Orlando Cruz: [NB Must Not Make Obvious 'In The Ring' Gag Here]

This Saturday in Las Vegas, Orlando Cruz, which is his real name [Eh?], will become the first openly gay boxer to win a world title if he can overcome the odds and beat Orlando Salido for the vacant WBO featherweight title. Cruz announced he was gay last year, never lost his promoter, never lost his ranking and never lost a single friend from inside the ugly business of boxing.
"I now feel free to just get on with the boxing," said Cruz, who is from Puerto Rico and is based in Florida. "I'm not fighting two opponents any longer and that is a great relief. The nights of staying awake and crying are over."
Cruz fought for Puerto Rico at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and has been a fringe contender for a couple of years and gay for a lot longer. "I'm a boxer first, I want to be a world champion and remembered that way and not as a gay boxer," he says.

The Independent.

The Krays: Gay twincest porn pioneers?

"What's that, you say? A gay boxer!!? But how can they box with limp wrists?"

Ahh, another gay story centred around its perceived incongruity; a gay man in "a macho world" - that don't happen much, do it?

So brave etc etc...

Wasn't it Samuel Johnson who said; "A gay man's boxing is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

It probably calls it "the last taboo" somewhere, but I can't be sure because I kept losing interest.

Do these journalists not realise boxing's almost as gay as diving?

Anyway we end with this heartwarming thought straight out of Michael Jackson's "I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony" school of philosophy...

He can also really fight and in the ruthless business of boxing, a sport that has not really changed in 150 years, that is all that matters; it makes no difference if you are black, white, gay, straight, male, female, nice, unpleasant, Christian, Muslim, ugly or handsome, as long as you have guts and can have a fight.

BARF!

PS Attention boxing fans! There are some boxers in the video for Boy George's new single, King Of Everything. It is a very good song, by the way.

PPS The Mail celebrates this event with a short video of Orlando "prepping" and being interviewed - he comes across as "a bit Tom Daley", if you know what I mean...

Orlando Cruz also got a big profile in Saturday's Guardian - the above header seems to sum it up.
The main interest for the straight media seems to be the "You'll believe an elephant can fly!" incongruity...