There is a stand-by column always available to anyone who attempts to write about sport. It goes roughly like this: why is an activity as hideous as boxing called a pastime, and why is that hideous pastime eternally seductive?
For my money, the great Hugh McIlvanney wrote the book on this tortured question. Hughie saw the best in boxing, at their very best, but could never shake his ambivalence. His writings on Ali approach poetry, yet their power derive from a very specific human doubt.
When the great black hope took on the world, certain things were obvious. Here was a magnificent, matchless athlete. Yet here, too, was a peerless sportsman whose only purpose was to puddle the brains of his opponent while risking his own health. Were we supposed to applaud, look away, or merely recognise the contradictions?
Personally, I would have paid to see McIlvanney v Norman Mailer in Manhattan, once upon a time, but that, X-rated, is another story. Whether I would stump up today for the pathetic spectacle of Mike Tyson humiliating himself to placate numberless creditors is an easier call. I don’t care for bear-baiting.
Tyson’s “exhibition” bouts – the description is more than apt – sell out in hours, nevertheless. He confesses to shame, deplores his needs, and still the punters roll up. The requiem for this heavyweight has become a kind of refined cruelty. Yet we, the bloated public, lap it up without a second thought.
Something about boxing depends on the idea of a man against the ropes. Ali’s artistry was easy to admire: it was beautiful. Watching him soak up infernal punishment, just to prove a point, long after his time was said to have come and gone, became another matter. That was a dark, very dubious pleasure. What was being celebrated, precisely? At a guess, heroism in adversity.
Scots have long had an affinity with the fights. The land of Jekyll and Hyde seems to respond instinctively to men who make their destinies with their fists. The other McIlvanney, Willie, caught it best in his novel The Big Man, that tale of a bare-knuckled working-class bruiser with a tragic fate and a loathing for his own art. Poor boys punching their way out of trouble: we understand, or imagine we understand, is the logic.
We also have a need for cliche. Fighters who quit at the top, bank a bundle, and retire to domestic bliss are of no interest in this mythology. Scotland’s idea of a boxer began with Benny Lynch and sticks to the pitiable paradigm. Amaze the world, throw it all away, and succumb to bad habits: the soap opera applies as easily to Scott Harrison as it does to Tyson.
Nevertheless, a singular fact has been overlooked in the lurid tales surrounding the man from Cambuslang. This is an authentic boxer, better than skilled. He fights, when fit, with more intelligence than his private demons might allow. He did not land the WBO featherweight title in a mere brawl. He can battle if a battle is offered, but at his best he dignifies the idea that boxing involves a kind of science.
We can leave the authorities, in Scotland and in Spain, to decide on the merits of the charges accumulating in Harrison’s name. He appears to be in a bad place, mentally, facing difficulties that cannot be resolved with glib advice. The boxing board of control wants to know if he is “medically fit” to defend his title. Simon Block, the British board’s secretary, has even mentioned – with no apparent irony – regulation 25, bringing the sport into “disrepute”. That sounds helpful.
I know where Scott Harrison is this morning: Scotland’s champion is in a Spanish jail. Who the fighter might also be currently, in his skin and in his mind, involves more tortuous questions. Are we condemned as a nation to these tragedies? Is there a unique Scottish talent for throwing away native ability?
In the maximum security blocks of Malaga’s Alhaurin de la Torre prison, no one cares. Harrison was supposed to be in Spain to escape the pernicious elements in his life. Yet depression and alcoholism have been tougher opponents, it seems, than any featherweight in the world. This bystander returns to the questions: is this a Scottish thing, or a boxing thing? Do Scots take to boxing because of the implicit tragedy of the game, and because of all the human accidents waiting to happen?
When the national team pulled off a sleekit victory over France, the political hacks could not resist the temptation. Suddenly, in every other column, a small sporting pleasure became a vote for independence. The analogy was clumsy, as ever, but in small countries small things matter. So are we inspired by Walter Smith, or struck dumb by Scott Harrison’s reminder that we always conspire in our own failures?
The romantic in me, the one who still finds something redeemable in boxing, won’t write off this fighter just yet. We don’t need another Benny. I am not so Spartan, meanwhile, that I can condemn a man for his habits. It would be nice, nevertheless, if we could find a Scottish hero without the social clutter, without the baggage of our urban existence. Even in defeat, and especially in despair, our champions reflect us. The picture is rarely pretty.
What do I think about boxing? That depends on the fighters. Given recent evidence, Harrison is probably not ready – let’s keep the lawyers happy with this one – to re-enter the ring in the near future. Given the condition of contemporary Scotland, nevertheless, it would be a sheer delight to see him defend his title, fit and healthy, in London this December.
We like underdogs. That, in every Scottish sport, may be our problem. “Downtrodden” becomes a habit of mind. Boxing is ugly, but the conditions on which the Scottish game depends are uglier still. Poor boys battling: should we take pride in that, or merely hope Scott Harrison can step up on the bell?
