Boxing: Bully For You

Guardian online.

'I am gay man, hear me roar!'

Zzzz...

Boxing News: On The Ropes

NIKE has announced it will no longer sponsor Manny Pacquiao after he called homosexuals “worse than animals”.

“It’s common sense,” Pacquiao raved. “Do you see animals mating with the same sex?”

Perhaps not mating, Manny, but my dog Stan has an unusually close relationship with a Mini Schnauzer called Max. They can’t pass each other without a quick sniff of their butts.

Pacquiao issued a feeble apology for his homophobic ravings but the damage is done.

The fighter, who has been a proud champion for the Filipino people, has tarred himself as a small-minded bigot.

What is it with boxing and gay people? First Tyson Fury and now Pacquiao.

Both should be lauded as brave, skilful boxers.

But both are now widely thought of as small-minded idiots who share the prejudices of the Islamic State bigots who throw gays from rooftops.

It is weird that boxing should have this problem – the only sport where half-naked men routinely embrace at the end of a competition.

But the problem is not boxing. The problem is religion.

Both of the boxers who have ranted against homosexuality are committed Christians.

Like Fury before him, Pacquiao reminds us that few human beings are improved by deeply held religious beliefs. 

Tony Parsons, The Sun On Sunday. 

Glad someone pointed out Pacquiao and Fury's homophobia comes from their christianity, and this isn't a boxing thing.

How could it be?

Boxing's almost as gay as diving.

PS Great to see the free speech-hating Pink News has started one of their hysterical, relentless campaigns to have the infidel Pacquiao burnt at the stake (currently filing two (non) stories a day!)

Bad Stuff Round-Up: Feel The Fury

'Don’t let your sexuality define you” is a phrase that I’m sure most of us are absolutely sick to death of hearing, despite the fact that in my experience heterosexual people have been the first to ‘define’ me in this way. What this basically means is “I know you’re gay, but you don’t have to be into all those gay things.” This creates a culture where gay people are routinely made to feel lucky or grateful for being accepted, when in fact this should be the norm and not the exception. Just as gay celebrities have to be more talented, your average gay person has to be funnier, smarter and more outgoing to compensate for the fact that they sleep with men...'

Textbook hysterical knicker-wetting gay winky wanky woo from Independent Voices.

Sake, a school magazine would have rejected this 'I is so oppressed!' drivel.

PS Did Tyson Fury getting nominated for BBC Sports Personality Of The Year warrant two (2) stories on IV? You guys must be rilly angry!

Tyson Fury: Intellectual Heavyweight

‘We live in an evil world. The devil is very strong at the minute, very strong, and I believe the end is near. The bible tells me the end is near. The world tells me the end is near. Just a short few years, I reckon, away from being finished.

‘Abusing the planet, the wars in the Middle East, the famines, the earthquakes, the natural disasters, all these things are talked about 2000 years ago before they even happened. Prophesised. So now it’s all coming true…’

‘There are only three things that need to be accomplished before the devil comes home: one of them is homosexuality being legal in countries, one of them is abortion and the other one’s paedophilia. Who would have thought in the 50s and 60s that those first two would be legalised?

‘When I say paedophiles can be made legal, that sounds like crazy talk doesn’t it? But back in the 50s and early 60s, for them first two to be made legal would have been looked on as a crazy man again. If I would have told you 120 years ago, that a 1000-tonne aeroplane is going to float through the sky, a piece of steel — ludicrous.

‘When Christopher Columbus said the world was round, he’s an idiot. All these things that happen in the world, wise men already know they’re going to happen and they see what they really are.

‘Foolish people follow the system, get caught up in media news, what the government wants you to believe and all the higher powers want you to believe and go down the same path as all the sheep in the cattle market...

‘This is a funny world we live in and an evil world. People can say, “Oh, you are against abortions, you are against paedophilia, you are against homosexuality, you’re against whatever”, but my faith and my culture is all based on the bible. The bible was written a long time ago, from the beginning of time until now, and if I follow that and it tells me it’s wrong, then it’s wrong for me. That’s just my opinion.

‘How many people have different opinions in this world? Every different person has a different opinion of what that bottle really is or what colour it is. If I say that bottle is clear, there will be someone out there telling me that bottle is green or blue.

‘My opinion is that I follow what the Lord says. Or I try to. Others are following what they want to do, basically. They are living for their self. I am living for God.

‘When you see a man who is filled up with God, you think he’s round the bend. When a man’s highly spirited for the Lord, you think, “This guy’s lost his marbles, he’s a nutcase”. If ever you want to get rid of somebody you don’t want to talk to, just mention God. They’re out of there.’

Tyson Fury, the new Heavyweight Champion Of The World, speaking to The Mail On Sunday earlier this month.

Heaven forfend anyone might 'think he's round the bend'!

NB Mr Fury's job involves being repeatedly hit round the head rather a lot.

Update: Vote for Tyson as yer BBC Sports Personality Of The Year 2015!

Boxing News: Emile Griffith

The boxer and his boyfriend sat together on a train hurtling along the New York subway. Emile Griffith had pulled a hat down over his eyes. He was not in the mood to make eye contact with anyone just before the Saturday morning weigh-in for his world title fight that night, 24 April 1962, at Madison Square Garden. It would be the third time he’d face his bitter rival Benny “Kid” Paret – in a career which would eventually see him become one of the finest welterweight champions in history.

Griffith went on to fight 337 world championship rounds – 69 more than Muhammad Ali. But his place in the pantheon would be darkened forever by his tragic trilogy against Paret. He had lost his world title to Paret seven months previously. The Cuban had upset Griffith at the weigh-in to that bout by taunting him as a maricón [“faggot”.] In boxing’s macho world there could be no greater insult – especially when it was an open secret that Griffith was “different”. It was not just that he spoke of his pleasure in designing pretty bonnets for ladies or could discuss the latest pillbox hat worn by Jackie Kennedy outside the White House...

Extract from an extract from A Man's Man: The Double Life Of Emile Griffith by Donald McRae on Guardian online.

Now read on.

Funny, Fagburn has always assumed all boxers were gayers...

TalkingSport: Generic The Gays In The Sports Article Bingo

"It was noticeable how minor an issue Cruz's sexuality was. Apart from the occasional boo when he entered the ring..."

Sean Ingle, TalkingSport for The Guardian.

Orlando Cruz. Defiance! Inspiration! Special indeed! Welcome change. Twitter. Man's world. Patronising generalisation about working-class types. So why can't football? Fans? The Media? Justin Fashanu. Sad. Homophobic chants. Quote from bogus Observer story about footballers wanting to come out. Citation from online fans survey that's about as reliable as asking whoever you met at the bus stop. Quote academic. Fascinating research. 3,000 professional footballers in Britain. None! A little strange. Anton Hysen and Robbie Rogers. Typical. Fifa. Qatar. End with a vacuous platitude eg "They should be judged only on how they perform." Fin. Send invoice.

Two points deducted for not asking; "Is [something] the last taboo?" and not mentioning the Sochi Winter Olympics.

• Image from a photo gallery on Mirror Online; Spornography! The most accidentally inappropriate sports pictures ever. Some unfortunate coincidences have formed the basis for a hilarious new picture book, Sporno!

"LOL!!! THEYS LOOK GAY!" etc.

Breaking: Plucky Little Gay Fella Loses Hitting Competition

Oh well. 
As long as you did your best, Orlando, that's the main thing.
Respec' to the rainbow knickers!

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... 

Orlando Cruz: More Boxing News!

LA Times.

Fnarr fnarr!
Great stuff guys etc etc. 

Breaking - A Boxer Is A Gay: Hold The Front Page!

Never understood the strange fascination with "this sort of thing" in the straight press.
Good luck to him and well done and all that, but why is this front page news for The Guardian?
A minor sportsman you've never heard of says he's gay.
Wow!
Is it the sheer seeming incongruity to their editors?
"He's a boxer, too - a gay man, imagine!"
Like boxing isn't an even gayer sport than diving.
Subtext: "Like a dog walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all" - Samuel Johnson, 1764.
So brave etc etc.
I love being patronised, me. 

Breaking Sports News: Nobodé Comes Out

A man who neither you - nor indeed anyone - has ever heard of, who plays the sports has come out.
He is a gay.
Oscar Nobodé-Espéciale - the world's 35th Lead weight boxer in the 1997 Latino Duvet (Quilt 15.0 Tog) Boxing Championships - has confirmed years of non-speculation about his sexuality.
"I am proud to have retired and that some people finally are taking some interest in me," he told Fagburn.
Oscar's job has basically involved him being repeatedly punched round the head for 10 years.
Such is his almost legendary fame that there is only one photo of him in public circulation.
An unpaid intern from Gay Star News who picked up the phone said; "This is a major contribution to gay road safety. I sincerely hope he - or perhaps she - advertises with us."
Leading gay hysteric Patrick Smugtwit added; "Perhaps the world will never be the same again? Who can say? Can you print a photo of me?"