Boxing in the time of cholera

SHAWINIGAN | A boxing night? As I left the empty parking lot in front of the Gervais Auto center, the absurdity of the situation hit me hard.

Not a cat. Not a sound. I could hear the wheels of my computer suitcase. In fifty years at the Forum, at the Bell Center or at the Olympic Games, I had never noticed that the wheels creaked.

Maybe the time to add a little WD40 oil has arrived.

But that was the start of the shock.

Public Health did not want this gala. Public Health did not want boxing. We ended up complying with the determination of Camille Estephan and his lawyers, but everything was done until the last minute to sweat those who were involved in the adventure.

COSMONAUTS

I put on my mask before going through the first door. Then I ran my hands through the Purell and filled out a form with a sanitized pen. I moved to another table where another gallon of Purell was waiting for me and filled out another form with the same sanitized pen.

Then, we took my temperature, abnormally low, and I went to fill out another form to certify that I was 34.6. Then we took my pen at thirty cents and disinfected it in front of me. No doubt to pass it on to another plague victim.

I stop here so as not to disgust you more. Wash your hands, replace your mask, two meters away. Jasette with Michel Angers, the mayor of Shawinigan, and Roger Lavergne. Three masked people disturbed by a security guard who came to demand social distancing of two meters.

I didn’t know that the mayor was so contagious …

It was because the security employees were terrified. Public health scared them so much that they would have killed rather than let Mathieu Boulay lower his mask to eat his peanuts. We realized in the Gervais Auto Center that fear quickly unraveled the social fabric. We looked at each other from two meters away, trying to understand the mumbling through the mask and wondering what it would look like after wave six.

To extras in Zombie.

After Lexson Mathieu’s victory, exterminators entered the ring with impressive devices. Dressed like cosmonauts, they drowned cables and carpets in a foul-smelling liquid.

Problem is, Dillon Carman folded after twenty seconds of his fight. If it was a coronavirus, it didn’t have time to be contagious. But the exterminators still came to clean up the vermin …

A DESASTER

Stéphane Loyer, the matchmaker of the evening, was devastated after the first two fights. He had had all the difficulties in the world to find three opponents in Canada who would agree to type 14 days of quarantine before the event and another 10 days after the evening. He had suffered many refusals and he refused to believe that serious athletes would force themselves to quarantine to come and lie down in front of an opponent. Sacrificing two weeks’ pay for one minute in Shawinigan, where is the logic?

Lexson Mathieu really drove his fist into Tim Cronin’s liver. It was a left to the Lucian Bute and Cronin was paralyzed by the pain: “A guy cannot get up”, moreover explained Mathieu after the fight.

But Carman didn’t convince anyone. We have seen him in Russia play the same comedy. In fact, there were many who said Carman had already lost the battle the day before at the Governors’ Inn. There was a lot of argument in his room and those in the hall were treated to a quality radio show.

But for Camille Estephan, this awkward abandonment coupled with a poor quality comedy, endangered an evening of boxing which had required a hellish job. But he cut a good figure against adversity: “At least it’s clear that this guy couldn’t last against Arslanbek Makhmudov. It’s pocket-sized because the circumstances didn’t allow us to put on more fights, but at least our guys gave the performance we hoped for, ”he said.

But boxing in the time of cholera will not produce a masterpiece of literature …

November 14 in New Hampshire

SHAWINIGAN | It is in New Hampshire, on November 14, that Camille Estephan hopes to present a new boxing card.

This time, we would be entitled to six fights. Including a fight by Simon Kean and performances by Mathieu Germain and Steve Claggett.

The talks are well underway. Stéphane Loyer confirmed that it would be easier to find opponents in the United States. They will not be subject to quarantine and there are many American boxers.

In addition, we could accommodate 1000 spectators and sanitary conditions will be much more flexible.

Obviously, there are still issues to settle to achieve the goal, but things are progressing …