As it turned out, my night had barely begun. The first note I wrote down once it started – “boxing has foreplay?” – was the one great lesson I learned that night. I’d expected the fighters to beat each other to a pulp relentlessly, but contact occurs relatively rarely in the ring. Like two birds in an overly complicated mating dance, opponents spend most of their time sizing each other up, trying to find openings, and figuring out their next move.
