THE BOXIN BLUES – By Des Kelly

photo source = Talk Spot

He may “weather the storm”, but Japanese kick-boxer Tenshin Nasukawa DID feel the “tension” of a 1st round knockout by Floyd Mayweather, in their exhibition bout, this past New Years Eve (2018), earning himself a cool 9 million, give or take a dollar or two. Floyd is a boxer, now retired, but given the nickname “Money” Mayweather, who can blame him or his manager, CEO Leonard Ellerbe for now wanting to take on another possible exhibition fight with UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov in the near future (hopefully).

Boxing fans (hopefully), also, expect to see just a leeetle more actual boxing for the price of the tickets they pay to see these “bouts” (this one lasted “about’ 2 minutes, & 19 seconds, to be exact), but, at least, they got to see this 20 year old kick-boxer floored no less than 3 times in 2 minutes. The main problem was that poor young Tenshin did not have the time to get even one kick in. As to whether he was allowed to do this (we have to remember that he WAS a ‘Kick-Boxer”), I really don’t know, but what I do know is that boxers should fight other boxers in the same weight class, and kick-boxers box (&kick)other bloody kick-boxers, just for the heck of it.

I certainly would not sing “Money is the root of all evil” to Floyd Mayweather (I’ll let the Andrews’ Sisters do that), I don’t think that I would last even as long as Tenshin did, BUT sadly it seems that ALL SPORTS nowadays have a “root” problem which is MONEY.
Boxing is a sport that I have always enjoyed watching, and, as far as I am concerned, pound for mascular pound, the GREATEST BOXER IN THE WORLD was SUGAR RAY ROBINSON. Those were the days. I always say. Cricket WAS a Gentleman’s game. Tennis players did not go around smashing their racquets and shouting at referees, the ” Pussy-cats” of Geelong were the undisputed Champions of Aussie Rules, Boxers fought Boxers, Table- tennis, which I played, was called “Ping-Pong”, it’s correct name, and, without naming them, there were a few people who played nothing except ” Pocket-Billiards”. There was never any money involved in these games, they were simply played for fun. Now that 2019 is upon us though, we have to expect bribery & corruption on all sides, UNLESS someone! reads eLanka on-line and puts a stop to it. Here’s hoping.