Digital Ink Los Angeles

Boxing has its pundits, but the truth is the sport — at its highest levels — is as pure an athletic competition as remains in the world. As a metaphor for life, the “Sweet Science” represents the universal truths — heart, courage, love, faith, desire, fear, pain, suffering, elation, and hate — in a squared circle, with two fighters engaged in a struggle. This is what Homer wrote epic poetry about.

Saturday, September 19, 2009, HBO Boxing presents Mayweather vs. Marquez. These are the best pound-for-pound boxers in the world — with many believing Marquez to have proved his pugilistic superiority in at least one of his two match-ups with current World Champion Manny Pacquiao.

Juan Manuel Márquez is the story of a Mexico City kid who grew up sharing a bedroom with eight brothers and sisters, fighting his way out of the rough streets of his barrio. The supernatural, outlier quality he possesses is his ability to sustain tremendous pain and punishment, yet still emerge with his victorious hands in the air. He trains in the mountains surrounding Mexico City, at an altitude above 11,000 feet, using rocks and boulders as his tools for building strength. He is Old School.

Floyd Joy “Money” Mayweather, Jr., was born into a boxing family. His father, Floyd, Sr., and his uncle, Roger, are both accomplished professional boxers and trainers. Floyd is one of the purest, technically sound boxers to ever lace up a pair of gloves. He brings athleticism, savvy, and blinding hand speed. He is New School.

Floyd has the skills to remain unbeaten, but many in the boxing world question his heart and his focus. Marquez, the smaller of the two fighters, is a hard-hitting, courageous man with a granite chin. Old School vs. New School. As Hemingway liked to say: Mano a Mano.

May the best boxer win. Sugar Ray Robinson, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Willy Pep, Mike Tyson, and Max Baer would be proud.

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The recently released Soul Power documentary captures the state-sponsored 1974 concert in Zaire that set the stage for Muhammad Ali and George Foreman‘s legendary “Rumble in the Jungle.”

What a spectacle of soul-infused musical bravado. In the midst of Vietnam, Nixon, Civil Rights, and a miserable economy, Don King and James Brown pulled off the impossible, just like Ali, in the middle of war-torn Zaire. That’s some Soul Power.

Soul Power is produced and directed by Jeff Levy-Hinte, president of Antidote Films, who was also the producer-director of the Oscar-winning documentary When We Were Kings (1996). Most of the Soul Power footage was uprooted after the production of When We Were Kings. All this gloriously funky footage has been waiting nearly 35 years to see the light.

Soul Power keeps your head bobbing by showcasing these historic performances from funk, soul, and R&B legends like B.B. King, Bill Withers, and the kinetic madman and self-professed Sex-Machine, James Brown, whose early-70s single of the same name lends the film its title.

Using notable cinematographers, Albert Maysles and Paul Goldsmith, to lend the documentary a gritty but stunning style verité, the footage captures the Don King-promoted Rumble in the Jungle’s political and personal spirits in all their vivid intensity.

Can you say, “Gonna have a funky good time…”?

Heroic displays of courage are commonplace in professional boxing. Arturo “Thunder” Gatti boxed in some of the most dramatically contested matches of all time, his fights nominated for the Ring Magazine “Fight of the Year” an astonishing six times — and won four times.

The most famous of all these fights is the Mickey Ward vs. Arturo Gatti war on May 18th, 2002.

To start the ninth round of this eventual Ring Magazine 2002 “Fight of the Year,” Mickey Ward hits Arturo Gatti with a left hook that breaks Gatti’s ribs. Ouch! But Gatti gets up, and just when Mickey thinks he has Gatti beat…

View the YouTube video of the 9th Round of Mickey Ward vs. Arturo Gatti – I.

The LA Times is reporting that Arturo Gatti was found dead in his hotel room yesterday, July 11, 2009, the victim of apparent homicide. Evidence at this time points toward his Brazilian wife, who he was seeking separation from.

Arturo Gatti was a man who knew no fear, who challenged himself constantly to be the best boxer and the best person he could be. He was human, full with flaws and imperfections.

A typical Arturo Gatti quote:

“I was feeling healthy, but you never know what’s going on inside your body. I just didn’t know what was going on. I was feeling good, but sometimes, because I have a big heart, my attitude is I always feel good. I don’t want to go to the hospital for nothing.”

But the “heart” of Arturo Gatti is something a boxer can never learn. Arturo “Thunder” Gatti will always be known — like Diego “Chico” Corrales — for having the courage and determination of a champion.

No man could break world-champion Arturo “Thunder” Gatti‘s heart, but a woman did.

In the words of Charles Bukowski, “Many a good man have been put under the bridge by a woman.”

In around 1956, Bruce Lee entered St. Francis Xavier’s College (high school) in Hong Kong, where he was mentored by Brother Edward — a Catholic monk originally from Germany who spent his entire adult life in China and Hong Kong — as a teacher and coach of the school boxing team. Bruce Lee was drawn to the man and his teaching of the art of the fists. It could be said that Brother Edward is the “Man Behind the Man,” as mentor and guide of a willful and brute adolescent with both aristocratic and gymnastic roots.

In the spring of 1959, Lee got into yet another street fight and the police were called. Confirming the police’s fear that Bruce Lee’s fighting opponent this time had organized crime background and a possible contract was out for his life, in April 1959 his parents decided to send him to the United States to meet up with his older sister Agnes, who was already living with family friends in San Francisco. And the rest is history.

After moving to Seattle, Bruce worked for three years toward his degree at the University of Washington, but quit to move to Oakland. He was in pursuit of his own degree — black belt and global domination in the burgeoning martial arts industry. Surprisingly, Bruce struggled initially to gain prominence, as his fighting style and lack of self-discipline created error-prone matches filled with frustrating results. Gaining entrance as a guest at 1964 Long Beach International Karate Championships, Bruce Lee’s name as an otherworldly physical creature began to take prominence in and out of the martial arts arena — two-finger pushups, one-inch punches, speed displays, and strength demonstrations stunned and wowed the crowds of onlookers. The legend of the Dragon had begun.

One note of sadness in the Bruce Lee legend is the initial cold-shoulder Bruce Lee received from Hollywood power-brokers in his efforts to gain work as an action star. According to statements made by Bruce Lee — and also by his wife, Linda Lee Cadwell after Bruce’s death — in 1971 Bruce pitched a television series of his own tentatively titled “The Warrior.” According to Cadwell, Lee’s concept was retooled and renamed Kung Fu, but Warner Brothers Studios gave Lee no credit. Instead, the role of the Shaolin monk in the Wild West, was awarded to then non-martial artist David Carradine because of the studio’s fears that a Chinese leading man would not be embraced by the public. Books and documentaries about the show Kung Fu dispute Cadwell’s version. According to these sources, the show was created by two writers and producers, Ed Spielman and Howard Friedlander, and the reason Lee was not cast was in part because of his ethnicity but more so because he had a thick accent.

Bruce Kicking Seven-Foot Kareem.

Regardless, for his efforts as a Chinese-American to establish his race and ethnicity in the New America, and his incredible courage and spirit, Bruce Lee is a hero. He was described by Governor Arnold Schwarznegger — then Mr. Olympia — as the “most physically fit man I’ve ever seen, with the lowest body-fat percentage of any athlete I know.” The following quote is taken from the famous Bruce Lee documentary, Bruce Lee: A Warrior’s Journey (2000):

“Be formless… shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle; it becomes the bottle. You put it into a teapot; it becomes the teapot. Water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend…“

Bruce Lee — badass hero. View the Official Bruce Lee Website.

In James Toback‘s recently released documentary, former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson examines his own life in and out of the ring with a candor that is brutally honest.

Through a mixture of original interviews, archived footage and collected photographs, a complex, mature, and fragile human being emerges. The film ranges from Tyson‘s earliest memories of growing up on the mean streets of Brooklyn through his entry into the world of boxing, including his tumultuous ride through the funhouse of global fame and his tremendous fortunes won and lost.

It’s the story of a one-of-a-kind, truly unique and controversial boxer, an athlete with a knack for provoking archetypal discussions of race and class divisions.

Like a character out of classical tragedy, this man rose from the ghettos of the “Brownsville” section of Brooklyn — from a most dysfunctional, downtrodden environment — and soared to seemingly unlimited heights, followed by destruction fueled by self-defeating hubris. His legacy of infamy includes a stint in juvenile halls as a youth for physically assaulting an elderly lady after luring her into an elevator under the guise of helping her with her heavy, grocery-laden bags.

Tyson, once the awe-inspiring, Spartan-like teenage Heavyweight Champion of the World — now playing at a theater near you.

Much like the “Man with No Name” played by Clint Eastwood, championship boxing’s Juan Manuel Marquez has been boxing’s quiet assassin.

There’s a scene at the end of Eastwood’s Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo where Eastwood (Blondie) faces off against Lee Van Cleef (Sentenza) and Eli Wallach (Tuco) in a triangular gun fight.

There’s a similar scene currently unfolding where Floyd Mayweather, Jr. faces off against Marquez and Pacquiao against the winner.

From the HBO Boxing website:

The boxing world received two gifts when the six-time world champion in five weight divisions Floyd “Money” Mayweather announced not only his return to the sport, but also that he was immediately putting his undefeated record on the line when he faces the dangerous and highly touted five-time world champion in three weight divisions Juan Manuel “Dinamita” Marquez in MAYWEATHER vs. MARQUEZ “Number One/Numero Uno” on Saturday, July 18 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada which will be broadcast live on HBO Pay-Per-View beginning at 9pm ET / 6pm PT.

You can watch Marquez in action here against Pacquiao in his March 15, 2008, split-decision loss (take note of Marquez knocking Pacquiao silly…):

Boxing is as much about physical charisma and grace as it is about power and speed. Just as it’s about mental acuity in the face of trauma and doom.

Floyd Mayweather, Jr. is what Malcolm Gladwell describes as an “Outlier,” or an individual who achieves masterful achievement through a lifetime of opportunity and due diligence.

This VIDEO is a replay of Mayweather’s 10th round “check hook,” which Ricky Hatton barrels into, causing him to involuntarily head-butt the corner turn-buckle. This left hand to the jaw was the beginning of the end for the Manchester Madman.

Mayweather, Jr. fights Juan Manuel Marquez on July 18, 2009. That will be a battle between the #2 and #3 140-lb boxer, the winner facing the #1 140-lb boxer, Manny Pacquiao.

Many boxing aficionados view the Mayweather, Jr. vs. Pacquiao PPV extravaganza as a true, once-in-a-lifetime matchup of physical bravado. Mayweather, Jr., as good as he is, has to get past Juan Manuel Marquez first.