Would You Get Knocked Out for $12 million

by Tom Schreck, author of the Duffy Dombrowski Mysteries




Saturday night I spent fifty bucks to watch a fight that lasted less than six minutes.

Well worth it.

To the casual observer I'm sure it looked like two tough guys beating each other up.

To me it was ballet.

Hatton, the Brit, came right at Pacman, the Filipino.

Pacman stayed his ground and with a total economy of movement avoided getting hit and hit back hard.

Hatton went down three times and the last one scared the hell out of me. Slow motion showed he was unconscious the instant he was hit.

Hatton is probably in the 99.8 percentile of excellence in the boxing world. Unfortunately for him, Manny Pacquaio is two tenths of a single percentage point higher.

Hatton got paid 12 million dollars to get hit that hard.

Would you take that shot for that salary?

Before you answer think:

Would you being willing to have a headache the rest of your life?

Would you be willing to risk early dementia?

Would you be willing to roll the dice with things like sanity, pain and quality of life?

$12,000,000 is a lot of money for six minutes.

Forever is a long time to hurt.

And maybe this explains my rage when sports announcers claim that golf, tennis or even football are the most demanding sports.

Let's see Tiger hit a chip shot when his eye is closed from swelling, or Nadal approach the net if he was going to run into Pacquaio's left hand as he did or even let me see Ray Lewis try to hit someone who sees it coming, who can hit back and isn't wearing body armor.

Please...