Boxing fans, business type onlookers and people walking their injured bikes flooded the Martin Place amphitheatre in Sydney's Martin Place. There to catch a glimpse of Kostya Tszyu in a public sparring session with IBF middleweight contender, "King" Sam Soliman.
The tightly gathered gaggle spent much of their Friday lunch hour foistering their necks and craning their warm bodies in an effort to stand ever more uncomfortably against each other in the throng. Voyeurs from behind the flanking bank windows were treated to a double act of human mass massage.
Having beaten an egg in a warm up session at First Fleet Park in Circular Quay, Tszyu, the super lightweight champion of the world, abstained from public transport to take a police escorted jog toward one of the primary hearts of the CBD's intestinal bovine anatomy.
Despite a blanket presence of heavy petting and inappropriate man-to-woman-no-that's-really-a-man-you're-holding-there fondling, pockets remained fairly content. Bodied with their packets of gum and pornographic decks of cards, the large and ever girthly expanding herd jostled back and forth in an unsightly scene and sense.
Silence grew to a feverish jug of liquorice cordial as Tszyu and Soliman finally took to hitting the other person in the ring. Accustomed more toward bouts in movies with far greater noise, cries of "Eye of the Tiger!" "Go Mundine!" and "Where are the sound effects?" came hurtling through the crowd only to die of hushed whispers.
A nearby unblinking Red Cross charity worker, and self-ascribed "chugger" from Quebec or Dublin, was unable to wrestle any cross-promotional drive from the event.
Written on Friday, 15 April 2005