60 seconds to nirvana

This is about the Tyson and Peter-Who fight, honored by The Jakarta Post by a big splash in dead-center of the first page of its Aug. 21, 1995 issue. It appeared that the Post was a post- fight victim of the thrall of the pre-fight super-hype. It is hard to figure out in any other way the prominence given to the fight.

It was a strange fight. Anchored to the belief that brevity is the soul of entertainment, the much-hyped fight lasted about sixty seconds. A main attraction that ended as an interlude. Peter-Who boasted an impeccable pedigree, a third generation in professional boxing -- and a courageous ancestry -- Irish, best only at fighting. As a great white hope, and like Gene Cooney, his much ballyhooed predecessor, who usually forgot while fighting that he had hands, yet about whom Newsweek wrote three pages of nothing -- Peter-Who has a great constituency.

Backed by this constituency, he started the fight with a rush like a bull, but there was no bull in the rush, just a whoosh of air. And then he went down, got up and sprinted, as your report said. But he was not sprinting back to the fight. He sprinted for the door. It was referee Miles who told him, in his own way, that a boxing ring has no doors, that he has to be there as long as the fight lasts and considerately used the mandatory count to give Peter-Who his legs back. Suddenly finding that he still had his legs, he made a measured rush, grappled instead of boxing, took a hit or two, suddenly remembered what Miles had told him -- that he had to be there while the thing lasts, and promptly took a dive.

It was an SOS. Forthwith, his corner mounted a rescue operation, swarmed into the ring, and gathered the "this side up, fragile, handle with care" cargo, luckily still in one piece, from a thoughtless and inconsiderate stevedore.

G.S. EDWIN

Jakarta