The Greatest by Walter Dean Myers

Author:Walter Dean Myers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2016-09-17T04:00:00+00:00

Prior image: Training, 1970.

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Each time a fighter steps into the ring he knows there will be a cost. For the glory of the possible win there will be a price measured in units of pain. He will have an idea, if he is honest with himself, of just how much pain he will have to endure on a given night, how much blood he will lose, and just how long it will take for his body to recover from the inevitable battering. Every fight hurts. Every fight damages the body. Some damage the soul.

Fights are often decided in the dressing room as the fighter extends his imagination to the glare of ringside. The image of the impending battle flickers through his mind, and he visualizes himself winning, punishing his opponent more than he is punished. He sees himself using his style, using those tools most comfortable to him, to control the fight. Muhammad Ali could see himself moving quickly, throwing out lightning jabs, leaning back, just out of the reach of the desperate hooks. He saw himself frustrating his opponent, imposing his will on the fight. But even if he was convinced that he could win the fight, convinced beyond the hype and the false bravado he offered to the press, he must still have assessed how much suffering he could bear to carry it off.

When the pain comes, it can be excruciating. A two hundred-pound heavyweight at the top of his form can deliver a devastating blow. A good single blow to the face can break the neck of an ordinary person. Those watching on television or at ringside can scream at a fighter who lies helplessly against the ropes or who has stumbled heavily to the canvas, to get back into the fight. But few fight fans have ever been hit with even a glancing blow from a real fighter. They don’t know the courage it takes to continue when the body is screaming to give it up.

Body punches bruise the muscles that help a fighter turn and lift his arms. They push the ribs out of shape; they bruise and tear the internal organs. Hours after the fight the torn tissue and bleeding show up as a bloody tint in the urine.

A fighter’s head throbs. Cuts are alive with pain as they are slammed again and again or as a glove is scraped across the exposed nerves. Forehead cuts bleed into the eyes and give color to the violence. Fighters hurt. They survive by accepting the agony of fighting as a way of life.

In the top ranks there are trainers and doctors at ringside, and other doctors to examine and care for the boxer. At the lower end of the spectrum there is less medical attention, less time to heal between fights, less money for good treatment.

Whether the medical treatment received before and after a fight is good or bad, the damage to the body is still done. Mostly, the body is forgiving. It will usually heal.

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