"He said what?" Bob Arum (far right), Kevin Barry and Joseph Parker analyse David Higgins' (far left) pre-fight comments. Photo / Photosport
"He said what?" Bob Arum (far right), Kevin Barry and Joseph Parker analyse David Higgins' (far left) pre-fight comments. Photo / Photosport
It was a day to celebrate two young heavyweights fighting for history.
In the end it was an old man who stole the show.
Bob Arum, 85 today and in the words of Dean Lonergan "the greatest boxing promoter the world has ever seen", might have been at the pre-fightpress conference as decoration but used the opportunity to deliver a wonderful dissertation on the sport that has defined his life.
Minds like mine have been taxed by the contradiction of why such an outwardly repellent sport, with such awful historic ties to exploitation and corruption, can so easily suck you into its orbit.
In Arum's world, the attraction comes from understanding.
"Boxing is a great, great sport," he waxed. "It is truly a global sport. I can come to a place like New Zealand and talk about boxing and people know exactly what I'm talking about," he said. "If I talked to you about baseball you'd think I was nuts."
Well, we do have ESPN now Bob, but the point holds. You gain deeper understanding of the nuance of sports like baseball, cricket, rugby and American football through exposure over many years but the sports also evolve, sometimes dramatically, and the rules are constantly tinkered.
With boxing the ambiguity is stripped away. Occasionally the result might confuse you (often due to said corruption and inexplicable judging) but when the two combatants step into the ring with only their fertility protected, you know exactly what the goal is: to hurt the other fighter and as much as possible to avoid being hurt yourself.
Boxing is a common language. An occasionally crude language, but one understood on every continent.
"That's what excites me, even at this age," Arum says.
Joseph Parker v Andy Ruiz Jr excites Arum. It excites Parker, it excites Ruiz Jr. It excites their respective entourages, including trainers Kevin Barry and Abel Sanchez.
It sure as hell excites Duco's David Higgins, who surveyed the cocktail lounge that served as a press conference venue like a caliph would survey his harem.
"If Joseph Parker sneezed the media would cover it," he announced.
And he's probably right but only after Duco sent out a press release and video of the sternutation.
Parker's bid for the heavyweight championship was likened to Sir Edmund Hillary climbing Everest. It was tempting to inform Sherpa Tenzing Higgins that Hillary was not just the first New Zealander to summit the world's highest peak, but the first human, but hell this was starting to get fun.
(To be fair, Higgins was only playing for runner-up in terms of over-reaching. Tendokazi Loqo, the trainer of South African welterweight contender Ali Funeka who meets Australian Jeff Horn on the undercard, said his fighter's success was the key to healing the country in the wake of the 2013 death of Nelson Mandela.)
Saturday night's WBO heavyweight title fight was only a step - the Hillary Step? - on the path to unifying all four heavyweight belts, something that hasn't been done since Lennox Lewis retired.
The immaculately attired Parker and more modestly dressed Ruiz Jr seemed unperturbed by the charade. Any hostility between the two will be reserved for the ring.
Only then will the truth be told in a language we can all understand.
