Night Falls on the Black Athlete

Jack Johnson is turning in his grave now, and so are Sugar Ray Robinson and Joe Louis. For at least four decades the heavyweight championship had been held by a brother. But not any more.

Oleg Maskaev stopped Hasim Rahman in the 12th round of their rematch Saturday night. Hasim could’ve done better. Could’ve. Should’ve. But didn’t. But hey, really, two big 250 pound dudes slugging it out for 12 rounds - that's some hard shit.

Now all four belts are being held by Eastern Europeans. So, basically, Communists – or should I say former Communists, own the division now. How did this happen? Used to be a time when you could put a pair of gloves on a brother, put him in the ring and say “Go get him…” And a mother fucker was done. But not no mo. Night has fallen on the Black athlete.

And we can’t blame Don King for the current state of affairs either; one man did not wreck a whole division. Hell, La Cosa Nostra did worse by boxers in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s than Don King ever did. You wanna talk about fight fixing…? Them mother fuckers did some shit!

What we need now is a new energy in the heavyweight division. We need a brother with the speed of Ali, the heart and determination of Evander Holyfield (when he was much younger), the sheer knockout power of Mike Tyson, who is a gentleman like Joe Louis and Lennox Lewis, has a jab like Larry Holmes (1980 Larry Holmes not that old fat dude that gets in the ring nowadays) but at the same time can a scare a mother fucker like George Foreman (1972 George Foreman not the hamburger salesman now) or Sonny Liston.

So in essence brothers and sister and anyone else reading this: We need a new Black champion.