Paul Lewis: Sonny Bill's next fight counts

Clarence Tillman proved more dangerous at the press conference than in the ring. Photo / Christine Cornege

Opinion

There is probably no other sport so deplorably held in entertainment's clammy grasp as boxing.

We can rule out professional wrestling, which is patently not a sport but a sort of choreographed, heavyweight gymnastics, with a seasoning of violence.

Boxing - as seen in Sonny Bill Williams' first round victory over Clarence Tillman - is its own worst enemy. Trash talking, pre-arranged battles at weigh-ins, faux gangster rap and Americanisms and talked-up, under-strength opponents are all stock-in-trade tools, designed to drive audiences to ringside or a pay-per-view couch.

Boxing at that level almost equates to the worst of reality TV - shows like Geordie Shore and Jersey Shore which take some of the regrettable results of 2000 years of civilisation and puts them on television, so we watch with horror and some fascination and are reassured how much better than them we all are. The trash talking, the weigh-ins, the stare-downs - pure marketing perpetrated by people with the street hustler's instinct for what makes a mark pause and begin to reach in his pocket for his money.

You have to hand it to Sonny Bill, Khoder Nasser and Anthony Mundine - they are very good at it. Williams, talking straight after he despatched Tillman, lifted the lid on this bull when asked about the pre-fight punch he wore from Tillman at the weigh-in - a punch better than anything Tillman threw in the actual bout.

"Yeah, I thought it was going to be just push and shove," said Williams, "but he tagged me."

So the "emotion" of the moment was preordained; a script departed from only when Tillman threw a punch. Walk right in, folks, see the bearded lady and man with two heads...

However, you have to give Sonny Bill his due. The man supposedly with no power in his punches threw a good left hook against Tillman and followed it up with a first round TKO.

Tillman whaled around the ring, trying to find the balance that had deserted him; bent over, his eyes wide at the knowledge that he had been hurt, his big arms flailing as he tried to counter Williams - his face registering the shock that he was about to be beaten by a man he had been laughing at a moment earlier as Williams tried some less effective punches; a man Tillman thought could not damage him.

At times like that, boxing has a kind of weird nobility. Whatever else you can say about Sonny Bill and his sometimes laughable opponents, they still have to get in the ring and face another human being in extreme physical terms.

There is nowhere to hide. The ring might be surrounded by marketing bullshit but inside it is the pure loneliness of the athlete. Whatever weaknesses the boxer has are stripped bare; in view of everybody.

It is a physical and mental examination of a kind not equalled in any other sport and, at its best, has some style and grace as well - unlike that dreadful kick boxing/cage fighting nonsense where the two fighters end up on the ground, pawing at each other like copulating cockroaches.

Having said that, time for a reality check. Tillman was a patsy. He was big but ungainly. A tub of guts. His punches were roundhouse swings of no discipline and even less danger. His defence was non-existent and, as he looped his big punches at Williams, he was wide open for a counter - which was what he got.

Williams' camp turned down the opportunity to fight another New Zealand heavyweight, Joey Wilson. Why? Because he might have been a bit good. Tillman has never fought, let alone beaten, anyone of note.

Williams can't be blamed for lining the steps to his boxing career with less than impressive scalps. All boxers do it. The holy grail - an international title shot - is not gained by losses.

Riches are not accumulated by taking on opponents clearly better than you. Williams has had no amateur career so has to take his baby steps in a professional arena.

It is there that he and Nasser and Mundine have excelled. How a man of such limited boxing talent can so grip a little nation like ours is a triumph of marketing and promotion. Like Tillman, Williams has also fought nobody of note.

But he has an image and uses it to good effect; the real genius of the Sonny Bill Show. He was the bad boy of league who ran out on his team-mates - and that brush with the Bulldogs is still used to bring in the cash. Many who watch Sonny Bill do so in the hope he will get a hiding. Others watch him because they are gripped by the physique; the athlete; the celebrity - and as someone brave enough to do what the rest of us wouldn't (hold ourselves up to intense scrutiny).

His image has undergone a none-too-subtle change. The bad boy leaguie was once photographed in a toilet about to have a different kind of bout with a striking woman not his girlfriend of the time. He was done for drunk driving. He was caught urinating near a nightclub and was fined. He criticised the Bulldogs' Willie Mason for disloyalty but saw no irony in holding the same club to ransom with salary demands. Now he presents as a humble lad, still learning his craft in the ring, who talks about his family and friends.

So we don't really know what we are looking at. Is this the real Sonny Bill or is it just PR? Is he a boxer or just a man in character whose real song is the Cash Register Waltz? Is he boxing for love of the sport and a genuine desire to excel - or is it a Money Bill thing?

That is why Williams needs to leave the Tillmans of this world behind soon and start taking on more competent opponents. His image - a big thing in Sonny Bill's world - could soon be irretrievably compromised as a man who wanted the pay more than the play. Real winners walk up to the edge and leap in.

Damon Runyon, the journalist, author and boxing aficionado of yesteryear, had it right when he said: "One of these days in your travels, a guy is going to come up to you and show you a nice brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken, and this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the jack of spades jump out of the deck and squirt cider in your ear. But son, do not bet this man, for sure as you stand there, you are going to wind up with an earful of cider."

Sonny Bill needs to quit the small beer and seek the real oil - or his supposed quest to be an international sportsman of note will give him and us only an earful of cider.