Last night I watched Lennox Lewis destroy Mike Tyson. I watched it on the multiple TV screens at the Roma Cafe on the corner of Commercial Drive and Grant, surrounded by hundreds of my neighbours and street acquaintances, shouting and cheering and spilling beer. It's the only place I'd think of to go when a big fight is on, even though I'm sure every other Italian bar along the street (with names for just about every region -- Abruzzo, Calabria, Napoli) and the Portuguese Club and the Ethiopian places above 3rd are all tuned in.
We live on The Drive. According to the Vancouver Tourist Bureau (and the local Post Office), this is "Little Italy" although, for the decade or more I've lived here I've never heard anyone call it that. We just call it East Van, or The Drive. Don't get me wrong, the Tourist Bureau isn't really inaccurate, just behind the times. Immediately after the war a heavy influx of Italian immigrants created a vibrant ethnic society that still flourishes here. Many of the restaurants and bars and retail enterprises on Commerical Drive are still Italian; Italian is heard daily and loudly on the streets, and Victoria Park around the corner is a hotbed of bocce and Italian card games.
But that doesn't tell half the story. The neighbourhood has been enriched and layered over the years with every group of new immigrants to Vancouver. The Chinese have always been the majority non-white population in the neighbourhood, and their public presence is maintained today with vibrant vegetable markets and pungent pastry stores. In addition, East Indians and multi-national Latinos and Eastern Europeans and Africans have all opened restauarants and stores on The Drive and their languages and smells and rhythms punctuate our every walk down the street. Last night, everyone was out and about.
By the time I arrived at 6:30 the Roma was already full. With a ten dollar cover and beer at five bucks a pop, the owners were about to make another killing. Not that they looked too happy right then. The owners, the barmen, the waiters and the odd little guy who always collects the cover and stamps your hand, they all looked dead tired. Italy's World Cup soccer game against Croatia hadn't finished until the early hours of the morning; and Italy's shock 2-1 defeat didn't help make the sacrifice of sleep more worthwhile for them. The bar was busy but luckily I was by myself and single seats at well-positioned tables were still available. I grabbed two beers and sat down.
To say the bar was full when I arrived is really to misrepresent the ingenuity of the Roma's owners and patrons. By the time the big fight started, more than twice as many had been crammed in. I've paid for a lot of fights at the Roma over the years. This time the crowd seemed noticeably younger and generally less Italian than usual. Which didn't stop the lively trade in pizza slices (some say the worst on The Drive) and sizzling hot Italian sausages in buns. I tuned in to a half dozen conversations in a half dozen different languages, and then tuned into the fights on TV.
No matter the business behind it, boxing is honest money. Two consenting and generally eager adults agree to pit themselves against each other in a purely physical contest; and both get paid according to how many people are willing to pay to see them. The first two fighters had dot.com addresses painted across their backs ("Wallstreet.com" beat up "Golden Palace.com".) Why not -- it's honest cash in the bank for otherwise poor black men with few other opportunities to escape their poverty.
In the second fight, the champion probably didn't need the money so he fought bare-backed, while Golden Palace.com had once again purchased the back of the challenger. Unfortunately for their marketing strategy, the challenger's back graced the canvas more than it did the big screen. It was over before the second bell in a very another impressive performance by Manny The Destroyer Pacquiao, the best pound-for-pound puncher in the business today. I hope he now moves up from 122 to 126 where he can make some real money.
The undercard -- those fights used to generate interest before the main event -- was surprisngly lacklustre and finished early. Both Lewis and Tyson had clauses about not appearing before a certain time (ten Central, I think) meaning that the network was left with a huge amount of empty space to fill. So we were treated to a couple of rich black guys (Samuel L. Jackson, Cuba Gooding jr) hamming it up with another rich black guy, presenter James Brown, about how the brothers were gonna put a whipping on each other. It was kind of embarrassing. They were followed on by LL Cool J who was polite and articulate and who made the previous clowns look like mugs.
Still anxious to fill in time, Smokin' Joe Frazier was called in. In the general view of the bar around me, he came across as a punch-drunk, or just drunk or stoned, old man. But I watched him closely and he followed every question carefully and his answers were always appropriate even though they didn't follow the arc the interviewer would have expected. It was as if Joe still had an articulate mind trapped inside his wrecked body. His difficulty of speech is considerably less than Ali's, say, but detailed muscle control doesn't seem to be Smokin' Joe's greatest asset right now.
Finally, Evander Hollyfield -- who always deserved his Real Deal nickname -- came on to call the fight for Tyson ("because he'll take more chances than I was willing to") and then the time had arrived.
The entrances were considerably tamer than we have become used to for these events. Boxing's heavyweight champions are the celebrities of a celebrity-saturated planet. No individual in the world makes as much money for a single event as the heavyweight champion of the world. No-one. Not Tom Hanks not Bono not Paul McCartney not Michael Jordan not Michael Schumacher. Not even Tiger Woods comes close to the singular earning power of these athletes. Usualy, their entrances to arenas are occasions for splendour and extravagance. Not last night. Security personnel allowed only 6 people to each corner (a move that seemed to surprise both camps) and the music for each boxer was unsurprising and low key.
There were, however, theatrics in the ring where the ring was split in two by a line of a dozen burly security guards. The hype for the fight had the two fighters eager to tear each other apart at the slightest opportunity. The Commission had decided to make sure that only happened after the bell had sounded. To be honest, though, both boxers looked calm and unperturbed by events around them, and neither showed any inclination to break the rules. And then, at last, it began. I felt myself drawn to the edge of my seat and I could sense the same expectation across the room.
The first round was even, with Tyson the aggressor. That was it for the fight really. From round two it was clear that Iron Mike had no answer to the champion's extraordinarily long and extraordinarily hard straight jab that crushed its way remorselessly into Tyson's face over and over again. The crowd at Roma had been overwhelmingly in favour of Tyson before the bell began. By the third round they were shouting at their man to make a fight of it. By round four it was clear Tyson was dead meat, a bully made to look inelegantly amateurish, and Lewis was just waiting for the right opportunity. When it came in round seven it was a relief to everyone. The real Champion had pounded the Animal into chump steak.
In the close warm evening it was still almost light, and more people outside than in were trying to see the TV screens through the closed blinds and from odd elevated angles. The smell of pizza and marijuana flooded my nose. Crowds poured from every storefront, laughing, talking, music everywhere; the sounds of carnival. It's gonna be a great summer on the Drive. – David Chun
