Heavyweight bout becomes social media catfight
OPINION: The heavyweight boxing championship of the world is no longer a war in the ring between two of the most terrifying men on the planet. It has become a catfight on social media. By the time that Anthony Joshua and Joseph Parker get to Cardiff, they will have punched themselves out on words.
The fight was announced by Matchroom Boxing as ‘‘it’s ON @anthonyfjoshua fights @joeboxerparker.’’
We don’t even bother with the actual names any more. You just need to announce the social media accounts of the fighters. That’s what the sponsors demand. They want as many follows as possible. They want their name up there in emojis.
‘‘And fighting out of the red corner, weighing in with 59.8k Twitter followers, is Joseph Pieman Parker. And fighting out of the blue corner, weighing in with a staggering 1.83 million Twitter followers, is the defending social media champion, Anthony Glassjaw Joshua.’’
For the past few months Parker has been throwing tweets furiously: ‘‘the bubble’s gonna burst bro;’’ ‘‘my belt’s never for sale but I’ll add your two to my collection when you’re ready.’’ There’s not a lot of weight behind them. Most of the bigger punches have come from manager David Higgins, with the viral glass jaw video and the assertion that Joshua was going ‘‘to choke like the England football team’’.
Then Tyson Fury weighed in. He doesn’t need to fight any more, because he can still tweet. Tyson2FastFury@Tyson_Fury put it out there; ‘‘If Anthony Joshua fights Joseph parker I will bet anybody in the world $5000 cash the parker will ko him.’’
We are in Trump world here. When the presidency of the United States is fought out on social media, can we be surprised when boxers start trading online blows.
When world wars are fought out on Twitter, with Trump wondering why little rocket man ‘‘Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me ‘‘old,’’ when I would NEVER call him ‘‘short and fat’’, then is it any wonder that the heavyweight belts end up online.
Because the use of social media is MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL. That’s why there is a spoof Wrestlemania video of Trump body-slamming a reporter with a CNN boxhead. Or FNN, Fraud News network, as Trump calls them.
Everybody is weighing in. Deontay Wilder has challenged both fighters on Facebook and Twitter for the cyber-bullying championship of the world. Eddie Chambers has called out Joshua amidst claims that rambling tweets which appeared on Joshua’s account about ‘‘the superior black race’’ and the legacy of Robert Mugabe were the results of hacking.
There have also been allegations that the body of Pieman Parker has been digitally enhanced to make him look far more menacing than he really is. Anything and everything is possible online.
How Muhammad Ali would have loved it. He would still have been the greatest.
‘‘Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer.’’
‘‘I wish people would love everybody else the way they love me. It would be a better world.’’
‘‘It isn’t the mountains ahead that wear you down. It’s the pebble in your shoe.’’
‘‘The will must be stronger than the skill.’’
‘‘Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.’’
Can you imagine the carnage if Ali had been born in the world of social media. Smokin Joe would have gone up in flames. He would never have stood a chance. Mentally he would have been minced by Ali.
And therein lies a warning. Ego and violence and the need to exist by psychological lying may make boxing the perfect fit for social media.
And social media’s sloganistic, personality-cult mass appeal may make it the perfect commercial partner for boxing.
But there is a lot of evil out in those woods. Cyber bullying is at horrendous levels in schools all around the world. And isolated, victimised kids commit suicide. So just what sort of example are Joshua, Parker, Wilder and the rest of them setting.
Many of the world’s media organisations have detailed the horrendous online abuse that professional tennis players are subjected to. The Telegraph recently reported the abuse that Dutch player Richel Hogenkamp received on Instagram.
‘‘I hope everyone in your family will die from brain cancer. I hope someone will kill you with 2 bullets! I lost $1500 because of you f...ing bitch. U had everything you f...ing machine for UE [unforced errors]. If I ever find you I will break your lrgs (sic) f...ing ugly s..t. You are the ugliest person I ever saw! F...ing ugly fat scum.’’
That sort of abuse is common. Black players regularly receive images of monkeys. Women are reviled for their appearance. Players are routinely threatened with violence.
The Spaniard Inigo Cervantes received this on Twitter ‘‘I will kill you and your family. I’ll cut their throats and feed you. Then, I’ll take a dull knife and push it in your eyes.’’
This sort of stuff has reached such appalling levels that the Canadian player Rebecca Marino retired because of cyber bullying. And who can blame her. Everyone in the tennis world remembers the fan of Steffi Graf who knifed Monica Seles in the back. They know some of these threats could be real.
Disgracefully these social media sites do not do anything like enough, either electronically, legally, or in terms of human moderation, to control the flow of effluent. They don’t want to. They are making billions of dollars out of hatred.
This is where government is supposed to step in. But when the most powerful government official in the world is addicted to twitter, what can we expect.
The only solution is to vote with our phones and turn this CRAP off.
Yeah, right.