at Wembley Stadium a couple of years ago.
That fight produced pure drama. Joshua knocked down Klitschko in round five. He got up and knocked down Joshua in round six. In round 11 Joshua took him to the canvas again. He rose but was brought down again by a barrage of blows and the referee decided to stop the fight. Joshua had confirmed his status as the fighter with the heart of a lion. Now the world is waiting to see who of the three big warriors, Wilder, Fury and Joshua will rule the heavyweight world by uniting all the titles. The three of them undefeated have a chance to enter the pantheon of boxing legends in the months to come.
My admiration for the three boxers is that they, all of them, play by the rules. When the referee commands they obey, no one among them takes undue advantage of the other when the referee makes the order. Their titles mean a lot to them in terms of global prestige. The titles also mean a lot of cool cash but they have largely played by the rules as good sportsmen. They try to win fairly.
Let’s bring that into politics. Will Nigerian politicians play by the rules in 2019 no matter how important they think the elections are? We, all of us, must act as the umpire by supporting INEC to do what is right and the political pugilists to play by the rules.
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