Deborah is clear that, ‘boxing, while incapacitating, offers nothing by way of cognitive transformation’ Giordano et al (2002) (p133). Indeed, for some of the men, ‘boxing arguably creates as many (if not more) opportunities for extra-gym violence than is prevented in incapacitation in the gym’ (p133) It is the need for ‘respect’ that may outweigh any pro-social message of the gym. This might require Ricky to ‘crack’ someone, ‘before he cracked me’ (p137).
From a queer/psychoanalytic perspective I’ve posited a fear of penetration in the men. Here I’m picking up on what Deborah says. Talking of ‘insults’ and ‘incidences of disrespect’ (which she describes as playful or in ‘jest’, p145) she opines, ‘insults of a disrespectful nature seemed to penetrate (sic!) the men deeply’ (p145).
The subject of white-collar boxing was scorned, indeed the jobs workers held were declared ‘shit’ (p148) suggesting that both crime and boxing were opposed to the world of boring work being told what to do.
Illegal, unregulated, unlicensed boxing gets a brief mention (p149) and again I’d like the thin line between legal and illegal violence to have been explored.
And as promised in Round 6 we get back to Marcus. In the body of the text we are told that he felt that a police stop in his car was racist but admitted he’d, ‘spent a period of time in prison for a crime he “didn’t commit”’ (p153). I’m a great lover of a footnote but to wait until page 162 to discover he’d been accused of nine attempted murders and cleared his name after six months.
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