Death of a Cash Cow

...with apologies to W.C. Heinz.

They were going to the ring for the fifth fight in Tulsa, preliminaries, some of the others having just their fourth fights, to go six rounds for a purse of a few thousand dollars. They were moving slowly down the aisles toward their corners, sometimes cantering, others walking, and in the press area they had stopped their working or their kidding to watch, most of them interested in one fighter.

“Nico Ali Walsh,” Mark Kriegel said. “Grandson of Muhammad Ali.”

Ali, who won the undisputed crown… And nephew of Laila Ali, herself a four-belt champion... Great names in the breeding line ... and now the little guy making his ninth fight, perhaps the start of another great career.

They were off well, although Ali Walsh was getting hit. They were moving toward the final bell, and now Ali Walsh was landing. They were going into the scorecards, and now Ali Walsh was starting to celebrate, decision victory perhaps, when suddenly he slowed, his jaw slack in amazement and confusion, and below in the stands you could hear a sudden cry, as the rest left him, still hoping to raise his arm but disappointed, his hype man— Flavor Flav — half slumping, half walking off.

“He lost by split decision!” somebody, holding binoculars to his eyes, shouted in the press area. “He lost by split decision!”

Down below they were roaring for the next, coming down the tunnel now, but on the apron men were running toward the corner, running toward the fighter and the cornerman standing beside him, alone. There was a camera moving around the ring toward them, and then, in a moment, shifting into the big long delay they call the commercial break.

“Flav was crying like a baby,” one of them, coming out of the floor seats, said. “He said they must have forgotten to buy the judges, but you should have seen him crying.”

“It’s his undefeated record,” Dr. J.G. Catlett, the ringside doctor, was saying. “It’s shattered; and I’m waiting for confirmation from Mr. Arum to destroy him.”

He was standing outside one of the loading ramps for the Tulsa Hard Rock Hotel & Casino behind the arena, and he had just put in a call to the backstage area where Emanuel Savoy, the trainer, and Bob Arum, the promoter, are attending the main card fighters.

“When will you do it?” one of them said.

“Right as soon as I can,” the doctor said. “As soon as I get confirmation. If it was an ordinary prospect I’d done it right there.”

He walked across the arena and around another dressing room to where they had the 2022 WBC Prospect of the Year. The boxer was still in his trunks, about twenty social media journalists in dungarees and sweat-stained shirts, bare-headed or wearing old caps, standing around quietly and watching with Dr. M.A. Gilman, the assistant fight doctor.

“We might as well get him out of the dressing room,” Catlett said, “before we give him the novocaine. It’ll be a little better out in the air.”

The boy in the room with the boxer led him out then, the fighter slumping, shaking his head a little, the cornrows running down and covering his left temple. When they saw him, standing there outside the dressing room now, the boy holding him, they started talking softly.

“Grandson of Muhammad Ali.” ... “It don’t make no difference now. He’s done.” ... “But damn, what a grand little fighter.” ... “Ain’t he a fighter?”

“It’s a funny thing,” Catlett said. “All the nobodies that go out, they never take a loss. It always happens to a promotable one.”

A man, gray-haired and rather stout, wearing brown slacks and a blue shirt, walked up.

“Then I better not send for the wagon yet?” the man said.

“No,” Catlett said. “Of course, you might just as well. Emanuel Savoy may say no, but I doubt it.”

“I don’t know,” the man said.

“There’d be time in the morning,” Catlett said.

“But in this hot weather—” the man said.

They had sponged off the fighter, after they had given him the shot to deaden the pain, and now he stood, feeding quietly from a $7.99 Little Caesars Hot & Ready Thin Crust Large Pepperoni Pizza they had placed at his feet. In the distance you could hear the roar of the crowd in the arena, but beyond it and above it you could hear thunder and see the occasional flash of lightning.

When Catlett came back the next time he was hurrying, nodding his head and waving his hands. Now the thunder was louder, the flashes of lightning brighter, and now rain was starting to fall.

“All right,” he said, shouting to Gilman. “Emanuel Savoy talked to Mr. Arum. We’ve got the confirmation.”

They moved the curious back, the rain falling faster now, and they moved the fighter over close to a pile of loose bricks. Gilman had the hood of his robe and Catlett had the gun, shaped like a bell with the handle at the top. This bell he placed, the crowd silent, on the fighter’s career, just between the hype and the hope. The fighter stood still and then Catlett, with the hammer in his other hand, struck the handle of the bell. There was a short, sharp sound and the fighter toppled onto his left side, his eyes staring, his legs straight out, the free leg quivering.

“Aw ----” someone said.

That was all they said. They worked quickly, the two doctors collecting the judges’ scorecards as evidence for the insurance company, the crowd silently watching. Then the heavens opened, the rain pouring down, the lightning flashing, and they rushed for the cover of the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, leaving alone on his side near the pile of bricks, the rain running off his hide, his career dead an hour and a quarter after his ninth fight, Nico Ali Walsh, nephew of Laila Ali, grandson of Muhammad Ali.