Monday, September 1, 2008

Beijing Olympic Boxing: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (3)

The Ugly

Honorably, I had a long conversation with Evander Holyfield in his hotel room here in Beijing, and the only topic we didn't touched, as it were, in the realm of boxing, was the ugly side of fighting, which he knows far better than anyone else.

Yet the next day, we put no effort on searching Holyfield's miserable experience in our memory. We see it in action.

Dzhakhon Kurbanov, a light heavyweight boxer from Tajikistan, was disqualified for biting his opponent, Yerkebulan Shynaliev from Kazakhstan, on the shoulder during their Olympic quarterfinals.

Holyfield was at the ringside. The American boxing legend, who travelled all the way to China, told me that he came here for the purpose of scouting the best Chinese boxing prospect for his promotional company.

He witnessed a load of Olympic boxing's best behaviors that night, including China's final gold medalist light flyweight Shiming Zou and light heavyweight Xiaoping Zhang.

However, the 1984 Olympic light heavyweight bronze medalist apparently won't be happy watching the scene that possibly would reminds him of the woeful moments when Mike Tyson infamously bit off a chunk of his ear 11 years ago, as he had already left the arena after watching China's light heavyweight Xiaoping Zhang triumph over Abdelhafid Benchabla of Algeria.

The dirty misdemeanor occurred with less than 20 seconds to go in the third round when Shynaliyev led the scorecard far ahead with 12-6. Feeling the frustration and desperation in the medal death match, the Mike Tyson mimic, who had been warned multiple times for shoving and holding during the fight, bit Shynaliyev on his shoulder during a clinch.

After the victim from Kazakhstan angrily showed the blood on his shoulder to the referee, the third night of the Olympic quarterfinals was put on an ugly final touch.

By People's Daily

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