Sporting warriors beaten, bloodied but unbowed

TWO SONS of Ulster suffered lonely defeat on American soil this weekend but there was one sharp contrast in the circumstances of each loss.

One was a young golfer struggling through the surreal beauty of a Georgia golf course, safe in the knowledge that the world remains at his feet in spite of everything. The other was a journeyman boxer ending an 18-year professional career in defeat at the not so picturesque Prudential Centre in Newark, New Jersey on Saturday night.

Monaghan’s Kevin McBride may be doomed (or blessed) to be forever known as the man who ended boxing’s most notorious career in Washington DC in June 2005 but obviously he doesn’t quite see it that way.

“Twenty years from now,” he said last week, “people will still be saying, ‘Jesus. Kevin McBride beat Mike Tyson’.”

The ‘Clones Colossus’ was picked by Poland’s Tomasz Adamek as a stepping stone towards a September challenge to the crown of WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko in Adamek’s homeland.

Unfortunately for McBride, he had just one thing going for him: his similarity in stature to Klitschko, who will tower over Adamek, a former light-heavyweight and cruiserweight champion. Of all the cards this sport deals out, ending your career as an oversized punching bag must be the biggest insult.

There is little difference between the physical cruelty of a career spent navigating the lower rungs of the ‘Sweet Science’ and the psychological trauma of a disintegrating day of golf, especially when a major victory seems so close.

And when the game was up for both McIlroy and McBride this weekend, they faced into the pointlessness of their final holes and dying rounds with a shared dignity that had nothing to do with money or fame or hope.

McIlroy even channelled the spirit of all that is great about boxing, that astonishing moment when you see two opponents fall lovingly into each other’s arms just seconds after beating each other to a pulp. Of course, McIlroy did it with Charl Schwartzel on a private jet on the way to Malaysia, which made it a little easier.

The way McIlroy faced the world’s press was immediately seized upon by golf writers everywhere, understandably enough. Every inch of analysis contextualised the Holywood golfer’s unfathomable collapse in terms of his admirable ability to brush it off as part of a steep learning curve.

McBride was just as forthcoming on Saturday night, confirming for anyone who was bothered that unless a big name came calling, this was the end of the road.

The saddest sporting video you’ll see all week is the work of an overly eager reporter who, having spotted McBride and his wife Danielle at a grim-looking cafe the morning after the night before, proceeds to ask the nervous couple about the fight and the future.

McBride, wearing wrap-around shades and a peaked cap, slurs his speech. Danielle, in her green Boston Red Sox hoodie, smiles occasionally but would rather be somewhere else, naturally enough.

“I’m a fighter and it’s hard to say goodbye to the sport,” McBride tells the reporter before adding with a smile, “But I can say I retired Tyson and Adamek can say he retired me!”

Before the video ends, before he utters some worthy advice for Adamek (“he needs to add a few pounds”) and while his wife answers questions about the family life they’re about to enjoy, McBride raises a spoon of cereal to his mouth. In his huge paw, he cradles the tiny bowl, his humble source of comfort aside from the company of his wife.

He steals that one spoonful before continuing to answer obediently. There’s no more spotlight for McBride. There are no more journalists, no more pay-per-views, no more knocking the world’s scariest man on his ass. There’s no Malaysian Open for McBride. He must now resume his life as a husband and father of two in Massachusetts. And he must now wait for the long-term effects of well over two decades of knocks to the head. But until the day he dies, maybe he’ll be happy to have his boxing career boil down to one high point and one post script.

That unforgettable and tragi-comic image of Tyson, past his prime and pathetic, sitting forlornly beneath the ropes of a tiny canvas in the nation’s capital, waiting to be picked up by someone, anyone. That was the Irishman’s doing.

“You’re a legend and a warrior Mike,” he told Tyson as the pair wobbled in the still crowded ring, the sweat still cascading down his mountainous frame. That memory must have travelled with him to his final moment in the spotlight this weekend. McBride, wringing every last molecule out of a career that had long since rattled past its half-life, refused to go down, despite the 7,000-strong crowd of mostly Poles willing on his opponent.

Still standing after 12 rounds. “I’m a warrior,” he says.

* [e-mail]; Twitter: JohnWRiordan