The Sporting Life

The old Hanes underwear slogan "Nothing goes right if your underwear is tight," must have been going through the mind of Flash Villakura one minute into the fifth round as he was down on his hands and knees on the mat at Korakuen Hall last evening after pummelling his opponent Yokoyama Keisuke for the first four rounds.

During those first four beautiful rounds, Flash, a young flyweight from the Philippines, repeatedly reached back to adjust his shorts, sometime even between punches to Yokoyama's mashed and bleeding nose. The snorting Flash, who seemed to blow noisy steam from his nostrils with each punch, had been continuously delivering solid rights, lefts, and body combinations to a surprised and stunned Yokoyama sending him several times to rubber leg land. The fight was as much as over when a surprised and stunned audience witnessed what is politely called "the fix."

Flash, ranked 22nd in the world, still had more energy reserves than the Duracell bunny when sixty seconds into the fifth round, Yokoyama landed a tap to the abdomen causing Flash-and-Burn to crumble down to his hands and knees. The ref pushed Yokoyama to a corner, gave Flash-Out an "eight-count" when Yokoyama suddenly returned to hit a man when he was down, raining punches on the cowering Flashed. At 8:56 pm Flash-in-the-Pan stood up, shook his head at the ref to clear the shame but not the dollar signs from his eyes, and Yokoyama was declared the winner. Flash, who had more pizzazz and fluid stealth than three Yokoyamas, had just made a large bundle of cash.

Of course, still reeling from that five-second assault on decency, the perception of this stunned and surprised reporter, may be senseless -- Flush doesn't need acting lessons. And Yokoyama really might be the king of China.

The other nine bouts had been exemplary demonstrations of what A. J. Liebling, the late great writer for The New Yorker, called the Sweet Science -- young men with heart and head working out their attacks with bravado and guts. Especially honorable was the seventh contest with the welterweight Suzuki Tetsuki who came out punching with the precision of a surgeon and the snapping power of coiled springs, eventually out-sciencing his opponent, young Ioku Hiroyuki-kun, and winning with a TKO.

The night had been building up nicely to the main event -- the bout between the handsome Filipino, Flash, and the local favorite, Yokoyama, whose mashed nose face dominated the front page of the fight program. At the end of the evening, the promoters went home happy. A young man from the Philippines got a lesson in economics. A local boy made good. And the audience got a lesson in the price of entertainment.

--Michel LeVentre