DOWN FOR THE COUNT!

My grandfather used to love Friday night fights. So did a lot of other people during the 1960s. Watching boxing on TV was a really big deal.

I will never forget watching Emile Griffith fight Benny “Kid” Paret. This happened on a Saturday, March 24, 1962. It was broadcast as the ABC Fight of the Week.” Benny “Kid” Paret was the reigning Welterweight champion. This was actually the third fight between these two. Griffith won the first match; Paret won the second and this was the rubber match. This took place in Madison Square Garden. The fight lasted 12 rounds and even that round started out slow. Then Griffith his Paret with a solid punch, backed him into a corner and started pounding him. It was later determined that Paret was hit with 29 unanswered blows. Paret, who was still standing, slowly slid to the floor, and collapsed. Actually, his trainers basically pulled him down to the floor. At first, all the attention was on Emile Griffith celebrating winning the world championship. Then it started to become obvious that Paret was seriously injured. He was carried from the ring on a stretcher, and he died 10 days later.

This all happened in just a few seconds. While some argued that the referee should have stopped the fight sooner, if you watch this on video, not in slow motion, the speed at which this happened is amazing. The referee did stop the fight, but it was too late to save Benny Kid Paret. Now, of course, we realize the cumulative trauma that many of these boxers experienced as the result of being hit in the head so many times. Ultimately, as a result of this and other incidents, people stopped watching boxing matches

When Davey Moore died after a fight with Sugar Ramos in March 1963 the end was near. By December 1963 ABC announced that it was cancelling the “Fight of the Week.”  The last of the Friday Night Fights was September 11, 1964, when Nigerian middleweight Dick Tiger defeated Don Fulmer.

This is a reminder of how quickly things can change. Prior to the death of Benny “Kid” Paret it was hard to imagine something as popular as boxing almost disappear. But that is exactly what happened, and it only took a couple of seconds. Today there are increasing signs that Joe Biden has taken a few too many punches and he is down for the count. Even the MSM media parasites that worked so hard to defeat Donald Trump and put Biden in office have had enough. They have turned on him with a speed that is astonishing. Although they still coverup the obvious signs of dementia and they still downplay his serial lying, his performance is too bad to ignore. His speech calling Republicans racists for demanding fair and honest elections was a bridge too far. The man who promised to unite us has instead divided us even further.

In the 1960s, the solution was pretty easy. They just stopped broadcasting boxing matches and significant steps were taken to make the sport safer. But the Biden dilemma is far more challenging because there is no visible means to fix this. If Biden were removed from office today, his replacement would be Kamala Harris, who is decidedly worse. If both were replaced, we would get Nancy Pelosi, which would make both of them look good in comparison.

We are now at the point where change is inevitable. Even the MSM wants change. Unless something intervenes, Republicans will run the table in 2022. That will matter more than you can imagine. Democrats promoted a hoax to investigate Trump. Then they tried to impeach him over a phone call with Ukraine that they couldn’t even begin to define as a crime. Finally, they tried to impeach him again, with 24 hours left in office. This set a new, extremely low standard for a congress to directly challenge a President. It is hard to imagine Republicans ignoring this opportunity.

The only thing certain is that Joe Biden is down for the count. The only thing certain is change. Unprecedented change.

TDM