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Nothing Personal
Hot fun down South
That sly dog! The Magnolia State's governor finally cops to a thing goin' on. Plus: Vladimir Lenin's lost head pops up; ex-Stones drummer now hawking tube steaks; and Mister Rogers soaks up fawning from a cardigan-clad pol.
By Amy Reiter
[06/11/99]

Nothing Personal
Baring it all for the Bard
C'mon over, baby, whole lotta Shakespeare going on! Plus: The case of the exceedingly unpleasant cream puff; and Stone and DeGeneres slated to sing, "She's havin' my baby ..."
By Amy Reiter
[06/10/99]

Rogues' Gallery
Vegas' splitting headache: Mob mouthpiece elected mayor!
Jeepers creepers, voters follow bouncing peepers! New goodfella-in-chief has never been accused of engaging in oral sex, or giving "Leaves of Grass" to young women. In other words, he's squeaky clean by today's standards.
By Douglas Cruickshank
[06/10/99]

Obituary
Alice Adams
The San Francisco author of novels and short stories wrote with a generous intelligence that characterized the way she lived her life.
By Mary Gaitskill
[06/09/99]

People Feature
Wolfe in the fold
The natty novelist goes on the prowl at Stanford while researching his next book.
By Joshua Robin
[06/09/99]

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By Steve Burgess

June 11, 1999 | Timing is everything. Say there's this guy who wants to star in biblical epics. He has the good sense to come into stern, manly good looks during the '50s. Later, the same guy wants to be a hero playing elder statesman to the gun nuts but, Lo, his train hath left the station. Poor Chuck. He's probably a boxing fan, too.

I know I am, and believe me I'm not proud of it. Talk about being out of step with society -- boxing is thrice accursed these days, at the very least. Blood sports are not much in fashion to begin with, and then there's the perception that the combatants have probably been forced into it by socioeconomic hard knocks. Two grade-school dropouts in a ring beating each other silly because they couldn't read the want ads -- you can't get much more un-PC than that.

Now pile on the sleaze factor. Rampant corruption and the welter of rival organizations like the WBO, WBC and IBF have led many to compare boxing to pro wrestling, which is unfair. In light of the appalling draw in the Evander Holyfield-Lennox Lewis heavyweight title fight last year, it's clearly more like figure skating. But wonky scorecards are only the icing on the giant turd cake that is boxing's public image. The fact that Mike Tyson is the only boxer most people on the street could name goes a long way to explaining why the sport is such a tough sell. In polite society, pugilism is now about a half step up from cockfighting. Enthusiasts must keep their predilection to themselves until they're in sympathetic company -- which makes that company all the sweeter when the opportunity arises.

Last March the opportunity arrived. In a windowless back room somewhere on Vancouver's Commercial Drive, fight fans prepared to watch Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield battle for the belt at New York's Madison Square Garden, a continent away. The gathering had an appropriately furtive air, seeing as how it wasn't just unfashionable, but illegal. Luckily, little rooms like this one were under the radar of the cable police. No one was charging money here, which is exactly the problem if you're vertically coifed boxing impresario Don King (just thank God you're not).

Despite the taint of blood lust attaching to any boxing fan who emerges from the closet, there are still celebrities who show up when the heavyweight championship is on the line. Still, even the famous fans only tend to confirm boxing's outlaw status -- two of the more notable ringside faces at MSG belonged to Keith Richards and Jack Nicholson (inspiring visions of a truly interesting 12-round bout). Some celebs are probably just past caring, as evidenced when Bo Derek appeared on-screen. "She's, like, 80 now, right?" asked a woman staring up at the TV. A solid rabbit punch and the fight hadn't even begun.

Buy "Golden Boy" by Tim Kawakami

Heavyweight is the glamour class, but these days serious fight fans pay more attention to the lower weight divisions. Undisputed light heavyweight champ Roy Jones Jr. is often called the best fighter currently active. But the hottest division at the moment is definitely welterweight, and it's the home of boxing's hottest star, Oscar de la Hoya, the subject of Tim Kawakami's recent biography, "Golden Boy." The gulf that separates boxing fans from the rest of humanity is best measured by his magic name. Among the faithful, the man is bigger than anyone in the business -- bigger than Tyson, Lewis, Holyfield -- anyone. You can hear the special savor when his name rolls off the tongue of famed ring announcer Michael "Let's get ready to rumble" Buffer: "Here he is ... from East L.A. ... the UN-defeated, WBC WEL-terweight champion of the WIIIIRLD ... The GOALLL-den boy ... OSSS-car de la HOOOOOO-yaaaaaaa ..."

And outside the boxing bubble, there are still many who have never heard of him. In May, when de la Hoya knocked out Oba Carr for his 31st professional victory, I searched the paper the next day for news of the bout. Under the heading "Boxing," there was one story: Mike Tyson was about to get out of jail. Even when boxing has a legitimate superstar to sell, sleaze trumps quality in media reporting every time. This despite the 26-year-old de la Hoya's status as the glamour act of the boxing world, an undefeated warrior who actually gives good interview.

It's the latter quality that often creates boxing superstars. Like Sugar Ray Leonard before him, de la Hoya makes boxing fans feel less guilty about their favorite sport by convincing them that they are watching not homicidal thugs whose career choice is an indictment of the system that made them what they are, but bright, talented young men who know exactly what they're doing and why. De la Hoya's failure to transcend the narrow boxing world may simply reflect the historic difficulty of marketing welterweights. Or it may be a symptom of boxing's current bad odor -- the wider world is accepting no celebrity applications from sluggers just now, unless they're belting horsehide over a ballpark fence. One more reason for boxing fans to hunker down and draw the drapes.

Next page | De la Hoya's rare charisma