But Myrl Taylor, St. Louis president of USA Boxing, the American amateur boxing sanctioning body, wishes someone would prosecute.
"I think they're going to get somebody fucking killed and the thing of it is we're going to get the black eye for it," he says in a telephone interview. "We have amateur boxing, the Olympic-style boxing, and we've got trained officials there to make sure nobody gets hurt. We've got a doctor on site, we've got oxygen on site, we've got all that. They ain't got shit."
Taylor notes that sanctioned amateur fighters, like pros, have to be examined before and after they fight, and are subject to examination by a doctor during the fight. He's angry that because the backyard boxers don't charge admission or fight for prize money, authorities are unwilling to hold them to the sport's accepted standards.
"They're trying to say, well, they're just in a backyard," he says, "but if somebody gets hurt with that shit, what are they going to say? 'Somebody got killed boxing.' They ain't gonna say it was some ignorant asshole that got killed."
Dr. Michael Schwartz, chairman of the American Association of Professional Ringside Physicians, agrees that no matter how careful and prudent the backyard boxers are, they're treading on dangerous ground.
"I think it's ridiculous," he says. "I think it's incredibly dangerous." Schwartz points out that the inherent nature of boxing is to injure your opponent. "So what happens if one of these guys gets critically injured and there's nobody there, such as a physician, there's no control?"
I mention Smith's comparison of what the backyard boxers are doing to a pickup game on the schoolyard. "There's no problem if they want to have it in their backyard," he says, "but they should utilize the same rules and regulations that there are in amateur boxing, and the reason there are rules and regulations is because statistically we've made mistakes over the years, and said, 'Look, how is this different than a basketball game?' Well, the intent of this is to hurt the other individual. Therefore, people do become injured. Most of the injuries are not severe, but the possibility exists for catastrophe."
The backyard boxing crew does seem concerned with safety, but there are no doctors, no EMTs apparent. Maybe just by dumb luck, there is no catastrophe this day. Nobody gets killed, or even hurt beyond a bloody nose.
The crowd has built to an anthem-belting fever pitch by the time of the main event, "Iron Skillet" vs. "Akita" for the heavyweight Hoosierbelt championship. Smith enters the ring to the theme from "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," dressed as Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name, complete with tiny cigar. He lifts his poncho to display a hand-lettered sign: "A Fistful of Skillet."
"There were probably about 30 people there who got it," he'd say later, "but at least those 30 people thought it was funny." The nickname was chosen one day after Smith, in need of a moniker, and friends had stopped at a roadside restaurant of that name.
None of this impresses Crone, an intense German-born St. Louisan who'd gotten himself into the proper mood before the fight by driving around for an hour and listening to a Korn tape. "It's stuff I don't even necessarily like," he'd said of the hammering music, "but it kind of put me in the frame of mind I want to be in."
Crone lands the heavier blows in the first two rounds, though Smith is able to land one big overhand right. After the second round, and each subsequent round, Crone lets out a primal roar as he walks back to his corner: "Yaaaagghhh!"
In the third, Crone begins landing solid left hooks to the head. Smith shakes his head as if to say that the blows don't hurt, but (old boxing joke) they don't help either.
Kati Fischer, 25, is a graphic artist and Smith's girlfriend. She designed the International Brotherhood of Sweet Scientists seal as well as posters for the fight. After the fourth round, I ask her how it is to watch her man in the ring.
"It's awful. There's nothing pleasant about it," she says. "It's like watching a horror film, it's like your eyes in between your fingers, going like this: 'Ooh, I can't watch it but ooh, I have to.'"
I ask how she thinks the Skillet is doing.
"Ummmmmmm, he could be doing better? I'm hoping he'll do better? I'm hoping he'll kick his fucking ass!"
He doesn't. Crone continues to score effectively despite this unorthodox boxing advice from his corner: "Keep your head up, Tommy!" At the end of the fifth and final round, he spits out his mouthpiece and yells, "Fuck yeah! Fuck yeah!" as the crowd roars.
The cheers turn to groans as referee Neukirch announces the judges' decision: a draw. The crowd seems to think Crone has won, which is how it looks on the Salon card. "I think I won," Crone says without anger. "I think I won 3-2. It was fun." Smith, who'd looked frustrated as the bout ended, says, "I'll go with the judges, but I'm disappointed in my performance."
In an e-mail the next day, Smith relinquishes the belt. "I feel my performance on Sunday was unbecoming of a champion," he writes.
Perhaps so, but his 88-year-old grandmother, Elaine Fouche, who first saw her father fight in 1920 and told Smith about the backyard boxing of her youth, loved it. "It was a lot of fun, and I'm so proud of him," she says. "But I could hardly watch it when he was getting all beat up."
And even though nobody's happy with a draw, most people seem anxious to come back for the next backyard boxing show, presumably on Memorial Day.
"It's a lot of fun for everybody," says Larry Weir, a co-worker of Smith's and one of the judges. "I don't know if it'll catch on, but if there's another one, I want to be there."
Smith's grandma says she'll be there too.
"Oh yes. I'm into it now!"
About the writer
King Kaufman is a senior writer for Salon.
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