The fight was dubbed ‘a fascinating experiment’: would boxing fans show decency and taste?

Thirty-two years have passed since Oliver McCall flew to London to fight Lennox Lewis for the WBC heavyweight title. The one-time sparring partner of Mike Tyson was meant to give the undefeated champion a decent workout and another straightforward win to enhance his credibility. Somehow living up to his rather exaggerated billing as “The Atomic Bull”, 29-year-old McCall dropped Lewis in the second round, stunning Wembley Arena, and, judging by the frenzied way he gambolled around the ring celebrating, maybe even himself too. By the time of their rematch at the Las Vegas Hilton in February 1997, a gap of less than 2½ years, McCall had lost the belt to Frank Bruno, spent time in rehab and incurred multiple arrests for possession of crack. An all too familiar boxer’s tale of that era. Just weeks before the second bout, he went berserk in a Tennessee hotel, hurling a Christmas tree across the lobby and spitting at a police officer. Then, he found God conveniently located on the road from his cell to Nevada. The portrait was of a woebegone character exhibiting the troubling behaviour of somebody who belonged anywhere but in a boxing ring. So it proved.In the fourth round of an otherwise dull encounter, McCall effectively downed tools, no longer bothering to protect himself or to fight back. “I thought he was playing possum,” said referee Mills Lane, “then I saw his lip quiver”. After the bell spared him further punishment, Lane followed him back to his stool and asked whether he wanted to continue. His corner said he did. Fifty-five seconds into the fifth, Lane stopped the contest because McCall, hands by his side, now mostly walking away from the bemused Lewis, was sobbing, obviously suffering some sort of breakdown.The crowd jeered lustily at the most bizarre denouement to a heavyweight title fight, his purse of $3 million was withheld, and within weeks he was committed to a psychiatric hospital as “an imminent danger to himself and others”. Even by boxing’s historically parlous standards, the entire episode shamed everybody with skin in the game.READ MOREInevitably, depressingly, McCall returned to the ring within eight months of that debacle and stayed there more or less ever since. Never formally hanging up his gloves, any gaps in his resume were enforced absences due to stints in rehab or recurring brushes with the law. Twice he fought on the same card as his son Elijah. Once an up-and-comer, the kid is long retired and nearing 40 himself. A sentence making the recent announcement that his father, now 61, would fight Ike Ibeabuchi, a stripling of just 53, on Thanksgiving Day this November even more startling. Oliver McCall earning him a shock win over Lennox Lewis in September 1994. Photograph: Holly Stein/Allsport An outfit called PrizeFighting.tv put together this very special, meaning utterly reprehensible, show to be staged in Ibeabuchi’s native Nigeria. Definitely a bout with a difference. In order for it to take place, they required 12,500 fans of slow-motion car crashes from around the globe to stump up $9.95 (€8.90) for pay-per-view before October 31st. The unique selling strategy and senescent combatants offered yet more proof boxing would always and forever try to win modern sport’s race to the very bottom.[ Newry’s Conor Wallace comes up short in world title eliminator against Ben WhittakerOpens in new window ]“The promoter is putting the fight’s fate in the hands of the fans,” wrote Eric Raskin on Boxingscene.com. “Here is this absolute horror show between two men both about double their prime ages, two boxers with documented mental health problems ... They are daring boxing fans to be discerning and to show a little taste and a sense of decency. It’s a fascinating experiment, as ‘discerning,’ ‘taste’ and ‘decency’ aren’t the first three words that come to mind when one thinks of us bloodthirsty savages. But even if we’re tasteless, indecent and undiscerning ... there’s still no audience for this creak show, right?”Oliver McCall in 2015. Photograph: Johnny Louis/FilmMagic While McCall was having his very public breakdown in 1997, Ibeabuchi was gatecrashing the heavyweight division top 10, causing a stir of his own. He was born in Nigeria, where watching Buster Douglas dethrone Tyson fired his fistic imagination, and, following a move to Dallas, his defeat of the highly rated David Tua turned him into an instant contender. Just weeks after that victory, he drove his car (in which his ex-girlfriend’s teen son was a severely injured passenger) straight into a concrete pillar in an apparent suicide attempt. Diagnosed as bipolar, he once called his promoter at 3am claiming he was being visited by demons.[ Weird fishes: Alison Healy on obscure competitions and the contestants they attractOpens in new window ]By 26, his best days were already behind him, the next decade, prime fighting years, were squandered as he filled a lengthy, disturbing police blotter with sexual assault cases that earned him prison time. Befitting a sport where what-ifs have always been prized currency, a legend grew up around him, some wondering whether Ibeabuchi was surely the great lost heavyweight of that generation. Never mind the heinous nature of the crimes he committed against a slew of women, or that he didn’t fight between 1999 and 2025, boxing gyms remain fecund spaces for coulda, woulda, shoulda.[ Dave Hannigan: Cus D’Amato, famed coach of Mike Tyson, was portrayed as a saint. He was far from itOpens in new window ]With one loss and one win to his name since returning to the ring last year, somebody reckoned there was an appetite out there for Ibeabuchi against McCall, the soon to be pensioner boasting two wins from three outings since turning 60. Turns out there isn’t. Last Monday, four weeks before their self-imposed deadline, the promoters shockingly announced advance sales were so slow this farce was cancelled. Good taste or sanity or perhaps financial reality prevailed. Maybe there’s hope for boxing yet. As if.