Year end retrospectives are always a bit strange for me. Probably, like many people, they tend to be colored by my current status. Most years around this time, that’s pretty hectic, so the things I actually enjoy are somehow shoehorned out of life in favor of tending to my immediate needs. In times like those everything seems to turn into a chore, even entertainment.
That was roughly my head space while trying to rewatch a bunch of fights from this year over the weekend while in the middle of a move. I was immediately grouchy that I was having to ping pong around YouTube instead of just firing up my DVR and settle in as I’d been able to do most years in the past. Even the mainstream outlets were little help.
After a little while, I found a couple of Daily Motion channels that had pretty much every fight from the year, and they were easily accessible. It occurred to me how much boxing I’ve actually watched this year, and how frequently I was able to watch it on my schedule as opposed to being tethered to my TV, which is always welcome. I got to see every fight I wanted to watch, and quite a few I didn’t know I wanted to watch but was glad I had afterward. There was a lot of very good boxing in 2018
The very best moments of the past year can be found here:
(@jordansingleton and Bolo Punch Productions on YouTube).
2018 didn’t give fans everything they wanted. There was the general dumbfuckery in the business dealings, fight negotiations, coverage, and as always judging. There were some genuinely awful fights. There were long gaps between big fights. There were top fighters that were mind-numbingly inactive. None of that is fair to the paying customers, but nothing ever is.
When you’ve given up on life ever being fair, you learn to laugh hard and often, and that laughter is what sustains you toward moments of genuine levity, amazement and appreciation. For many of us, that’s the story of 2018: collective groans and grimaces, black humor and frustration punctuated by oases of joy. For most of us, that will be the story of our lives. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just life.
Here’s to another year of adapting to new situations and finding time to laugh.
