{"id":32279,"date":"2022-08-01T16:50:47","date_gmt":"2022-08-01T16:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/everyone-is-their-truest-self-at-the-fights\/"},"modified":"2022-08-01T16:50:47","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T16:50:47","slug":"everyone-is-their-truest-self-at-the-fights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/everyone-is-their-truest-self-at-the-fights\/","title":{"rendered":"Everyone Is Their Truest Self At The Fights"},"content":{"rendered":"
BROOKLYN, NY<\/strong> \u2014<\/strong> I don’t know why he was shot. What we do know for sure, though, is that late on the night of August 22, 2016 in Phoenix, Ariz., Jose Benavidez Jr. was out walking his pet dog and exotic cat when some guy walked up and shot him in the right leg. This was unfortunate, because violence is a poor way to settle disputes, and also because Jose Benavidez Jr. was at that moment a very legitimate 25-0 welterweight boxer, moving apace from \u201cprospect\u201d to \u201ccontender\u201d status. It was a serious wound. There were questions as to whether he would ever fight again. Within two years, he was back. Almost six years later, on Saturday night, Benavidez, his head carefully shaved on the sides to show off his skull tattoos, entered Barclays Center in Brooklyn to the haunting tones of \u201cAve Maria.\u201d I never heard that used as a walk in song before. It was effective. Extremely disconcerting. The whole place got quiet as hell. That was a savvy move. It was all downhill from there. <\/p>\n It was a beautiful summer night in Brooklyn. Even riding the swaying bus up Flatbush Avenue filled me with an overflowing sense of love for the city, a post-pandemic love for a hot summer night at the fights, a love that will eventually fade and curdle into frustration with the many aggravations brought on by the constant crush of my fellow Brooklynites, but which has not gotten there yet. There were a lot of fights at Barclays before COVID, but there haven’t been too many since. The arena, at the confluence of Atlantic and Flatbush, was a magnet for testosterone\u2014pulsing testosterone, injected testosterone, frustrated testosterone guiding men to the fights, to worship and scream and leave their testosterone on the sticky floors. \u201cSo what if my kids don’t talk to me? They’re 16 and 18. They’re teenagers. They want to go out and get lit. So what,\u201d said a 40ish man to another man, waiting at the stoplight to cross the street. \u201cWhen I was a teenager I didn’t care either. You can’t make them do anything. Who has time for dad? It doesn’t matter. So what.\u201d He was going to the fights. <\/p>\n