Blessed: The Story Of A (Bad) Tattoo

Watching ESPN’s Friday Night Fights, we all had a realisation: Dusty Hernandez-Harrison doesn’t have a bad tattoo. Dusty Hernandez-Harrison has the worst tattoo.

And it’s not like other boxers aren’t vying for the dubious honour. As TQBR has previously highlighted, Marcos Maidana has a devil child on his chest and Odlanier Solis let a devil child draw a tank on his back. But there’s something particularly jarring about Hernandez-Harrison’s ink.

But why? There are so many bad tattoos in the world. How do we instinctively know in our souls that the Washington, D.C.-area junior welterweight’s is the worst? Part of the answer lies in the text.

“Blessed” might have a religious meaning to Hernandez-Harrison, but on social media #blessed is a byword for false humility and corniness. An app has even been invented to block it. And it’s not like Hernandez-Harrison chucked it out there on Instagram or something. He got it tattooed on his fucking chest.

It’s incongruous. Harrison-Hernandez is a 19-year-old boxer who gets hit in the face for a living. He’s not #blessed with a “fur baby”, a sorority or “great personality” (though he is very entertaining in the ring).  Side note: do not do search #blessed on Twitter, you will only be disappointed with humanity.

Floyd Mayweather could get away with using #blessed in a tweet while sipping Cristal out of a stripper’s back dimples… maybe. Harrison-Hernandez not so much. Also did I mention that it’s tattooed on his chest?

For the sake of science, let’s compare Hernandez-Harrison’s body art with to that of fellow junior welterweight/cholo/amateur car wrecker Mike Alvarado. “Mile High” Mike’s ink doesn’t make much sense — it’s his area code inside a bizarrely ornate Louis XIV style frame. But somehow it presents a much more coherent package than Harrison-Hernandez’s.

And while the man from the D.C. ‘burbs’ lettering is in a similar cursive style font, he manages to go one weirder with the cloudy background. At first I wanted to believe it was a Japanese-style fish scale motif, but no, it’s #blessed emerging from the clouds like God in Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam. Except that instead of reaching out to humanity, #blessed reveals the darkest parts of our soul.

That’s all folks — I’m off to get #nofilter tattooed on my forehead.

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