A Soviet Outpost in New York City

by Dave “Large” Larzelere
I’m here at the Garden for the Klitschko/Ibragimov title fight, watching the procession of undercard mismatches and generally feeling like I am at the Politburo circa 1978. I suppose it’s natural in the heart of the nation’s melting pot that when a Ukrainian fights a Russian with two heavyweight belts on the line that the former Soviet-bloc nations would be heavily represented in the audience. But this heavily? The air is everywhere filled with the hard staccato consonants of the Slavic languages. Michael Buffer just walked right past my row on his way to the ring and behind me loud, jocular recognition was yelled at Buffer in Russian that suddenly converged into a unison cheer - “LET’S GET READY TO ROMMBOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLL!!!!! AH HA HA HA HA!!!!!”
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In other news, the final undercard bout has begun, a fight that brought a lot of buzz to the arena because it features Irish John Duddy, who is a likely opponent for middleweight champ Kelly Pavlik in June and who has a rabid Irish following here in the city (although it seems to me that the Celts have stayed in Hell’s Kitchen tonight and ceded the Garden to Eastern Europe). The bout began with the ceremonial bagpipes, a welcome musical change from the horrors of the national anthem sung by none other than Alexa Ray Joel. Yes, her, daughter of him.
I have to imagine that if the young Alexa Ray didn’t happen to be the daughter of a really famous singer, she would not have pursued singing as a vocation. If she was just a regular girl, whenever she took it upon herself to sing, people would long have said to her, “oh wow, Alexa, you’re a terrible singer,” and she would have adjusted her ambitions accordingly.
Unfortunately she is the daughter of a really famous singer, and so not only have her singing ambitions been nourished, but for no apparent reason she gets gigs like singing the national anthem at the Garden before a big heavyweight fight.
She obviously styles herself in the Christina Aguilera mold - lots of sudden melisma and the authoritative finger-waggle that says to all who are watching - “I am preaching it like I feel it.” After about seven minutes of endless syllables and discomfortingly nasal emphasis, we finally came to the bombs bursting in air, at which point things really took a turn for the worse.
When she was leaving the ring, the announcer said, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” Which, I suppose, depends on your perspective.
The John Duddy/Walid Smichet bout is turning into a slugfest. I’ll have some more later.↵