Does the Morality of Champions Matter?

I don't mean to make an obvious point but it matters as far as judging them as a person, and doesn't matter as far as judging them as a FIGHTER. If you consider "being a champion" to mean more than just carrying a belt then yes, I suppose it's relevant. If you think the way a fighter carries himself and represents his sport and his fans is an important part of being a champion then of course it matters.

 

Yeah, their morality doesn't actually matter at all to their standing as fighters. As well as the fact that we can't even ever really know.

But historically, especially with the heavyweight champions (mostly American), many of them have been romanticized as men of noble character. And such statements about their characters do still creep in to ordinary boxing discussion.

 

Then you have people who are neither on one side nor the other. Alexis Arguello was by all accounts an absolute gentleman, inside the ring and out, and in his outward behaviour was in the truest sense like an ideal champion. He was also a womanising drug addict who fought with the contras death squads.

 

I think it is always a mistake to put fighters on a pedestal.

They are ordinary men, with an extraordinary talent, and they are always likely to come up short somewhere.

 

I think it may matter in the grand scheme of how well they do in life. Bad Morality can lead to bad habits, bad associations, etc. But, I don't think it matters as to how we view them as fighters. I , personally, care about what they do between the squared circle more than anything else.

 

Fighting against the Sandanista government is no stain on Arguello, if you ask me. They were a Soviet/Castro puppet government who pretended to be pure Communists, but of course were not. They took money/property from those who had it, like Arguello, to "Redistribute" it, i.e. give it to themselves. Fortunately, Reagan put the full court press on those *******s and they eventually lost power.

 

Jesus, once again the planets are in unique alignment and we absolutely agree.

Again, Mahatma Gandhi was a horrible leader and champion of human rights because he had a lousy uppercut.

 

This has only become relevant since Ali. Prior to him fighters were in the main quiet guys who only spoke about their work, and who they were fighting next, and hoped it would be a good fight, blah, blah, blah. Since then there has been a proliferation of fighters who can't wait to mouth off to a cluster of microphones, as much self important nonsense as they can spew out in the time alloted to them.

Perhaps it is this that invites judgementalism.

 

Great question. And yes, I'll judge the sh/t out of anyone who acts in sociopathic ways, thank you very much. I will never understand how anyone could "be a fan" of someone like a Monzon or Robinson. I just don't understand. To me, that says a ton about their own moral compass for choosing to ignore some very real issues, but that's on them I guess.

The other side of that coin is that no, I would never downgrade a fighter's abilities or rank them below someone else on some imaginary "hit parade of greatness" as we are so fond of doing here simply because they were lower than dirt. I will just always disfavor them, for whatever that's worth.

 

Champions are 'generally' a matter of fact.

Morality is an abstract concept.

Boxing, possibly more than any other mainstream sport, is best keeping away from that 'Pandora's box'!

 

Right but so many people hate fighters because of their character but how many fighters come from a stable home with a white Pickett fence in front of it?

 

That's a ridiculous copout. There are tons of people from bad backgrounds who turn out to be perfectly decent human beings.

 

The thing is, the good moral character of the champions was often stressed by the media, perhaps because to many people professional boxing comes from a starting point of seediness, disrepute and dubious legality.

 

Fighting against the Sandinistas might not have been a stain in itself, and he had more reason than many, but the company he kept in doing so is indeed a stain. The man might have been the noblest freedom fighter who ever picked up a gun. His comrades were not.

Nothing Reagan ever did in Latin America was fortunate for anybody except the agents of power.

 

But there maybe something to it. In research done on murderers brains, there is evidence that having the 'warrior' gene and having a troubled childhood can lead to a more 'troubled' life. Also having the 'warrior' gene and being physically abused can again, lead to more issues.

About 20% of people have this gene, and of those who have it, about 6% of these people have the lack of development in the frontal lobe that dictates social behaviour and thus are more likely to be involved in violent crime.

It would be interesting to find out if boxers as a proportion of the population are more likely to have this 'warrior' gene. I suspect the answer will be yes, and it might also be a statistically significant percentage too.