Vale 'Viper' as a boxer's life gets dangerous €” outside the ring
The Age
Thursday July 30, 2009
BOXING can be dangerous, no doubt about it, but at least in boxing you get a pair of gloves, a referee and, if you are lucky, a decent cut man. Life, on the other hand, just keeps knocking you down. In life, you just bleed.Vernon "The Viper" Forrest €” a two-time world champion €” was shot dead this week in Atlanta when thieves tried to steal his wallet at a service station. His 11-year-old godson inside the car, the Viper took umbrage at this behaviour, drew his own gun and gave chase. As he gave up and turned around, the thieves delivered their own standing eight-count, firing precisely that many bullets into his back with a semi-automatic gun.This followed, by a mere fortnight, the bizarre death of former world champion Arturo "Thunder" Gatti €” who police believe may have been strangled by the handle of his wife's handbag. Whether she had her hands on it at the time remains to be seen.My nana always said these things happened in threes. Somewhere, some guy with a pair of cauliflower ears better look out.We have heard the arguments about bloodsport and brain damage for decades, and yet it just might be the case that being an ex-boxer is a whole lot more dangerous than being a current one. Boxing is pretty dangerous . . . and then you get in the ring.The history of the sport is littered with those who were unable to make the transition from ring to retirement. Sonny Liston and Mike Tyson spring to mind as men ill-equipped for anything that did not involve punching other men. In Australia, Lester Ellis notoriously fell on hard times. Former Australian heavyweight Vince Cervi was also shot dead this year having gotten mixed up with what you imagine were the wrong kind of people.Forrest, by all accounts, was not such a fighter. Only 38, he had won a reputation as one of the sport's good guys, a solid family man with an enthusiasm for charity work. Also for putting on a great show, as in the bouts he will be remembered for, two skilled and stylish triumphs over Sugar Shane Mosley €” the first when Mosley was rated the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.But even for such a character the world can be a dangerous place. Purveyors of the pugilistic arts seldom come from the right side of town. For generations boxing has been a passport out of a poverty for young men who like to throw a punch and don't mind taking one all that much. Many never make it out, those who do become targets for those with less gumption but more gun-power. They are targets for shonky promoters, targets for bar-room brawlers, targets for bandits at service stations.It's all a bit depressing and depressing is something the boxing world does pretty well. It's only after I started writing about it that I realised there would not be much funny business in a story about a father and champion being shot in the back by a bunch of greedy cowards. Hopefully normal service will be resumed next week, maybe with something about dwarf tossing or rock, paper, scissors.For once, at least, the "taken too young" history of grand boxing exits has a man who stood proudly and did not degenerate, a man killed because of bad luck and a bad decision but who appears to have lived a good life. The Viper came from nothing but made something of himself. The first in his family to graduate high school, he then used his fists to win his way into college and earn a degree, represented his country at a world championships and started a successful charity providing housing to the mentally ill. Vale Viper.
© 2009 The Age