-
Mark Watson and Jesse Ryder weigh in - Source: Photosport -
Related
They say if you ignore something long enough, it'll go away.
And so, for the sake of our sanity and boxing's increasingly distressing slide into pure farce, it's probably best that we look straight past some of the more ludicrous features of tonight's "Godfather of All Fight Nights" in Auckland.
Let's not devote a single centimetre more of column space to the grudge match between Rosanna Arkle and Jaime Ridge. The mere suggestion that any male would pay money to watch two never-weres bash each other's already-fragile craniums mercilessly for the WBO Welterweight Braincell is outrageous in the extreme.
By not referring to the ugly scene at the weigh-in between main drawcards Shane Cameron and Monty Barrett, we won't be condoning the sort of childish behaviour normally reserved for school playgrounds.
And this article won't even bother to mention cricket bad boy Jesse Ryder's long-awaited bout with radio bad boy Mark Watson in a classic brawn versus no-brains contest.
Far be it for us to suggest it's a promoter's dream, pitting, as it does, a champion of the people, adored by anyone who's ever smashed a plastic jug of beer over their head, against a self-proclaimed champion of the people with a following of roughly one.
Let's ignore the fact that there's nary a sport-minded man in this country who wouldn't dream of being in Ryder's shoes, handed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to silence a man whose contribution to sports journalism has been about as welcome as, well, his contribution to boxing.
Instead, we should applaud Ryder on his commitment to the event, which has seen him lose six kilograms in a month. The training regime involved has hopefully put the gifted batsman on a path to better health and - if his thoughtful and frank interview on Radio Sport during the week was anything to go by - cleared his head as well.
The element of the loveable rogue is alive and well in Ryder's persona.
His opponent tonight (whose constant protestations that he has no personal issue with Ryder are true, by the way - he has a collective issue with everyone involved in New Zealand cricket) once mused disgustedly on air how could Jesse Ryder be more well-known than Jesse Sargent.
The answer to that is simple - Sargent is a high-performance athlete with a freakishly-high work ethic and a remarkable drive for success. Ryder is a tubby bloke from Naenae who enjoys a good feed and a beer, and can swing a cricket bat.
Sargent would be the first to agree that it's not hard to work out which of the pair is easier for your average Kiwi to relate to.
So, let's congratulate Ryder on the first step on his first step back to cricketing superstardom without mentioning the unsavoury manner in which he's achieving it.
Let's not for a moment suggest many of us will be glued to the action tonight, beer in one hand, KFC pie in the other.
We won't for a minute admit to being entertained by the kind of cheap thrills provided by two hyped-up novices bashing each other about a bit or a couple of lithe young lasses grappling each other around the canvas.
It's the last thing we'll be watching on a Thursday night. Like a wet-paint sign or a car wreck on the side of the road, let's all just ignore it and it'll be like it never happened.